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BERNARD GROETHUYSEN's WAY OF COPING WITH THE “PROBLEM OF HISTORICISM”
Author(s) -
GINEV DMITRI
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
history and theory
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.169
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1468-2303
pISSN - 0018-2656
DOI - 10.1111/hith.12015
Subject(s) - historicism , relativism , objectivism , epistemology , hermeneutics , philosophy , dilemma , historicity (philosophy) , narrative , phenomenology (philosophy) , historiography , objectivity (philosophy) , perspectivism , philosophical anthropology , sociology , history , archaeology , law , linguistics , politics , political science
This article argues that Groethuysen's creation of a new historiographical genre—the anonymous history of the formation of worldviews—was a response to the “problem of historicism” conceived of as a task of working out a concept of historicity beyond the relativism–objectivism dilemma. In scrutinizing Groethuysen's implementation of phenomenology to study how basic historical phenomena have been experienced, the article draws a parallel with Heidegger's response to historical relativism. In the main argument, Groethuysen's combination of a new approach to the history of ideas and a historicized philosophical anthropology reveals the possibility of avoiding the depressing dilemma between metahistorical objectivism and historicist relativism by means of a double hermeneutics. In this regard, special attention is paid to Groethuysen's phenomenological conception of narrative time.