Historism

This article is about historism as a philosophical and historiographical theory on historicity and awareness of the past. For the school of history known as historism, see historiography. For the similarly used term historicism, see historicism. For the method of interpreting the biblical apocalypse, see historicism (Christian eschatology). For a school of art and architecture, see historicism (art).

Historism is a philosophical and historiographical theory, founded in 19th-century Germany (as Historismus) and especially influential in 19th- and 20th-century Europe. It pronounces the historicity of man, his binding to tradition, and the awareness of humans affection by their past.

Historist historiography rejects historical teleology and bases its explanations of historical phenomena on sympathy and understanding (→Hermeneutics) for the events, acting persons, and historical periods.

Historism is not to be confused with historicism, nevertheless the English habits of using both words are very similar. Karl Popper, one of the most distinguished critics of historicism, criticized historism, too. He differentiated between both phenomena as follows: The term historicism is used in his influential books The Poverty of Historicism and The Open Society and Its Enemies to describe “an approach to the social sciences which assumes that historical prediction is their primary aim, and which assumes that this aim is attainable by discovering the 'rhythms' or the 'patterns', the 'laws' or the 'trends' that underlie the evolution of history”. Popper wrote with reference to Hegel's theory of history, which he criticized extensively. By historism on the contrary, he means the tendency to regard every argument or idea as completely accounted for by its historical context, as opposed to assessing it by its merits. Historism does not aim for the 'laws' of history, but premises the individuality of each historical situation.

On the basis of Poppers definitions, the historian Stefan Berger proposes as a proper word usage:

I deliberately use the term ‘historism’ (and ‘historist’) rather than ‘historicism’ (and ‘historicist’). Whereas ‘historism’ (in German, Historismus), as represented by Leopold von Ranke, can be seen as an evolutionary, reformist concept which understands all political order as historically developed and grown, ‘historicism’ (Historizismus), as defined and rejected by Karl Popper, is based on the notion that history develops according to predetermined laws towards a particular end. The English language, by using only one term for those different concepts, tends to conflate the two. Hence I suggest using two separate terms in analogy to the German language.

Notable exponents of historism were primarily the German 19th-century historians Leopold von Ranke and Johann Gustav Droysen, later Friedrich Meinecke and the philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey. The jurists Friedrich Carl von Savigny and Karl Friedrich Eichhorn were strongly influenced by the ideas of historism and founded the German Historical School of Law. The Italian philosopher and historian Benedetto Croce and his British colleague Robin George Collingwood were important European exponents of historism in the late 19th and early 20th century. Also the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset was influenced by historism. 20th-century German historians promoting some aspects of historism are Ulrich Muhlack, Thomas Nipperdey and Jörn Rüsen.

Except the named critics of historism, Georg G. Iggers ist one of the most important critical authors on historism. His book The German Conception of History: The National Tradition of Historical Thought from Herder to the Present, first published in 1968 (by Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Ct.) may be named a “classic text” of historism critics.

A further kind of critic is presented by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote his essay Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben (On the Use and Abuse of History for Life, 1874, →The Untimely Meditations) against “a malignant historical fever”. He stated, that the historians of his times, the historists, damaged the powers of human life by re-ligating it to the past instead of opening it to the future. Therefore, Nietzsche calls to a return, beyond historism, to humanism.

Further reading

• Georg G. Iggers: The German Conception of History: The National Tradition of Historical Thought from Herder to the Present. 2nd rev. edn., Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Ct., 1983, ISBN 0-8195-6080-4.
• Stefan Berger: Stefan Berger responds to Ulrich Muhlack. In: Bulletin of the German Historical Institute London, Volume XXIII, No. 1, May 2001, p. 21-33 (contemporary debate between a historism-critic and a historism-supporting historian).