Materialism And Historicism

The core task of this paper is to explain how Marx criticize and exceed the 19th century German historicism, and to clarify his own attitude to history. This work includes two parts. The first part consists in examining the context of historicism and defining its concepts, concepts, meanings, substance and problems in the framework of intellectual history. Since Historicism is the critic of the Enlightenment, and Marx oppsed not only the "Enlightenment" view of history but also the historicism, then this dissertation will, in accordance with the temporal logic of "Enlightenment-Historicism-Historical Materialism", make sense of the inherent relationship and critical relationship among them. On the other hand, it clarifies Marx's critique of historicism, starts from the core of historicism theory ("individual" and "development principles"), and makes a critical dialogue at the micro level. During the process of dialogue it tries to answer:in what sense Marx exceed historicism, and created his own historical materialism? In addition, due to the negative influences on history and its issues by Postmodern Historiography, using historical materialism as a base, we will critically analyse Postmodern Historiography in order to highlight the contemporary significance of Historical Materialism.The research methodically of this paper is based on three forms of congruence:the congruence between history and logic, the congruence between history of thought and real context, and the congruence between theoretical analysis and case studies.The key points are as follows:Chapter I is devoted to illuminating the background in which Historicism occurred, by revealing the inherent problems of the Enlightenment. The biggest problem of the Enlightenment is that the rationality had covered the history, which not only can be examined through the paradox of the Enlightenment itself, but also can be apprehended from various trends of thought opposing the Enlightenment-of which Historicism was the main trend.The main tasks of Chapterâ…¡are as follows:Firstly, to explain the social background of the German Historicism; Secondly, to uncover the whole process of development of Historicism. Thirdly, to reveal the essence of Historicism, and finally to clarify the Crisis of Historicism and its genesis.Chapter III intends to express Marx's critical attitudes towards the three major schools of Historicism which manifested in criticism of the Historical School of Law, of the Historical School of Economics and of the Historical School.The task of Chapter IV is to make a comparison between Historical Materialism and Historicism on the level of principle. Firstly, their exist differences on two levels. On the macroscopic level, they have given different answers to the problem of the "nature of history ".On the microscopic level, the two kernel categories of Historicism lack any theoretical or logical legitimacy in the context of a of Historical Materialism. Secondly, Historical Materialism and Historicism have several similarities in common in terms of form; both of them opposed the Enlightenment, stressed the continuity of historical development, and sought to describe history as objectively and as exactly as possible.The work of Chapter V is an extension and supplement which is intended to examine the evolution of Historicism and Historical Materialism in the 20th century. First of all, the two world wars meant irony towards Germany historicist optimism, therefore, Historicism definitely came into end with its logical paradox when it had failed on its theoretical and real grounds. Second, after Marx's death, Historical Materialism had become a science about law of society by various generalization and elucidations. However, when the "Soviet" disappeared and historiography confronted Post-Modernism, how did Historical Materialism demonstrate its contemporary significance? Appropriately, the last two tasks of the chapter are to investigate the necessity and possibility of Historical Materialism ability to transcend Post-Modern Historiography.The achievements of this dissertation are as follows:Firstly, So-called "Marxist Historicism" is wrong; neither does it have a basis in writings nor theoretical legitimacy. Secondly, although Historicism and Post-Modern Historiography have considerably influenced the last two centuries, Historical Materialism still has transcended them, so it is not only necessary, but also possible, to "return to Marx's Historical Materialism".