Historicism

Historicism is the view, in philosophy, that there is no "ultimate" truth, no absolute truth[?] about deep philosophical questions that should stand for all time. Instead, historicism holds that there is only the history of philosophy or more generally, intellectual history (which would include the history of science and technology among other things). Historicism holds that there is no objective way to determine which of the various competing theories of this and that is correct, whether in science, philosophy, or any other discipline; there are only the facts about who has believed what when. Therefore, historicists can accept Hegel's famous catchphrase, "Philosophy is the history of philosophy"--and presumably (more generally) that science and scholarship contain no more than the history of science and scholarship.

Relevant works

• Popper, Karl. 1993. The Poverty of Historicism. (ISBN 0415065690) Routledge.