HISTORICAL LAWS
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critic have to construct the target of his attack? I would have passed
over the statement as a mere manner of speech if I did not believe that
this method is characteristic of much of contemporary philosophical
analysis.
In
reading Popper's book, I often stopped and asked: against
what is he really arguing? who has actually maintained what he is so
efficiently destroying? And often I was unable to identify the attacked
theory (especially since Popper is extremely sparing with references).
In
the philosophical tradition, "historicism" has become a well de–
fined term, referring to those schools of thought which emphasize the
historical uniqueness and "equivalence" of cultures. Historicism thus
implies a rather high degree of pluralism and relativism, perhaps most
characteristically epitomized in Ranke's phrase that all historical periods
are
"unmittelb(lT zu Gatt."
Neither predictability nor the idea of his–
torical "laws" plays a central role in these theories. Certainly, it would
be entirely unjustified to insist on conformity with lexicographical usage.
However, I think that such a strange deviation from usage should have
firmer grounds than a construction built from disparate elements of
disparate theories. Popper's construction is general enough to include
practically all theories which take history seriously, which see in it the
"fate" of mankind: his opposition to historicism is in the last analysis
opposition to
history.
And the construction is selective enough to en–
able him to establish a link between historicism and totalitarianism.
The book divides the whole of what is called "historicism" into
two main types of theory: pro-naturalistic doctrines, which claim that
the methods of physical science can, at least to a large extent, be ap–
plied to the social sciences, and anti-naturalistic doctrines, which deny
such applicability and insist on a scientific method germane to the social
sciences. Popper presents and criticizes both types of theories and con–
cludes that neither one can lay claim to a rational and scientific theory
of history allowing predictability. He sums up his main argument against
the predictability of history as follows: the course of history is "strongly
influenced" by the growth of human knowledge, but we cannot predict,
by "rational or scientific methods," the future growth of scientific
knowledge; consequently, we cannot predict the future course of his–
tory. By the same token, there cannot be a social science or a "theo–
retical history" corresponding to theoretical physics; there "can
be
no
scientific theory of historical development serving as a basis for historical
prediction." The fundamental aim of historicist method is therefore
"misconceived; and historicism collapses." Popper's dictum of collapse
seems to be somehow premature. He argues that a "theoretical history"
corresponding in method and aim to theoretical physics is impossible-
