Pubblicato 12-02-2026
Parole chiave
- Historicism,
- Determinism,
- Foresight,
- Karl Popper,
- Raffaello Franchini
Questo lavoro è fornito con la licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 4.0 Internazionale.
Abstract
This article explores the relationship between the critique of historical determinism in twentieth-century philosophy of history and the crisis of classical futurology that led to the emergence of Futures Studies. Starting from Karl Popper’s critique of historicism and his distinction between laws and trends, the paper clarifies the conceptual confusion between historicism and positivist ‘historism’, highlighting the alternative tradition developed within Italian historicism. A disciple of Benedetto Croce, Raffaello Franchini with his Teoria della previsione (1964) made a pioneering attempt to conceptualize foresight beyond deterministic and law-based models. The article argues that Italian historicism anticipated key assumptions of contemporary futures studies by framing the future as open, contingent, and shaped by human agency rather than historical necessity.