The Poverty of Historicism

I'm going to rub my two brain cells together this weekend and see if I can't write something meaningful about this thing. ( )

Popper's book on historicism has sustained a surprising popularity considering the fact that its key concepts - such as "piecemeal social engineering" and "historicism" itself - have been all but ignored in subsequent social theory. Perhaps Popper's exceptional lucidity has compensated for it's lack of contemporary relevance. Popper paints a picture of historicism as a doctrine which is part anti-naturalistic (social phenomena cannot be studied with the same methods as natural science) and part pro naturalistic (general "historical laws" are applicable to all ages). He proceeds to refute the doctrine on both accounts. Popper's description of historicism is in my opinion too self-contained. He hardly even mentions any actual representatives of this school of thought. It's obvious that he includes Comte, Marx and Mill, but they certainly didn't directly advocate all the propositions that Popper attributes to historicism. In the end it seems to me that Popper is mostly just peddling his own philosophy of social science here rather than discussing other people's ideas. It's a short book which is worth reading but I found more depth and insight in The Open Society and Its Enemies.

How to learn from the past without believing it predicts the future.

I'm no philosopher, nor have I training in that respect. That said, this work is a small book that is quite comprehensible to the layman. It gives powerful arguments against "historicism", the sense that history is moving in a provable direction and that activists can help it get there. This is - to me - a horrid thing, as it inevitably will lead to forcing the path of history, and God help anyone in the way. Think of communism and the resultant death toll. Popper believes in small, testable steps of human progress - a pension plan here, some urban planning there. This to me is doable, sensible, and completely congruent with a democratic society. I instinctively liked Popper and his philosophy. Highly recommended read. ( )

History doesn't have any sense, purpose or direction. ( )