Editing Historicism (section)

===Leo Strauss===
[[Leo Strauss]] used the term ''historicism'' and reportedly termed it the single greatest threat to intellectual freedom insofar as it denies any attempt to address injustice-pure-and-simple (such is the significance of historicism's rejection of "natural right" or "right by nature").  Strauss argued that historicism "rejects political philosophy" (insofar as this stands or falls by questions of permanent, trans-historical significance) and is based on the belief that "all human thought, including scientific thought, rests on premises which cannot be validated by human reason and which came from historical epoch to historical epoch." Strauss further identified [[R. G. Collingwood]] as the most coherent advocate of historicism in the English language.  Countering Collingwood's arguments, Strauss warned against historicist social scientists' failure to address real-life problems—most notably that of tyranny—to the extent that they relativize (or "subjectivize") all ethical problems by placing their significance strictly in function of particular or ever-changing socio-material conditions devoid of inherent or "objective" "value". Similarly, Strauss criticized [[Eric Voegelin]]'s abandonment of ancient political thought as guide or vehicle in interpreting modern political problems.

In his books, ''Natural Right and History'' and ''On Tyranny'', Strauss offers a complete critique of historicism as it emerges in the works of Hegel, Marx, and [[Heidegger]]. Many believe that Strauss also found historicism in [[Edmund Burke]], [[Tocqueville]], [[Augustine]], and [[John Stuart Mill]]. Although it is largely disputed whether Strauss himself was a historicist, he often indicated that historicism grew out of and against Christianity and was a threat to civic participation, belief in human agency, religious pluralism, and, most controversially, an accurate understanding of the classical philosophers and religious prophets themselves. Throughout his work, he warns that historicism, and the understanding of [[Progress (history)|progress]] that results from it, expose us to [[tyranny]], totalitarianism, and [[Ochlocracy|democratic extremism]]. In a collection of his works by Kenneth Hart entitled ''Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity'', he argues that [[Islam]], traditional [[Judaism]], and ancient Greece, share a concern for sacred law that makes them especially susceptible to historicism, and therefore to tyranny.