> aren't you assuming that there are not indeed versions of historiography
> and ways of invoking History (historicism) which are not also ontological
> or at least have strong ontological premises?
I'm sure there are; isn't that what Kojeve's account of Hegel is? But look at where his thinking takes you: Western Democracies as the end of History and Francis Fukuyama. I don't know about you, but that's enough to make me start drinking before noon.
Seriously though, I don't doubt that there are ontological versions of historicism other than Kojeve's, and probably some of them are likely quite useful. But do the insights their authors adduce come out of their ontological elements, or in spite of them? That may seem to be a flip question, but I mean it: right now a book near the top of my pile is _Historical Destiny and National Socialism in Heidegger's Being and Time_ by Johannes Fritsche, who makes the point that left readings of Heidegger are...well, misreadings. I suppose I ought to know Heidegger better than I do before taking up a tome like that, but there it is.
To go back to Adorno, another quip of his seems relevant: this is not the time for first philosophy, but last philosophy. In this case, I take that to mean _the objection_ that historicism lacks ontological grounds -- a demand of first philosophy -- is something that itself must be criticized -- an act of last philosophy.
It's a long hard road to naive realism. *sigh* -- Curtiss