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Historicism1 Colloquium 7 Plato, Popper, and Historicism1 DOROTHEA FREDE I. The Concept of Historicism 'Historicism' is used in two senses of which one is more fashionable nowadays than the other. In one sense it represents the thesis that human understanding is determined by—and confined to—its own period in history. No one who is not thoroughly familiar with the social standards and practices of a culture will then be capable of properly understanding its language or of interpreting its art and literature, including its philosophy. Historical reconstructions then turn out to be fictions; they may sometimes be useful fictions if they provide intruders with fruitful ideas for their own purposes, but they can be no more than fictions. This conception of historicism has evolved from a certain interpretation of the Hegelian tradition. While it always had its adherents it has only recently become very fashionable in the nouvelle vague of post-structuralism and post-modernism that is now also widely known under the name of 'hermeneutics.' For obvious reasons Plato's texts are particularly attractive to historicists in this more fashionable sense, but their interpretations will not be our topic here. Instead, we shall turn to the second type of historicism that is based on the assumption that history follows a definite pattern of development, so that it becomes predictable, once that pattern has been discovered. This type of historicism is also derived from Hegelianism, albeit in a quite different way. It is inspired by Hegel's contention that the progress of Geist follows a logical path and is therefore predictable. While historical determinism was once very fashionable it has lost An earlier version of this paper is published in German in E. Rudolph (ed.), Polis und Kosmos, (Darmstadt 1996). ^A@ ground in recent history once it became clear that the Marxist optimistic expectations of the end of late capitalism are as false as had been the pessimistic predictions of the demise of Western culture earlier this century. Especially the unforeseen dramatic downfall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe seems to have dampened all enthusiasm for historical determinism and teleological speculation. If historical determinism is no longer a live issue, why then should we spend time and effort on Sir Karl Popper's indictment of Plato's alleged historicism in his famous work, The Open Society and its Enemies? He wrote the book during World War II as a warning to all intellectuals to beware of the false prophets he regarded as the forerunners of the totalitarian regimes of Hitler and Stalin? Given that half a century has passed since then and that neither fascism nor communism seem to possess any real intellectual allurement any longer one may wonder why the justifiability of Popper's condemnation of Plato should still be considered worth discussing, especially from the perspective of a historian of philosophy. Have not classical scholars and political thinkers of all proveniences sufficiently flogged that horse, so that it looks quite dead by now, at least from an expert's perspective?3 The reason for reopening this issue is not just that Popper's siren- song on the seductive powers of Plato's politics still has a mesmerizing influence on many students of Plato. The point is rather that both Socrates' and Plato's political stance themselves continue to intrigue both philosophers and historians, as is shown by the host of recent monographs and articles on the intellectual critics of Athenian democracy in general and on the 'case of Socrates' in particular4 2 Popper 1962. Cf. also Popper's companion-piece, 1957. 3 On Popper's treatment of Plato, cf. the collection of articles in Bambrough 1967. Different authors offer different assessments, depending on the weight they attribute to Plato's totalitarian ideas. But not much attention is given to the fact that Plato's theory is universalist, not nationalist, and that he aims neither for a world-revolution nor for imperialism in general. In spite of Nazism's general anti-intellectualist bent, some Nazi-ideologues did in fact claim an affinity to Plato; cf. Morrow 1941, 105. 4 The general public's interest was stiired by Stone 1987. For a more scholarly treatment see Kraut 1984; Brickhouse 홢 Smith 1989 and 1994.—For recent literature on Athenian democracy and its critics, cf. Davies 1978; Ostwald 1986; Ober 1989; Cartledge/ Millett/Todd 1990; Roberts 1994. This recent resurgence of interest justifies the concentration of this article on that very issue, in spite of an anonymous reader's complaint about the 'thinness' of .
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