Der Historismus als Zeitfigur

The idea of this essay is to classify historicism within a theory of historical figures of time, seen as a contribution to the ‚theory of historical times‘ (Reinhart Koselleck). After having traced back Koselleck’s critic of historicism to the ontological idea of „Seinsordnungen“ (chapter 1) the essay explains his concept of double time levels (chapter 2) and discusses historicism as a „Zeitfigur“ (chapter 3). In chapter 4 it introduces timelessness as a vital category of historical understanding.