The debate over the nature of historicism has not yet been resolved, and perhaps never will be; for historicism is a broad, multifaceted phenomenon with highly diverse and often conflicting manifestations. Indeed, the only relationship between the myriad meanings of the term "historicism" seems to be that of family resemblance (i.e. constantly shifting patterns of similarities and differences across the multiple instantiations of the concept).

Nevertheless, it is possible to identify, within the historicist family, one strand that has been significant for the history of philosophy more than any of its counterparts: namely, that which reached its apex in the enormous impact of Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer on the human sciences over the second half of the twentieth century. In this light, historicism's most crucial and enduring legacy appears to be the insistence that the historical character of human existence sets it apart from...