Historicism
The early history of the term "historicism" (Historismus) has not been sufficiently explored, as Erich Rothacker has pointed out. However, one clear case in which it was used in a sense closely allied to all of the senses which it has subsequently assumed is to be found in Carl Prantl's Die gegenwärtige Aufgabe der Philosophie (1852). Although the term was later employed as a means of characterizing the thought of Giambattista Vico, its first widespread use probably dates from methodological debates among German-speaking political economists. In these debates, Carl Menger criticized Gustav Schmoller and his school for making economic theory unduly dependent upon economic history; this he characterized as Historismus. Thus, the term took on a depreciatory sense; it suggested an inappropriate use of historical knowledge and a confusion regarding the sorts of questions that could be answered by means of such knowledge. One may conjecture that the extension of its use during the first decades of the twentieth century was fostered by the currency of its depreciatory analogue, "psychologism" (Psychologismus): Both terms were used in reference to attempts to extend the methods and results of a particular discipline into provinces in which that discipline was claimed to lack legitimate authority.
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