High Rhetoric of the Analytic School.

The so-called "anti-dialectical" critique of dialectics is, ironically, undergirded by a dialectical reversal: that so-called "historicist" theories of change are in fact inimical to change (for a change in the process of change destabilizes the historicist theory which can only make historical predictions on the basis of a fixed theory of change [F(n) != F'(n)] (ignoring solutions to this equation)).

We can extend the dialectic one step further. Popper's "non-historicist" theory of change (a theory which does not prescribe any change at all, and which is therefore amenable to all changes (and changes to the process of changes)), i.e. "adjusting the levers with limited practical ends in mind" (e.g. reduction in poverty) can only be responsibly practiced (in non-historicist fashion) at the infinitesimal limit at which change loses its "historicist-ic" quality. A theory of change which permits everything, and, when rigorously employed, produces stasis. This is the reincarnation of Popper's image of the standing-wave billiard ball (from The Logic of Scientific Discovery) which bounces across the table, and which one calculates, against one's own eyes, to not be moving at all. ( )

Ensayo que incide en la debilidad interna que aqueja a la estructura teórica de esta corriente de pensamiento y que es partir de una premisa tan errónea en su planteamiento como falaz en sus implicaciones: la certeza de que la evolución humana puede ser objeto de predicción mediante el descubrimiento de los ritos, modelos, leyes o tendencias que supuestamente gobernarían su curso.

Historicism is a very old movement. Its oldest forms, such as the doctrines of the life-cycles of cities and races, actually precede the primitive teleological view that there are hidden purposes behind the apparently blind decrees of fate. Although this divination of hidden purposes is far removed from the scientific way of thinking it has left unmistakable traces upon even the most modern historicist theories. Every version of historicism expresses the feeling of being swept into the future by irresistible forces.

Modern historicists, however, seem to be unaware of the antiquity of their doctrine. They believe—and what else could their deification of modernism permit?—that their own brand of historicism is the latest and boldest achievement of the human mind, an achievement so staggeringly novel that only a few people are sufficiently advanced to grasp it. They believe, indeed, that it is they who have discovered the problem of change—one of the oldest problems of speculative metaphysics.

This is a great critique of the historicism, which often in the XXth century went hand in hand with totalitarian state. Both communism and Nazism grounded their philosophies at least partially on it. It is especially pleasant to see that the author quotes Friedrich Hayek on both economics and social sciences in general. It is not an easy read, but such philosophical texts rarely are.
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A classic critique of the notion that there are laws of history unfolding as we exist and that they are discoverable by primates like Homo Sapiens. ( )

Dedicated to those who lost their lives to Fascism, Popper's treatise examines the failure and inherent oppression of historicism applied. This along with his Open Society and its Enemies are among the most important works of 20th century political philosophy. Today's proponents historicism would do well to read it. ( )