HISTORICISM

CONTENTS

 Introduction
 Historicism
 Types of Historicism
 Difference between new and old historicism
INTRODUCTION:

 By the middle of the 19th Century, the term "historismus" (from

which Historicism comes) was well established in Germany
 Historicism recognizes the historical character of all human
existence, but views history not as an integrated system but as a
scene in which a diversity of human wills express them. It holds
that all historical knowledge is relative to the standpoint of the
historian.
 Friedrich Schlegel mentions Historicism as a “kind of
philosophy” which places the main stress on history. However, it
was mainly used as a pejorative term until the 20th Century.
HISTORICISM:

A theory that social and cultural events

are determined by history
 The tendency to regard historical
development as the most basic aspect of
human existence
TYPES OF HISTORICISM:

Hegelian Historicism
Biblical Historicism
Anthropological Historicis
New Historicism
HEGELIAN HISTORICISM

 It Is the position, adopted by G. W. F. Hegel, that all

human societies (and all human activities such as
science, art or philosophy) are defined by their history,
and that their essence can be sought only through
understanding that. He further argued that the history
of any such human Endeavour not only builds upon, but
also reacts against, what has gone before (a position he
developed from his famous dialectic teachings of thesis,
antithesis and synthesis).
BIBLICAL HISTORICISM

Is a Protestant theological belief that the

fulfillment of biblical prophecy has taken
place throughout history and continues
to take place today (as opposed to other
beliefs which limit the time-frame of
prophecy fulfillment to the past, or to
the future).
ANTHROPOLOGICAL HISTORICISM:

It Is associated with the empirical social

sciences and particularly with the work of the
German-American anthropologist Franz
Boas (1858 - 1942). It combines diffusions
(the idea that all of culture and civilization
was developed only once in ancient Egypt
and then diffused throughout the rest of the
world through migration and colonization)
NEW HISTORICISM:

It Is the name given to a movement which

holds that each epoch has its own knowledge
system, with which individuals are inexorably
entangled. Given that, s then argue that all
questions must be settled within the cultural
and social context in which they are raised,
and that answers cannot be found by appeal to
some external truth.