Abstract

Popper's use of the word "'historicism" is too encompassing. Does "historicism" refer to a theory of the social sciences, a way of doing them, or a "'well-considered and close-knit philosophy?" Here the term is taken to mean a theory about the aims of the social sciences. But even with reference to his other works, Popper's argument proves not to be against historicism as he defined it, but rather against one of the other varieties of Historismus. Nor does the doctrine involve or entail much that Popper seems to think it does. Notwithstanding this critique, Popper has sketched a number of arguments which might be further developed into a refutation of 11 (evolutionary historicism."