| 释义 |
historicism|hɪˈstɒrɪsɪz(ə)m|
[f. historic a. + -ism; tr. G. historismus.]
1. The attempt, found esp. among German historians since about 1850, to view all social and cultural phenomena, all categories, truths, and values, as relative and historically determined, and in consequence to be understood only by examining their historical context, in complete detachment from present-day attitudes.
1895[see historical-mindedness s.v. historical a. 7]. 1920Contemp. Rev. Oct. 536 If we find in him..some acute historical observation, the merit must be attributed to the historicism of the century. 1938Mind XLVII. 114 Historicism..acknowledges truth only as valid in a special epoch. 1946A. L. Rowse Use Hist. v. 140 Marxism..brings us up against the question of historical relativism, or historicism. 1949Wellek & Warren Theory of Lit. iv. 32 We must..enter into the mind and attitudes of past periods and accept their standards, deliberately excluding the intrusions of our own preconceptions. This view, called ‘historicism’, was elaborated consistently in Germany during the nineteenth century. 1972Sci. Amer. Dec. 89/1, I was surprised, however, to find an eminent scientist embracing historicism (the theory championed by Hegel and Marx holding that history is determined by immutable forces rather than by human agency) as an explanation for the evolution of science.
2. A tendency in philosophy to see historical development as the most fundamental aspect of human existence, and historical thinking as the most important type of thought, because of its interest in the concrete, unique, and individual.
1939I. Berlin Karl Marx iii. 49 Against the scientific empiricism of the French and English, the Germans put forward the metaphysical historicism of Herder and of Hegel. 1940Mind XLIX. 120 Hegel is right in teaching..an ‘absolute historicism’. 1964C. S. Lewis Discarded Image vii. 174 On this view the differentia of Christian historiography ought to be what I call Historicism; the belief that by studying the past we can learn not only historical but meta-historical or transcendental truth.
3. The belief that historical change occurs in accordance with laws, so that the course of history may be predicted but cannot be altered by human will; the resulting attitude to the social sciences, of regarding them as concerned mainly with historical prediction.
[1901C. S. Peirce Coll. Papers (1958) VIII. i. vii. 107 He may aim at hastening some result not otherwise known in advance than as that..to which some process seeming to him good must inevitably lead, such as..whatever the historical evolution of public sentiment may decree (historicism).] 1940K. R. Popper in Mind XLIX. 423 Marx's emphasis on historical method in sociology, a tendency which I may call ‘historicism’. 1943F. A. Hayek in Economica X. 50 (title) Scientism and the study of society: the historicism of the scientistic approach. 1957K. R. Popper Poverty of Historicism 3, I mean by ‘historicism’ an approach to the social sciences which assumes that historical prediction is their principal aim, and..that this aim is attainable by discovering the ‘rhythms’..that underlie the evolution of history. 1959G. D. Mitchell Sociol. i. 5 When we speak of historicism we refer to the attempt to discern a law governing social development.
4. Excessive regard for the institutions and values of the past; spec. in Architecture, the use of historical styles in design.
1939Archit. Rev. LXXXVI. 55 If she has, in the New York Fair, done little more than to turn away from historicism to a new kind of pastiche, we can hope at least that with the new school of architects now springing up..the real reform will not be long delayed. 1942Ibid. XCI. 52 In between there came a wave of European historicism, all the varieties of Victorian period imitation. 1966New Statesman 25 Feb. 260/2 His [sc. I. J. Tengbom's] Högalids Church of 1916–23 and Concert Hall of 1920–26, both in Stockholm, are among the key monuments in Europe of the transition from historicism.
Hence hiˈstoricist, an adherent or proponent of historicism (in various senses); also, one who specializes in the historical branch of a subject; also attrib. or as adj. So historiˈcistic a.
1937J. Orr tr. Iordan's Introd. Romance Ling. iv. 298 His..field of research, namely, Indo-European philology, made him [sc. Meillet]..a historicist and comparatist. 1946K. Burke in W. S. Knickerbocker XX. Cent. Eng. 287 The modern historicist mode of thought. 1948Archit. Rev. CIV. 226 Meldahl was the most important Danish historicist. 1949Mind LVIII. 411 Guido de Ruggiero..avoided being committed to the amoralism inherent to any historicistic conception. 1954Word X. ii. 123 A ‘historicist’ will be just as blind to the bundles of intimate connections which the synchronist points out between the different units of a language system. 1955Scott. Jrnl. Theol. VIII. 181 The resurrection..cannot be proved by historicist methods, but it is an act. 1957K. R. Popper Poverty of Historicism ii. 41 Sociology, to the historicist, is theoretical history. 1959G. D. Mitchell Sociol. 5 The historicist tradition which we have seen in Comte. 1964C. S. Lewis Discarded Image vii. 175 The best medieval historians, like the best historians in other periods, are seldom Historicists. |