The German Historicist Tradition [Hardcover]

This is the first full study in English of the German historicist tradition. Frederick C. Beiser surveys the major German thinkers on history from the middle of the eighteenth century until the early twentieth century, providing an introduction to each thinker and the main issues in interpreting and appraising his thought. The volume offers new interpretations of well-known philosophers such as Johann Gottfried Herder and Max Weber, and introduces others who are scarcely known at all, including J. A. Chladenius, Justus Moser, Heinrich Rickert, and Emil Lask. Beyond an exploration of the historical and intellectual context of each thinker, Beiser illuminates the sources and reasons for the movement of German historicism--one of the great revolutions in modern Western thought, and the source of our historical understanding of the human world.

Introduction: Concept and Context of Historicism
1. Chladenius and the New Science of History
2. Justus Moser and the Roots of Historicism
3. Herder's Historicism, its Genesis and Development
4. Humboldt the Proteus
5. Savigny and the Historical School of Law
6. Ranke's Romantic Philosophy
7. The Historics of Johann Gustav Droysen
8. Dilthey and the Foundations of the Human Sciences
9. Wilhelm Windelband and the Forces of History
10. Rickert and the Philosophy of Value
11. Emil Lask and the End of Southwestern Neo-Kantianism
12. Simmel's Early Philosophy of History
13. Max Weber and the End of the Historicist Tradition
Bibliography

Frederick C. Beiserstudied for his BA and DPhil at Oxford. He has taught at seven universities during his career--Penn, Wisconsin, Colorado, Indiana, Yale, Harvard and Syracuse--and has researched for many years in Germany, where he was a recipient of Thyssen and Humboldt fellowships.