page_title: Historicism
section_title: Hegelian
hierarchical_section_title: Historicism / Variants / Hegelian
caption_attribution_description: English: The portrait of G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831); Steel engraving by Lazarus Sichling after a lithograph by Julius L. Sebbers.
context_page_description: Historicism is the idea of attributing meaningful significance to space and time, such as historical period, geographical place, and local culture. The term "historicism" was coined by German philosopher Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel. Over time historicism has developed different and somewhat divergent meanings. For example the theological use of the word denotes the interpretation of biblical prophecy as being related to church history.
  Elements of historicism appear in the writings of French essayist Michel de Montaigne and Italian philosopher G. B. Vico, and became more fully developed with the dialectic of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, influential in 19th-century Europe. The writings of Karl Marx, influenced by Hegel, also include historicism. The term is also associated with the empirical social sciences and with the work of Franz Boas. Historicism tends to be hermeneutic because it values cautious, rigorous, and contextualized interpretation of information; or relativist, because it rejects notions of universal, fundamental and immutable interpretations.
context_section_description: Hegel viewed the realization of human freedom as the ultimate purpose of history, which could only be achieved through the creation of the perfect state. And this progressive history would only occur through a dialectical process: namely, the tension between the purpose of humankind (freedom), the position that humankind currently finds itself, and mankind's attempt to bend the current world into accord with its nature. However, because humans are often not aware of the goal of both humanity and history, the process of achieving freedom is necessarily one of self-discovery. Hegel also saw the progress toward freedom being conducted by the "spirit" (Geist), a seemingly supernatural force that directed all human actions and interactions. Yet Hegel makes clear that the spirit is a mere abstraction, and only comes into existence "through the activity of finite agents." Thus, Hegel's determining forces of history may not have a metaphysical nature, despite the fact that many of Hegel's opponents and interpreters have understood Hegel's philosophy of history as a metaphysical and determinist view of history. For example, Karl Popper in his book The Poverty of Historicism interpreted Hegel's philosophy of history as metaphysical and deterministic, referring to it as Historicism.
  Hegel's historicism also suggests that any human society and all human activities such as science, art, or philosophy, are defined by their history. Consequently, their essence can be sought only by understanding said history. The history of any such human endeavor, moreover, not only continues but also reacts against what has gone before; this is the source of Hegel's famous dialectic teaching usually summarized by the slogan "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis".  (Hegel did not use these terms, although Johann Fichte did.) Hegel's famous aphorism, "Philosophy is the history of philosophy," describes it bluntly.
  Hegel's position is perhaps best illuminated when contrasted against the atomistic and reductionist opinion of human societies and social activities self-defining on an ad hoc basis through the sum of dozens of interactions. Yet another contrasting model is the persistent metaphor of a social contract.  Hegel considers the relationship between individuals and societies as organic, not atomic: even their social discourse is mediated by language, and language is based on etymology and unique character. It thus preserves the culture of the past in thousands of half-forgotten metaphors.  To understand why a person is the way he is, you must examine that person in his society: and to understand that society, you must understand its history, and the forces that influenced it.  The Zeitgeist, the "Spirit of the Age," is the concrete embodiment of the most important factors that are acting in human history at any given time. This contrasts with teleological theories of activity, which suppose that the end is the determining factor of activity, as well as those who believe in a tabula rasa, or blank slate, opinion, such that individuals are defined by their interactions.
  These ideas can be interpreted variously.  The Right Hegelians, working from Hegel's opinions about the organicism and historically determined nature of human societies, interpreted Hegel's historicism as a justification of the unique destiny of national groups and the importance of stability and institutions.  Hegel's conception of human societies as entities greater than the individuals who constitute them influenced nineteenth-century romantic nationalism and its twentieth-century excesses.  The Young Hegelians, by contrast, interpreted Hegel's thoughts on societies influenced by social conflict for a doctrine of social progress, and attempted to manipulate these forces to cause various results.  Karl Marx's doctrine of "historical inevitabilities" and historical materialism is one of the more influential reactions to this part of Hegel's thought.  Significantly, Karl Marx's theory of alienation argues that capitalism disrupts traditional relationships between workers and their work.
  
caption: G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831)
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