This article is an analysis of José Ortega y Gasset’s conception of historical reason (la razón histórica) as a response to the crisis of historicism in the early twentieth century. Ortega’s efforts to historicise and vitalise the concept of reason was not formulated only as a new direction for philosophy, but also as a new direction for history. The analysis traces the development and meaning of Ortega’s historical reason, and draws attention to peculiar parallels with Ernst Troeltsch’s perspective on historicism. It also articulates a number of problems related to the crisis of historicism that Ortega addressed in the formulation of la razón histórica. This analysis indirectly throws light on problems that are relevant also for contemporary theory of history. Compared to other directions, such as Hayden White’s practical past, historicist contextualism and neo-realist objectivism, Ortega indicates an alternative that goes beyond the distinction between the practical and the historical past, transcends the fact/value distinction of Neo-Kantianism and positivism and provides a dimension of practical reason based on historical experience. Ortega’s response to the crisis of historicism in terms of a reconstruction of a dialectical series of historical experiences can be understood as a historical form of practical argumentation.