Page "Historicism" Paragraph 24

Karl Popper used the term historicism in his influential books The Poverty of Historicism and The Open Society and Its Enemies, to mean: " an approach to the social sciences which assumes that historical prediction is their primary aim, and which assumes that this aim is attainable by discovering the ' rhythms ' or the ' patterns ', the ' laws ' or the ' trends ' that underlie the evolution of history ".

Karl Popper wrote with reference to Hegel's theory of history, which he criticized extensively.

However, there is wide dispute whether Popper's description of " historicism " is an accurate description of Hegel, or more a reflection of his own philosophical antagonists, including Marxist-Leninist thought, then widely held as posing a challenge to the philosophical basis of the West, as well as theories such as Spengler's which drew predictions about the future course of events from the past.