What is "historical determinism"

The so-called historical determinism in the west, despite numerous comments, has no exact definition. [4] (2) In my opinion, it is actually some principles gradually formed after the separation of modern western history from theology, philosophy and literature at the end of 18. It still emphasizes the event description and intuitive thinking method of "literary and historical philosophers", and emphasizes the difference between the historical world (writeals geschichte) and the natural world (Weltals Natur). It is said that the word "historicism" was first used by Germans when commenting on Vico 1725 [5]. Vico believes that history is a process of cyclic evolution, but a country's thoughts, systems and values are completely determined by its own historical development. L rank (1795-1886), known as the "father of modern history" in the west, is the first historian. He writes the history of Germany, Austria, France and Britain, but each country only writes one major event, which is a kind of "chronicle". He believes that every country has its own personality, which represents an individual spirit and has no history of * * *. Later, famous German historians such as E Trolchi and F Meinecke emphasized that history can't be copied in methodology, and historical things are unitary and relative, so we can't use universal laws or patterns for reasoning research like natural science. Troc emphasized the intuitive method, while Minak paid more attention to the study of the history of thought. This formed the German historicism school.

1At the end of the 9th century and the beginning of the 20th century, German historicism spread everywhere. G Mond, a French historian, came to Germany to study, and later founded Revehistorique at 1876. J michele of France and W stubbs of England both wrote the medieval history of France and England in the way of German school. Diyev (M I Rostovtzeff) from Russia also went to Germany to study and became an expert in ancient history. American Adam (H·B· Adams) founded the American Historical Society in 1884, introduced German historical thought, and his student F·J· Turner founded the pro-progressives, which became the American Historical School.

At the end of 19, Benheim's Historical Methodology and Langlois and Senebos's Introduction to Historical Research were published. This kind of "history handbook" systematizes the concept of historicism, and its translation is popular all over the world, which has become an important tool to spread historicism. [6]④

When it comes to economic history, it is inseparable from the German school of history in economics, which was founded by W G F Roscher in the 1970s and developed by Shmuler and others in the 40s with Liszt as the forerunner. This school opposes the attempt of British classical economics to establish eternal and universal economic theory and its abstract deduction method, and advocates studying specific economic policies according to the characteristics of historical development of various countries. The viewpoints and methods of national economic organism, theory of stages of economic development, historical jurisprudence method, historical linguistics method, particularity of national economic development and relativity of economic theory are all put forward by this school and become a part of historicism in history. Hildebrand, G F Knapp and L'Brentano of this school are all historians, while Shmuler and L Bhcher are famous economic historians. The famous British economic historians W·J· Ashley and W Cunningham also have a view of history.

1883 Meng Le, the founder of Austrian school of economics, criticized the German school of history for its lack of theoretical analysis, and pointed out that historical methods could not be used in theoretical research of economics. Schmuller's criticism of Wen caused a "methodological dispute" for 20 years. In 1904, M. Weber commented that the German historical school applied ethics to economics, that is, it mixed subjective value judgment with science. Schmole's criticism of Wen caused another debate, which is called "the dispute of value judgment" in history. Later, Sambat and brentano accepted Weber's view that economics should not be judged by value, which became one of the reasons for the collapse of German historical school in economics. [7]① But in history, the tradition of value judgment has been kept. However, historicism at this time has got rid of the remnants of early theology and accepted the positivist view.

When the First World War broke out, most western historians, except Marxists, became "patriots" and main war factions, each defending the "particularity" of his own country and camp, which was one of the reasons why post-war historicism became stronger. After that, see the analysis of the book Trends quoted above. Now I will summarize the characteristics of the so-called historicism into the following five items according to the criticism of historicism in the 1930s and 1950s described in Trend.

First, historicism is narrative and lacks analysis. It is often a list of events and historical cases, or a single-line causal relationship, which lacks holistic and structural research.

2. Historians emphasize the particularity and individuality of historical events, people and countries instead of studying the general patterns and laws that existed in the past, so their explanations are individual and relative.

3. Historians use inductive and empirical methods when investigating historical materials. This empirical method cannot logically affirm the authenticity of knowledge. When they interpret historical materials and make judgments, they mainly rely on historians' subjective reasoning and intuition because they lack axiomatic principles and emphasize individuality. Both deviate from science.

4. Historians evaluate right and wrong and deny people according to their ethical orientation; Or think that everything is determined by time, place and historical environment, and there is no absolute good or evil. Neither is desirable.

Historians study history from natural science and social science, and think that the only purpose of history is to truly reproduce and understand the past. This has caused historians to study the past for the sake of studying the past, and formed a professional style of burying their heads in tedious exploration and research details.

It should be noted that not every historian who is called a historian has these five characteristics, and they tend to criticize some of them, or don't admit the existence of so-called historicism at all.