The meaning of history: considerations about historicism in Karl Popper

Authors

  • Romário Ney Rodrigues de Souza Souza Universidade de São Paulo

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2447-9020.intelligere.2021.194862

Keywords:

Karl Popper, Historicism, Fallibilism, Theory of History

Abstract

The traumatic experiences triggered by totalitarian regimes in the 20th century gave impetus to the criticism that Karl Popper (1992 – 1994) makes of the systems of ideas that harbor the belief, whether by laws or for some historical reason, in the ordering of destinies of individuals. We aim to present Popper’s criticism of the set of ideas he named historicism, that is, that it would be the task  of the Social Sciences to make predictions based on the discovery of the laws of a teleological history The threads that guide Popper's main theses will be pointed out in the works: The Poverty of Historicism (1944-45) and The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), in addition to the dialogue with authors such as Raymond Aron (1905-1983), Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) and François Furet (1927-1997). By showing the impossibility of making accurate predictions based on selective interpretation of the multiple aspects that constitute historical events, Popper calls into question the alleged laws that would determine the plot of a teleological history, while affirming his belief in the possibilities of human agency.

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References

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Published

2021-12-15

Issue

Section

Artigos

How to Cite

The meaning of history: considerations about historicism in Karl Popper. (2021). Intelligere, 12, 103-129. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2447-9020.intelligere.2021.194862