Historicism is an approach in the study of phenomena, particularly social and cultural practices, including ideas and beliefs, which emphasizes understanding these phenomena through the historical processes by which they developed. The concept is widely applied in fields such as philosophy, anthropology, and sociology.
This historical approach to explanation differs from and complements the approach known as functionalism, which seeks to explain a phenomenon, such as for example a social form, by providing reasoned arguments about how that social form fulfills some function in the structure of a society. In contrast, rather than taking the phenomenon as a given and then seeking to provide a justification for it from reasoned principles, the historical approach asks "Where did this come from?" and "What factors led up to its creation?"; that is, historical explanations often place a greater emphasis on the role of process and contingency.
