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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 humanity and its binding to tradition. Historist historiography rejects historical teleology and bases its explanations of historical phenomena on sympathy and understanding (see Hermeneutics) for the events, acting persons, and historical periods. The historist approach takes to its extreme limits the common observation that human institutions (language, Art, religion, law, State) are subject to perpetual change.〔Raymond Boudon and François Bourricaud, (''A Critical Dictionary of Sociology'' ), Routledge, 1989: "Historicism", p. 198.〕 ''Historism'' is not to be confused with ''historicism'',〔Historicism in the sense given to it by Karl Popper, namely the search for historical laws.〕 nevertheless the English habits of using both words are very similar. (The term ''historism'' is sometimes reserved to identify the specific current called ''Historismus'' in the tradition of German philosophy and historiography.)〔 ==Quarrel with logical positivism== Because of the power held on the social sciences by logical positivism, historism or historicism is deemed unpopular.〔Morera, Esteve (1990), ''Gramsci's Historicism: A Realist Interpretation'' (p.11 ).〕 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”.〔Karl Popper, ''The Poverty of Historicism'', Routledge, 1993. p. 3 (italics in original).〕 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: 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「historism」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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