This paper discusses attempts to think historicity in the work of the theologian Rudolf Bultmann and the German philosopher Hans Blumenberg. It then draws on the work of the Jesuit theologian Robert Doran in order to suggest how an historical pragmatics without historicism might be relevant to a future theology with social import.
American students of society and politics for the most part view "historicism"—the ascription to history of an overall direction and goal—with attitudes ranging from skepticism to overt hostility. In the general view, no valid propositions can be framed concerning matters so shrouded in darkness as the course and the end of history. Indeed it may well be asked, when we use such terms, whether we are referring to realities or merely to inventions of the imagination. Historicist theories are also said to tend to undermine concern for the individual; the needs of the present, living person are likely to shrink into apparent insignificance before the imagined events of a future age. On the part of those who in recent years have seen the bloody trails left by pretended ministers of historical missions, such misgivings are understandable.Are social scientists and political thinkers at liberty, however, dogmatically to reject historicism? It is the purpose of this article to argue that they are not. For if history is without meaning, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that social and political affairs, which make up a large part of what we treat as history, are also without meaning. Why then should one study, or take part in, these affairs? What is at stake, in the last analysis, is our right—or duty—to regard the world we inhabit, not merely as alien material to be used or ignored as we please, but as a realm of being with which we are fundamentally united and in which, consequently, we are properly participants.
On its publication in 1957, The Poverty of Historicism was hailed by Arthur Koestler as 'probably the only book published this year which will outlive the century.'A devastating criticism of fixed and predictable laws in history, Popper dedicated the book to all those 'who fell victim to the fascist and communist belief in Inexorable Laws of Historical Destiny.' Short and beautifully written, it has inspired generations of readers, intellectuals and policy makers. One of the most important books on the social sciences since the Second World War, it is a searing insight into the ideas of this g
In what respects might we consider decadence as a historical concept? And in what ways do literary writings associated with the fin-de-siècle decadent tradition approach the question of history? In response to these two interrelated questions, 'Decadent Historicism' discusses the manner in which writings and artworks identified as decadent reveal a preoccupation with the historical authority that four different gender-transitive icons from Classical Rome and a broadly conceived Renaissance exert upon late-Victorian sexual modernity. The first example is the young transgender Syrian emperor known posthumously as Elagabalus, whose sexual insubordination fascinated Simeon Solomon, J.-K.Huysmans, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, and Oscar Wilde. The second case study is the sexually ambiguous Elizabethan boy-actor 'Mr. W. H.,' who emerges in the short homoerotic fiction that Oscar Wilde wove around him in 1889. The third section of the presentation shifts to Vernon Lee's long-standing interest in the legendary castrato Carol Boschi (Farinelli), in both her early story 'A Culture Ghost; or, Winthrop's Adventure' (1881) and its subsequent recasting as 'Voix Maudite' (1887) and 'A Wicked Voice' (1890). The final instance is the 'fair girl-boy' pantomime dancer Pylades in Michael Field's Roman Trilogy (1898-1903), whose politically contentious performances reveal his power as a bearer of cultural and historical knowledge. In each case, these performers exist in perilous proximity to pain, punishment, and death.
K. Korsch was not, as legend portrays him, a left-oppositionist throughout the 1920s. He initially supported the "twenty-one conditions," which gave control of international communism to the Russian Bolsheviks. In the early 1920s, however, he began developing a radically historicist Marxism, in which Lenin & Luxemburg were seen as restoring the original concerns of Marxism. With the collapse of the German Revolution, he came to the conclusion that a Leninist approach was necessary. This support derived from his historicism, which led him to favor whatever current movements were genuinely revolutionary. Only when the Comintern demanded closer adherence to the Bolshevik line & expelled Korsch from several positions did he openly present himself as a left-oppositionist. Even then, he consistently worked for leftist unity. His charge that the Soviet Union had turned to the right finally led to his expulsion from the party. After this, he came to reject Leninism, seeing it as no longer a historical reality. He then called for the creation of a communist politics outside the party. This series of changes reflects the problem, which Korsch ultimately recognized, of the inadequacy of historicism as a theoretical guide to strategic decisions; however, Korsch never fully abandoned either Marxism or revolutionary historicism. W. H. Stoddard.