He differentiated between both phenomena as follows: The term historicism is used in his influential books The Poverty of Historicism and The Open Society and Its Enemies to describe “an approach to the social sciences which assumes that historical prediction is their primary aim, and which assumes that this aim is attainable by discovering the 'rhythms' or the 'patterns', the 'laws' or the 'trends' that underlie the evolution of history”.
Ferdinand Buquoy continued the reconstruction under the influence of historism, taking its examples from England (Windsor, Arundel, Belvoir, Lancaster or Oxford) and Bavaria (Hohenswangau, Lahneck).
Verstehen was introduced into philosophy and the human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften) by the German historist philosopher Johann Gustav Droysen.