Historicism

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Historicism is a term for approaches in the philosophy of history , according to which historical processes are clearly determined and predictable by social scientific laws. Such positions go back to Hegel and historical materialism in modern times. In addition to Marxist and neo-Marxist theorists, Benedetto Croce should be mentioned above all . In Karl Popper's socio- theoretical writings, historicism is a mistaken belief that carries the risk of a closed worldview and manipulation of social processes towards an apparently scientifically established future.

Historicism must therefore be strictly differentiated from relativistic or hermeneutic historicism, as well as historicism in the historical or social sciences and historicism in art history , even if the terms were occasionally used interchangeably and the phenomena occasionally appear together. In American post-structuralism , the term New Historicism appears in literary criticism, but it denotes a historicist position that distinguished itself from New Criticism , which in turn referred to Croce.

variants

Anthropological historicism

For anthropology , Franz Boas developed the variant of historical particularism. Boas advocated a consideration of cultures including religious, historical, linguistic and artistic aspects. Particularly special cultural histories of smaller regions are emphasized, which are to be connected through linguistic and ethnological studies. Boas rejected evolutionism because there is no general normative spectrum of development, but every region and culture requires different adjustments. Along with Malinowski and Luschan, Boaz is seen as a pioneer of modern ethnology .

Representative

The following important information is missing from this article or section:
There is no reworking of genuinely historicist positions, at least through references to main articles, as well as a description of the use of the attribution outside of Popper (e.g. Albert).
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Social theory of critical rationalism

The historian wants to grasp the meaning of the game being performed on the historical stage by trying to find the laws of historical development. And if he has succeeded in doing this, he can use it to predict future developments. He can then build politics on a solid foundation and provide practical guidance as to which political actions are likely to succeed and which are not.

What Popper calls a "prophecy" is an unconditional prognosis with marginal conditions that cannot be influenced by technology. A "technological forecast", on the other hand, is a conditional forecast with marginal conditions that can be influenced by technology. A "prophecy" exists as soon as a prediction is "unconditional"; H. is made regardless of boundary conditions. A prophecy therefore suppresses a logically necessary element for a scientific prognosis.

However, the historian is forced to make unconditional predictions because he strives for long-term forecasts for societies, namely for a "historical forecast on a grand scale". However, this is not possible for societies because societies do not represent isolated, stationary and cyclical systems.

Finally, Popper claims that he succeeded in stating a severe refutation of historicism: he showed that, for strictly logical reasons, it is impossible to predict the future course of history using rational methods.

Popper himself summarizes his train of thought in the following five steps:

  1. "The course of human history is greatly influenced by the growth of human knowledge."
  2. "We cannot use rational scientific methods to predict the future growth of our scientific knowledge."
  3. "Therefore we cannot predict the future course of human history."
  4. "That means that we have to deny the possibility of a theoretical science of history , that is, the possibility of a historical social science that would correspond to theoretical physics or astronomy of the solar system. A scientific theory of historical development as the basis for historical prognoses is impossible."
  5. "The main aim of the historicist methods [...] is therefore wrongly chosen and thus historicism is refuted."

Popper himself claims to have done away with the essential core of Hegel's philosophy of history or historical materialism with his criticism of historicism . Whether Popper really succeeded in a scientifically adequate reconstruction of the theories in question is controversial. Walter Kaufmann complains that Popper has violated simple scientific citation rules. In addition, the fundamental question to be asked is whether Popper's approach here complies with the rules of his own methodology.

New Historicism

From 1950 onwards, Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault argued that each epoch had a more or less completely separate system of knowledge. Many post-structuralists share the view that any question can only be answered in its own cultural and social context. Answers cannot be found in terms of eternal truths. Rather, only the texts, objects or other traditions that still exist today are recognized as meaningful. This school of thought is often referred to as New Historicism .

literature

  • Hans Albert : The knowledge of historical events. In: Hans Albert: Critique of the pure epistemology. The problem of knowledge in a realistic perspective (= The Unity of the Social Sciences 53). JCB Mohr, Tübingen 1987, ISBN 3-16-945226-6 , pp. 120-143.
  • Franz Boas (ed.): The foreign world of the Kwakiutl. Indian myths of the north-west coast of Canada (= Documenta ethnographica 6). Zerling, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-88468-057-9 .
  • Franz Boas: Race and Culture. (Speech given on July 30, 1931 in the auditorium of the Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel on the occasion of the author's 50th anniversary). G. Fischer, Jena 1932.
  • Werner Habermehl: Historicism and Critical Rationalism. Objections to Popper's criticism of Comte, Marx and Plato. Alber, Freiburg (Breisgau) et al. 1980, ISBN 3-495-47427-7 .
  • Karl R. Popper: Collected works in German. Volume 4: The misery of historicism. Published by Hubert Kiesewetter . 7th edition, reviewed and supplemented. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2003, ISBN 3-16-147843-6 .
  • Karl R. Popper: The open society and its enemies. 2 volumes. JCB Mohr, Tübingen 1992, 7th edition with extensive improvements and new appendices.
    • Volume 1: The Magic of Plato. ISBN 3-8252-1724-8 ( Uni-Taschenbücher 1724);
    • Volume 2: False Prophets. Hegel, Marx and the Consequences. ISBN 3-8252-1725-6 ( Uni-Taschenbücher 1725).
  • Nicholas Tilly: Popper, Historicism and Emergence. In: Philosophy of the Social Sciences. 12, 1982, ISSN  0048-3931 , pp. 59-67.

Web links

anthropology
Karl Raimund Popper
New Historicism

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Otto Neurath : Empirical Sociology. The scientific content of history and economics. Vienna 1931, p. 38
  2. ↑ Karl R. Popper: Forecast and prophecy in the social sciences. In: Ernst Topitsch, (ed.): Logic of the social sciences. Kiepenheuer & Witsch Cologne Berlin 1965. p. 115
  3. ^ Karl R. Popper: The misery of historicism (1957). Tübingen: Mohr 1987, p. XIf.
  4. ↑ Walter Kaufmann: Hegel: Legend and Reality (PDF; 2.2 MB). In: Journal for Philosophical Research Volume X, 1956, 191–226.
  5. ↑ Werner Habermehl: Historicism and Critical Rationalism. Objections to Popper's criticism of Comte, Marx and Plato. Freiburg Munich 1980