PARTISAN REVIEW
ing together thinkers like Marx who in principle seek to apply scientific
method to history with men like Spengler who deny that anything
recognizable as scientific method is applicable to history, and with
philosophers like Plato and Hegel for whom the very subject matter of
empirical history is outside the realm of "reality." That is why his entire
book, interesting and suggestive as it is, is an intellectual amalgam in
which the ideas of eternalists like Plato and temporalists like Marx
are linked together by the doctrine of "historicism."
By
historicism,
Popper means the thesis that "history is controlled by developmental laws
whose discovery would enable us to prophesy the destiny of man." As it
stands such a doctrine is metaphysical or poetical, and
if
historical
method entails the acceptance of historicism it can be rejected out of
hand. Strip it of references to "prophecy" and "destiny," and all that it
tells us is that cultures and historical institutions are subject to laws
of development. This is not a method but a conclusion. Specify what
aspects of culture and what institutional activities we are talking about,
distinguish between historical change and historical development, indi–
cate the schema of the stages of development-and it can be shown that
it is a false conclusion. This is precisely what modern anthropologists
did in disproving the universality of Morgan's laws of development for
the family, the state, and property.
If
it were true that social systems,
wherever found, are subject to laws of development roughly analogous
to the development of human organisms, it would not be necessary to
rest in possession of this knowledge. We could inquire into the complex
of factors which explained its development, their constancy, and the
consequences of altering them if we could.
The amazing thing about Popper's discussion is that there is no
clear discussion as to what he means by "the historical method." An
historian may reject "historicism" even when it is formulated as an
empirical hypothesis. In fact, most historians do so on the basis of the
evidence. Are they not using the historical method to reject "historicism"?
Does historical method mean anything more than the application of
scientific methods to the subject matter of history? Granted that the
subject matter of human history is studied by different techniques from
those employed in physics or natural history. Does that necessitate the
recognition of a distinctive method or logic of historical understanding
or inquiry? I am not c.ertain that I understand Popper's answers. At
any rate, it is clear that the existence of geology as a field of inquiry
does not presuppose that there is a geological method of inquiry except
in the innocent sense of methods of geology.
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