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In this little book, Karl Popper worked out his earlier thoughts on the phenomenon of - what he called - historicism. This book was initially written in 1935 and revised multiple times before Popper published the final edition in 1957. In the meanwhile, Popper published his magnum opus, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1944), in which he describes the origins of the idea of historicist philosophy - he traces it back to Plato, and via Aristotle and Hegel to Marx.
I had already read The Open Society and Its Enemies and was curious if The Poverty of Historicism had to offer any new insights. And I can recommend reading this prequel to The Open Society to anyone! Popper is one of the clearest philosophers ever - he has the amazing gift of explaining the most abstract and dry material (e.g. logic) in a clear and concise way. Compare this to such bombastic philosophers like Hegel, Nietzsche, and Kant and you will never want to read continental philosophers anymore!
So what is this book exactly? The Poverty of Historicism is Popper's logical refutation of historicism. Historicism is the idea - very old, incidentally - that the philosopher can study history to find historical laws. By using these historical laws, the philosopher of history is able to not only understand the evolution of history but also - and more importantly - to make prophetical predictions about the future. This has to be clarified though since it is easy to misunderstand this position.
The historicist claims that history evolves according to laws of progress; history knows different stages and each stage has its own guiding laws. The laws of one stage aren't applicable in the preceding or following historical periods. The historicist, living in a particular historical period, is, therefore, by definition, not able to predict the future, only to discern a general trend of progression and the insight that the next phase is near. This leads the historicist to two options: (1) if the next stage isn't attractive, history has to be arrested and the current stage prolonged indefinitely; (2) if the next stage is attractive, history has to be sped up by active intervention in the current stage. So, even though the historicists believe in an objective progression of progress, developing independence ourselves (i.e. fatalism), human beings can intervene with activism to arrest or hasten progress.
Considering the abstract ideas involved, it is good to illustrate historicism with some examples. I will mention Plato, Hegel, and Marx, following Popper's own examples.
(1) Plato - according to Popper the first philosopher to truly work out the idea of historicism - observed the continuous change in nature and concluded that all change in this world is degeneration. This is to be related to his Ideas or Forms, which were perfect notions of worldly, imperfect objects. This continuous degeneration means that, if we have a particular state of society, things can only get worse. What should we do? We should postpone future degeneration by intervening right now: the philosopher-king should dictate what society should be like and should intervene when things start to get out of control. In effect, Plato argues that we need tyranny in order to arrest degeneration.
(2) Hegel was the first to come up with a philosophy of history. He thought that history proceeds according to a dialectic process. First history proceeds in one way, then a counter-movement starts to swing history in the other way, and after this, we get a sort of synthesis of both movements. This synthesis, by and in itself, is the next stage in history, and the dialectical process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis repeats itself endlessly. So, like Plato, Hegel thought he had discovered a law of history, that let him understand history as a process of dialectics.
(3) Karl Marx took Hegel's notion of dialectics and fused it with his own idea of materialism. According to Marx, history is changed by revolutions, which are in a sense the prelude of a new historical phase. The period he lived in, 19th century Europe, would see the collapse of capitalism (due to internal contradictions) and the revolution in which the proletarians would take over control of the capital and would end, ultimately, in the radical equality of all people.
Marx's theory (history is a class struggle), is the clearest illustration of Popper's point. Marx thought he had found, by studying economic history, historical laws. When one has discovered this historical law (i.e. dialectical materialism), one can easily apply it to the current state of affairs to come up with a prophecy about future events. Thus Marx thought that the end of capitalism would herald a new age of radical equality. This was, according to Marx, an inevitable, historical fact. As mentioned above, the historicist doesn't claim that human beings can change the future; he does claim that one can speed up or slow down the future from evolving.
It is easy to see how one can fall into the delusion of wanting to intervene in this world, in order to speed up historical progress. In other words: let's start a revolution to usher in the new time!
An important characteristic of historicism is, according to Popper, the desire to offer holistic and utopian solutions to current problems. The historicist wants to radically change society, wipe out everything, and start all over again. And this is exactly what happened in the 20th century when Hitler and Stalin thought they had to carry out the historical laws of (respectively) race and class and bring into practice a new, utopian society - with all the horrific results this caused. Holistic and utopian ideas (l)s can only lead to suffering and tragedy; as a solution, Popper advocates piecemeal social engineering: the scrupulous changing of one variable at a time, with the goal to eliminate the faults in the system. So, while Lenin claimed "you can't make an omelet without breaking a few shells" (i.e. anything goes), Popper argues for twiddling the knobs to alleviate suffering. A much better outlook!
But back to the Poverty of Historicism. Popper first sets out the position of historicism, clearly outlining all the issues involved and giving an honest exposition. After this, he uses the rest of the book to refute all the arguments that historicists use to defend their method. In general, it boils down to the following.
In sociology, the scientist should use the same methods as he would use in the natural sciences. He should by hypothetical-deductive systems: deducing hypotheses and then trying to refute these with carefully controlled experiments. Theories should be testable and falsifiable.
In history, the historian should choose an interesting frame with which to tell the historical story, leaving all the irrelevant facts out of it. When one encounters a historical trend, one should not mistake this for a natural law: the trend of demographic growth can abruptly change, and is therefore not a universal law, valid in all time and space.
It is this last point, according to Popper, that lies at the root of the historical trend (pun intended) of historicism. Biological evolution, as well as the history of mankind, are both a product of the combination of natural laws and initial conditions. This means that (for example) the biological trend of more and more complex organisms is nothing more than the interaction of (1) the initial conditions when the Earth originated (for example, the abundance of elements) and (2) the relevant natural laws (for example the laws of physics and the law of genetics/inheritance). In other words: claiming that the biological evolution on planet Earth is a law in itself is a fallacy.
In essence, The Poverty of Historicism is just another part of Popper's philosophy. I like that he builds a whole new system of logic and science and applies this to practical life. Only truly great minds are able to come up with a consistent, coherent, and interesting world picture, and Popper is one of the greatest for sure. He is original, clear, consequent, and rigorous. By far my favorite philosopher!
As a last remark: a very short oversight of the connections between his three most important books. In The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934) Popper worked out his system of logic: scientists should give up the hope of positively proving their theories; they should offer daring hypotheses and try to falsify these with experiments and observations. When theories withstand these tests, they are corroborated; if not, they are refuted and should be dropped. In other words: scientists should weed out the bad theories, and what remains is a strong body of knowledge. In The Poverty of Historicism (1936), Popper applies this scientific method to sociology and does away with the mysticism of historicism and all its inherent dangers of trying to control and dominate mankind. In The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) he delves deeper into the origins of historicism and approaches it from a more philosophical and practical point of view, showing how the philosophies of Plato, Hegel, and Marx have been decisive in historicist thought. In his later works, Popper added to these themes, but I think one can safely say that these three works are the foundation of Popper's philosophy.
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