Rickerts Relevance

60

chapter two

Rickerts Relevance
The Ontological Nature
and Epistemological Functions of Values

by

Anton C. Zijderveld

BRILL
LEIDEN BOSTON
2006

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For Angelika,
who for forty years now has followed my sociological
and philosophical exploits with apposite distance and
wholesome forbearance.

Wer erkennen will, muss denken und schauen.

Heinrich Rickert
Den Menschen, der erkannt wird, machen Natur
und Geschichte: aber der Mensch der erkennt,
macht Natur und Geschichte.
Georg Simmel

CONTENTS
Preface ........................................................................................

xi

Introduction ................................................................................
Rickert revisited ......................................................................
Motives ....................................................................................
Rickerts philosophical relevance argued e contrario ..........
Systematic philosophy and heterology ..................................
The two neo-Kantian schools ..............................................
Composition ............................................................................

1
1
10
14
19
24
26

Chapter One

A Birds-Eye View of Rickerts Philosophy ............

31

Chapter Two Critique of Vitalism ..............................................

Irrationalism and intellectualism rejected ............................
Systematic and surrealistic philosophy ..................................
Intuitionism and biologism ....................................................
Darwin, facts and values ........................................................
Four types of biologism ..........................................................
Biologism beyond Nietzsche ..................................................
Rickerts critique of biologism ..............................................
There are no biologistic values ............................................
Life and culture ......................................................................
Vitalisms credit side ..............................................................
Philosophical anthropology ....................................................

45
45
47
53
60
65
67
70
72
75
78
82

Chapter Three Knowledge and Reality ......................................

Epistemology and ontology ....................................................
Between Idealism and Empirism ..........................................
Basic terminology ....................................................................
The subjective (immanent) and the objective
(transcendent) path ..............................................................
Knowledge and the subject-object dilemma ........................
The standpoint of immanence ..............................................
The subject as empty form ..................................................
Transcendence in the immanent standpoint ........................

85
85
93
96
102
104
110
113
118

viii

CONTENTS

Reality as an empty form ......................................................

The epistemological act ........................................................
The categorical imperative of judgments ............................
Conclusion ..............................................................................

123
126
130
133

Chapter Four Facts, Values and Meaningful Acts ......................

The total and bifocal reality ................................................
Facts and values ....................................................................
From relativism to relationism ..............................................
Being, existing and valid meanings ......................................
Stages of being and validity ..................................................
The meaning bestowing act ..................................................
Neither psychologism nor metaphysics ................................
The philosophy of culture in outline ....................................
The systematic philosophy of values ....................................
The formal matrix of value development ............................
The metaphysical principle of full-fillment ..........................
Conclusion ..............................................................................

139
139
145
155
161
168
174
180
184
198
201
212
215

Chapter Five The Demarcation of Natural and

Cultural Science ..........................................................................
The Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns ..................
The continuum of sciences ....................................................
Analytical matrix ....................................................................
Nature and culture distinguished ontologically ....................
Observable and understandable reality ................................
The generalizing and individualizing methods ....................
Cultural-Scientific generalization ..........................................
Empathic understanding ........................................................
Value-relationship, relating to values and abstaining
from value-judgments ..........................................................
Cultural-Scientific objectivity ................................................
Causality in Cultural Science ................................................
Conclusion ..............................................................................
Chapter Six Rickerts Echo: Applications, Amplifications,
Amendments ....................................................................................
Introduction ............................................................................
General philosophy (Georg Simmel) ....................................

219
219
226
235
241
244
246
255
261
271
275
282
291
297
297
299

CONTENTS

ix

Legal philosophy (Emil Lask, Gustav Radbruch) ................

History ( Johan Huizinga) ......................................................
Sociology (Karl Mannheim, Max Weber) ............................

308
315
320

Conclusion ..................................................................................

347

Index of Names ..........................................................................

361

PREFACE
Heinrich John Rickert (18631936) has haunted me for a couple of
decades. There are several individualsstudents, friends and a few
sociological colleagueswho had to endure my expositions about his
ideas and writings. They helped me, often unknowingly, to clarify
my own thoughts of and about the Rickertiana that got piled up in
my mind. I cannot begin to mention them by name, but feel obliged
to thank them anonymously for functioning as a formal audience in
the lecture hall of the university and as an informal audience outside of it.
Ren Foqu, professor of philosophy at the Catholic University of
Louvain and the Erasmus University of Rotterdam is my esteemed
colleague and friend with whom I am professionally connected for
many years now. I am grateful for his willingness to function as
my philosophical guide and advisor in a later stage of my Rickertproject. His astonishing knowledge of the history of ideas and the
various currents of contemporary philosophy, but above all his joy
of concept formations and theory constructionswhat Rickert once
aptly called Logosfreudigkeitwere a great source of inspiration. Naturally,
I am responsible for all the flaws and mistakes in this book, but in
general it would not have become the book that it is now without
his assistance and collegial advice.
Herman Philipse was my advisor in an early stage of the project.
I profited from his phenomenal expertise in the field of analytic philosophy, his unrelenting critical mind, mellowed by a great sense of
witty humor. He remained alien to the world of neo-Kantianism and
in particular to the somewhat surrealistic philosophy of Rickert, but
we developed a mutual friendship which I shall always cherish.
In the last stage of the project I have benefited from very valuable, critical comments by Koo van der Wal, professor emeritus of
the Erasmus University and Maurice Weyembergh, professor emeritus of the Free University of Brussels. Their impressive knowledge
of the history of philosophy averted some serious errors of interpretation. Needless to add that I remain responsible for the faults
that still remain in the present expositions.

xii

PREFACE

Anton Bevers who in the early 1980s wrote a PhD-thesis on Georg

Simmel under my supervision, and is presently professor of sociology at Erasmus University, is the only sociologist I know who actually has read Rickert, in particular his ideas about the logic of Cultural
and Natural Science. His intellectual support and his friendship have
been crucial for the completion of my Rickert project.
This book was written in what I felt and still feel as the fools
liberty of academic retirement. No longer plagued by my post-Calvinist
ethic of responsibility towards the university as a bureaucratic
organization, I have the opportunity now to read and write whenever I feel like doing so. I fully experience the luxury of what Karl
Mannheim has called the freischwebende Intelligenz. However, I must
express my gratitude to the Erasmus University for oering me all
of its facilities in a so-called hospitality contract upon my retirement
in December 2002.
My special acknowledgement goes out to the secretaries of the
Department of Sociology, Marianne Otte and Betty Thiels, and their
successors Jolien Veensma and Shaheen Khan. They were always
prepared to print the various drafts of the manuscript, and to assist
me in bureaucratic matters. In the final stage of the project Tineke
van de Pas, secretary of the Law Department, has been equally helpful. Ilja Fase, graduate student of sociology, was of an invaluable
help in ordering and collecting books and articles at the library of
the university. I am grateful for her precision and dedication which
have been essential since my empirical data had to be collected in
the library.
A few preliminary comments may be helpful to the reader. The
text is interspersed with short excursions which are printed in small
letters. Many of them are references to other philosophers and philosophical currents. They can be skipped by the professional philosopher who obviously is (or should be) acquainted with the history of
philosophical ideas. Even great thinkers are, of course, parts of larger
networks made up of fellow thinkers and their thoughts, ideas and
theories. It was a laborious task to reconstruct Rickerts philosophical network, since he had the habit of not burdening his expositions
with quotes and references. I am aware that my reconstruction is
incomplete, but then the desire to be complete can be pedantic and
quite burdensome for the reader.
I am not in favor of the system by which references in the text
and in the footnotes refer again to items in the bibliography at the

PREFACE

xiii

end of the book. I prefer to present such references with their complete annotation as to publisher, place and date of publication in
the footnotes.
Finally, I wrote the book in English for two reasons. First of all,
neo-Kantian philosophy in general and Rickerts publications in particular are, apart from a few exceptions, not accessible to the AngloSaxon world. English, after all, is in this day and age of globalization
the lingua franca, not just in the worlds of business and politics, but
in the intellectual world as well. It is my hope that the present exposition and discussion may lead to translations of Rickerts extensive
oeuvre. His little book on cultural and natural science, for instance,
and his brilliant exposition and witty criticism of vitalism are perfectly suitable for translations into English, particularly since they are
still (or again) very timely.
The second reason is yet more relevant. Translating Rickerts often
quite fanciful and sometimes even literary German into English helped
me to clarify for myself and hopefully also for the reader his complex ideas, concepts and theories. It is my conviction that one should
be able to translate German concepts and sentences into English,
lest they are closed to a clear understanding of their meaning and
significance.
Even in the exceptional case of English translations, such as a few
essays from Webers Wissenschaftslehre and a partial translation of
Rickerts opus magnum on the demarcation of Natural Science and
Cultural Science, I decided to translate all German quotations myself.
But I added the original German texts in the footnotes in order to
enable the reader who possesses a passive and/or active knowledge
of the German language to control my translations.1
For biographical and bibliographical data I refer to the handsome
volume of essays by Rickert edited by Rainer A. Bast.2
1
The translations and references of the two mottos of this book are the following:
(A) Who wants to acquire knowledge, should think and perceive. Heinrich Rickert,
Das Eine, die Einheit und die Eins, (The One [as opposed to the Other], the Unity,
and the First [as in number 1]), (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1924), p. 87. (B) Man
who is being known, is made by nature and history: but man who knows, makes
nature and history. Georg Simmel, Die Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie, (The Problems
of the Philosophy of History), 1892, (Mnchen, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot,
1923), p. VII.
2
Heinrich Rickert, Philosophische Aufstze, (Philosophical papers), (Tbingen: MohrSiebeck, 1999), pp. 437457. See also the Internet: in November 2004 Google
oered 23,300 and Yahoo 70,400 hits under Heinrich Rickert.

INTRODUCTION
Tief und ernstlich denkende Menschen haben gegen das
Publikum einen bsen Stand.
J. W. Goethe1

RICKERT REVISITED
The Reformation and in its wake the Enlightenment caused a penetrating transformation in Germany of the medieval universities in
general and of philosophy in particular. It was a change from the
medieval, other-worldly scholarship supervised and ideologically
drenched by the Roman-Catholic Church, to a early-modern, innerworldly professional training of lawyers, medical doctors and protestant ministers. The theological faculty, for instance, still viewed as
the first and most important faculty, was rebuilt in the 16th century
into a retraining institution for catholic priests converted to Lutheran
Protestantism. The Enlightenment introduced not only a secularized
version of rationalism but emphasized also the utilitarian notion of
a practical education of young men who after their academic training were going to function as the societal elite of the future. In other
words, the post-medieval, early-modern university was in fact a professional school in which young men were trained for practical jobs
in the rapidly changing society. German Romanticism of the 18th
and 19th centuries would soon object to this one-sided emphasis
upon rational, practical and applied knowledge and allied skills,
launching its ideal of Bildung, i.e. of an education in which students
were primarily taught to cultivate and strengthen their mental as
well as moral capacities. Schelling, Schleiermacher and Fichte were
the first propagandists of this Romantic Bildungsideal, but it was perhaps
Deeply and seriously thinking people are not very popular. J. W. Goethe,
Betrachtungen im Sinne der Wanderer (Contemplations in the Style of the Wayfarers),
in: Vermischte Schriften, Werke Bd. VI, (Frankfurt a.M.: Insel Verlag, 1966), p. 459.
Rickert has been deeply impressed throughout his life by the works of Goethe. It
culminated in a monograph of 544 pages, which he published at the end of his
life: Heinrich Rickert, Goethes Faust. Die dramatische Einheit der Dichtung, (Goethes
Faust. The Dramatic Unity of the Poem), (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1932).
1

INTRODUCTION

best expressed by Friedrich Schiller in his inaugural address at the

University of Jena in the historically so pregnant year 1789.
Schiller constructed and mutually opposed two types of academic intellectuals: the Brotgelehrte (the bread-scholar) and the philosophischer Kopf ( the philosophical head). The former studies at a university in order to acquire a
profitable position in society, thus trying to satisfy his petty craving for prestige. He is usually rather conservative since he loathes changes and alterations. Upon graduation he will no longer be interested in scientific and
philosophical thoughts, but live intellectually on what he had piled up in
his mind during his academic training. He is not interested in the intrinsic values of manual and spiritual work, but measures everything in terms
of possible profits. Schiller claims that this attitude is strongly fostered by
the increasing specialization of the various scientific disciplines which was
already prevalent in his day.
However, Schiller continues, if young men do possess scientific talents
they will protest against all this meaninglessly accumulated knowledge of
details. He will experience a deep sense of aimlessness and then develop
into a philosophical head. This is the opposite type, i.e. the academic
intellectual who, to begin with, will try to explore the limits of his own discipline, to transcend them in order to arrive at a more systematic and integrated knowledge of the world. Where the bread-scholar separates, the
philosophical head unites! In fact he will not just learn facts by heart, but
search for a real understanding of the facts, without focusing from the start
on possible applications of this knowledge, let alone on the profits and prestige it may reap in the future.2

The ideal of Bildung in opposition to the pragmatic and utilitarian

program of professional training was also the essence of Wilhelm
von Humboldts university reform which in 1809 led to the founding
of the University of Berlin. It soon became the model for most
German and many European universities. Humboldts vision was
that of an academic community of professors and students devoted

2
F. Schiller, Was heisst und zu welchem Ende studiert man Universalgeschichte? (What
is the meaning of and for what end does one study universal history?), in: Schillers
Werke, vol. IV, (Frankfurt A.M.: Insel Verlag, 1966), pp. 421438. The rather exalted
tone of Schillers address conceals the fact that he experienced considerable diculties
in his professorship, and that the sentiments of the bread-scholar were not totally
alien to him. According to Golo Mann, Schiller once sighed that the university
could do one may not say what, if he only had married a rich wife. Golo Mann,
Schiller als Geschichtsschreiber (Schiller as Historiographer), ibid., p. 890. For the
context and content of this inaugural address see Rdiger Safranski, Friedrich Schiller
oder die Erfindung des Deutschen Idealismus, (Friedrich Schiller or the Invention of German
Idealism), (Mnchen, Wien: Hanser Verlag, 2004), in particular pp. 306316.

INTRODUCTION

to a life of social solitude and civil, thus also spiritual, freedom.3 The
university in this vision educated young men not only cognitively,
but also emotionally and morally, enabling them to develop into autonomous and creative personalities. It is in this sense that the academically educated young men could contribute to society and the
public sector. In other words, theirs is an indirect not a direct socioeconomic and political utility and usefulness. Needless to add that
the Humboldtian university was envisaged as the institutional haven
of the Geisteswissenschaften with their emphasis upon Verstehen (understanding) of meanings and values in opposition to the Naturwissenschaften
and its focus upon Erklren (explaining) of facts and causality.4
After roughly 1850, however, Germany went through several radical changes. Socio-economically and culturally the various German
states developed from traditional-agrarian communities into modernurban and increasingly industrial societies.5 It led to a bourgeoisie growing in numbers and power in opposition to an equally increasing
working class, causing the awakening of an initially slumbering class
conflict. The Humboldtian Bildung was, of course, not able to prepare
its students for this deeply penetrating socio-economic and societal
transformation. Politically, Germany was transformed by Bismarck,
after the French-German war of 18701871, into a unified empire
in which the balance of unity and diversity became a dominant
political aim. There was a dire need for public administrators which
were able to maintain this balance. The ideal of a generalized Bildung
was not sucient to satisfy this public need. At the same time, the
natural sciences and their technical applications in the emerging
industrial society reaped unprecedented successes which exerted strong
pressures on the university to deliver practically, usefully and scientifically trained academics. In fact, after 1850 the natural sciences

3
Cf. Helmuth Schelsky, Einsamkeit und Freiheit. Idee und Gestalt der deutschen Universitt
und ihrer Reformen, (Solitude and Freedom. Idea and Structure of the German
University and its Reforms), (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1963), in particular pp. 79130.
4
See also Theodor Litt, Wissenschaft, Bildung, Weltanschauung, (Science, Bildung,
Worldview), (Leipzig, Berlin: Teubner, 1928), in particular Chapter Two: Naturwissenschaft und Geisteswissenschaft in Verhltnis zur Bildung, pp. 1236.
5
The transition was, of course, not limited to Germany but rather a general
European process of modernization. It was conceptualized by Ferdinand Toennies
in his classic essay Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundbegrie der reinen Soziologie, (Community and Society. Basic Concepts of Pure Sociology), 1887, (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1963).

INTRODUCTION

became the predominant methodological model for all sciences, including the humanities. In philosophy there grew a penetrating and
dominant positivism which was based upon the firm belief that
Naturwissenschaft, Natural Science, operating with exact, quantitative
methods produced the only legitimate knowledge because it was
applicable and useful. If there still was any valuable reason for its
existence, philosophy had to be compartmentalized, in the opinion
of the positivists, into several methodologies of the dierent scientific,
specialized disciplines. There was no room any longer, it was believed,
for a general, universal philosophy, since that would necessarily end
up in unscientific metaphysics. Naturally, there was in the positivist
view of the world and the sciences no legitimate place for metaphysical
dreams and reflections.
This, of course, led again to a Romantic reaction in which once
more the humanities were propagated as legitimate sciences which
were logically and methodologically dierent, yet had to be seen
philosophically on a par with the natural sciences. Social sciences
such as psychology, sociology, history and even economics, it was
argued, deal with human beings and their actions, emotions and
thoughts, not with atoms and physical processes which unlike human
beings are not related to values and meanings, do not act and interact
in a meaningful manner and thus cannot be understood empathically.
There is, it was argued, an essential dierence between Natur which
is driven by mindless causality and measurable objectivity, and Geist
which on the contrary is driven by values and meanings, and by the
forces of the human Seele and Bewusstsein, i.e. by the human psyche
and consciousness. This essential dierence cried out for a dierentiation
of the sciences: Naturwissenschaft versus Geisteswissenschaft. Moreover,
modernization entailed indeed a process of rationalization, but that
does not mean that the irrational had disappeared from the human
universe. On the contrary, the more rational the scientific, technological
and increasingly bureaucratic world grew, the more it seemed to
escape our cognitive and emotive understanding, the more irrational
factors which cannot be measured and analyzed in a natural-scientific
manner, seemed to determine the economy, society and polity, and
above all the human mind and soul. In fact, the ages old philosophical
question as to how it could be possible to acquire rational and
ordered knowledge of the world, let alone how we could begin to
understand it rationally, returned in full weight and cried out for an
answer.

INTRODUCTION

It is at this point that in the second half of the 19th century and
in the first two decades of the 20th century the two towering philosophers of the 18th and 19th centuries, Kant and Hegel, and their
various schools of neo-Kantianism and neo-Hegelianism regained
philosophical interest. In a admittedly too rough way we could label
the latter as a sphere of thought in which ontology and metaphysics
occupied a primary and logic and methodology a secondary position, whereas the former focused primarily on epistemology, logic
and methodology, viewing ontology and metaphysics as sub-disciplines of the latter. We return to this later, because Rickert occupied a special position in this dilemma of ontology and epistemology.
At this point it suces to mention the fact that we will focus in the
present study on neo-Kantianism, in particular on that of the SouthWest German School, and again in particular on that of Heinrich
Rickert. As we shall see, Rickert assumed a philosophical position
which tried to bridge the dilemma of Rationalism and Romanticism,
of Natural Science and (as he preferred to call it) Cultural Science,
of ontology and epistemology. He designed a modus operandi for that
which he called heterothesis and heterology which in essence, as we shall
see, is a playful alternation between opposites in a dilemma. It makes
sense, I think, to renew the acquaintance with this philosopher who
unjustly has been largely forgotten after his death in 1936. When
he is still referred to, it is usually in terms of a rejecting critique which
in my observation is most of the time not based upon a serious and
close reading of his texts. In fact, there are a few critical clichs about
his work which are generally unfounded, yet repeated all the time.
Heinrich Rickert (18631936) was famous and the object of critical
debates around the turn of the former century. But after World War
I he fell into disrepute. In fact, it is fair to say that he was actually
buried in oblivion already before his death in the 1930s. There was
no interest anymore in the intricate conceptual abstractions of neoKantian philosophy in general and Rickerts brand of it in particular after the Great War, when young academic men, having survived
the massive slaughter in and around the trenches, returned home.
They were disoriented by what they saw as the Great Defeat and
tried, together with their fellow Germans, to mend the fragments of
their shattered lives. In fact, there was now this longing for a philosophy which would no longer focus, as Rickert did, on knowledge
and thus on epistemology and logic. Instead one craved as it were

INTRODUCTION

for an inspiring, emotionally gratifying philosophy which would explain

the intricacies of life, of being and existence, and which would satisfy the feelings of anxiety and alienation. There was above all this
yearning for inspiring thinkers who surpassed the often rather authoritarian and allegedly solidly bourgeois philosophy professors at the
German universities of pre-war, Wilhelmian society. Rickert was such
a typical, allegedly old-fashioned university professor. Martin Heidegger
and Karl Jaspers certainly were not.
The historian Golo Mann (19091994) gives in his memoirs a lively, yet
devastating picture of Heinrich Rickert as a teacher and professor. When
Mann started his studies at the University of Heidelberg at the end of the
1920s, he took a seminar which Rickert taught at his home. A small group
of students sat around the table. Rickert entered the room and began to
count the students, standing at the table, one by one. He then said: This
is the smallest seminar since I have been a university assistant. I did not
expect anything else though. Please, gentlemen, take your seat. The seminar
began with an exposition of what philosophy was all about. He explained
in particular that his own philosophy was a Wissenschaft, whereas the
fashionable philosophies of the dayhe meant in particular his colleague
Karl Jaspers and his former student Martin Heideggerwere in his view
not scientific at all. He compared their lectures with organ concertos and
added: Well, gentlemen, with me you will certainly not hear an organ concerto! Mann was not amused but did at that time obviously not know that
Max Weber, whom he greatly admired, used to make a similar remark in
his lectures: If you yearn for visions, go to the cinema. Rickert then read,
Mann continues, a sentence from a publication of Heidegger and asked:
Can anyone translate that into Latin? What cannot be translated into Latin,
does not exist for me! Yet, Rickert must have had some significance as a
logician, Mann adds, since Max Weber thought so. In fact, to his hardly
suppressed surprise, Weber, a radical democrat, and Rickert were close
friends. The at that time still young and philosophically inexperienced Mann
did apparently not understand what Rickerts philosophy was actually all
about. He found it obviously too abstract and boring. He ends this brief
recollection with a venomous remark: The vain old man remains for me
the empty shell of a once lively and strong tradition. Consequently, after
1933 this pupil of Immanuel Kant proved to be a mask without a character
behind it. Mann left the seminar and turned to Karl Jaspers under whose
supervision he wrote his PhD-thesis in philosophy.6

6
Der eitle alte Mann bleibt fr mich die leere Hlse einer ehemals lebensstarken
Tradition. Als Maske, ohne Charakter dahinter, hat dieser Schler Immanuel Kants
sich dann auch 1933 erwiesen. Golo Mann, Erinnerungen und Gedanken. Eine Jugend in
Deutschland, (Memories and Thoughts. A Youth in Germany), (Frankfurt am Main:
Fischer Verlag, 1986), p. 291.

INTRODUCTION

Another student of Rickert, Hermann Glockner, paints quite a dierent

picture of his teacher. Rickert, he writes, was not at all weltfremd (unworldly)
but had a lively interest in political, economic, social and cultural issues
and events. His agoraphobia, however, bound him to his home, but he did
enjoy meeting people. He was in social encounters an interesting and witty
conversationalist with a healthy sense of humor. As an author he set himself the aim to write clearly and with a cultivated style. He hated superficiality,
but disliked as much the dragging ponderousness, empty abstractions and
tiresome pedantry of most philosophers of his days. (It must be added in
all honesty that Rickert, as we shall see instantly, apparently lost this buoyancy at the end of his life in the 1930s.)
Glockner still adds that Rickert was not an exact philologist, and lacked
Windelbands talent for the history of philosophical ideas. He admitted that
he did not possess the necessary encompassing memory. He was a system
builder, although, much like Plato or Kant, he failed to complete his own
philosophical system. Glockner relates that Rickert had an architectural
talent. Apparently not just in philosophy, because in Freiburg, where he
taught at the university for many years, he lived with his family in a house
which he himself had designed.7

In an interview with him in Munich, February 28, 1985, Rickerts

youngest son, the goldsmith Franz Rickert (19041991),8 complained
to me about the bitter atmosphere in his parents house. One of his
brothers was epileptic which his father could not bear. He was sent
to an institution. Another brother, and his fathers favorite student
Emil Lask, fell in the war. The atmosphere at home was mostly
depressing. Moreover, his father suered from a neurological disorder,
labored under agoraphobia, and was constantly under medication.9
He complained all the time about his students and in particular

7
Cf. Hermann Glockner, Heinrich Rickert , in: Heinrich Rickert, Unmittelbarkeit
und Sinndeutung. Aufstze zur Ausgestaltung des Systems der Philosophie, (Directness and
Interpretation of Meaning. Papers for the Construction of the System of Philosophy),
August Faust, ed., (Tbingen: Morh-Siebeck, 1939), pp. VIIXIV.
8
Cf. Julie Gibbons, Zen and the Art of Franz Rickert, in: Craft Culture,
http://www.craftculture.org/archive/frickert.htm which gives an insight in Franz
Rickert as craftsman and as teacher at the Academy of Arts, Munich, where he
was appointed professor in 1938.
9
Franz Rickert told me in the interview that his mother who was a rather accomplished sculptor, and together with the wives of Max Weber and Georg Simmel,
active in the womens movement of those days, devoted her life mainly to her husband and her family. She saw to it that the philosopher took his medications on
time and at regular intervals. He had many little bottles standing in a row on the
mantelpiece in his study. She meant well, of course, but I am afraid she actually
poisoned my father slowly.

INTRODUCTION

about his colleagues at the university.10 In fact, he grew increasingly

rancorous, and was surrounded by a small band of followers who
supported him in his grudges.11 The worst of them, according to
Franz Rickert, was August Faust who turned into a radical Nazi and
had a bad influence on his politically rather naive father.12 I asked
him about his fathers political stance after 1933. He said that he
was certainly not a friend of Hitler, but neither was he very brave,
in particular regarding the problems of some Jewish colleagues at

10
A granddaughter of Heinrich Rickert, Mrs. Marianne Rickert Verburg from
Hamburg, lived as a young girl with her grandparents in Heidelberg during the
last two years of the philosophers life. In an interview (Hamburg, October 8, 1988)
she showed me many, usually brief letters and cards Rickert received from various
colleagues within and outside Germany. They were mostly letters and cards of
thanks for a publication Rickert had sent. Among others: A. Meinong, H. Eucken,
P. Natorp, R. Otto, G. Radbruch, E. Rothacker, M. Scheler, O. Spann, R. Stammler.
There are in this personal archive of Mrs. Verburg also a few notes which Rickert
and Max Weber exchanged. They give some insight in the (usually rather petty)
faculty politics the two of them engaged in. It dealt mainly with appointments of
new faculty members. Hermann Glockner provides an interesting personal insight
in the social world of academic Heidelberg in Rickerts days. Cf. his Heidelberger
Tagebuch (Heidelberg Diary), (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 1969). According to Franz
Rickert the details about his father and his family are correct and reliable.
11
Walter Benjamin (18921940) who attended Rickerts lectures and seminars in
Freiburg wrote in a letter to his friend Gerhard Scholem (d.d. July 25, 1921):
Rickert ist grau und bse geworden. (Rickert has become grey and evil.), In:
Walter Benjamin, Briefe I, (Letters, vol. I), G. Scholem, Th. Adorno, eds., (Frankfurt
a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1978), p. 268. Although he once wrote Adorno with some pride
that he had been Rickerts student, he apparently distanced himself from him after
he finished his academic studies. A long letter sent from Paris to Adorno, opened
with Mein lieber Teddie (My dear Teddie), d.d. May 7, 1940. Briefe II (Franfurt
a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1978), p. 857.
12
Cf. August Faust, Sozialerziehung und Nationalerziehung, Deutsches Bildungswesen,
July 1933. Glockner gives an interesting picture of Faust. Cf. his o.c., pp. 221245.
Faust, who lived in Rickerts house, was not just his teaching assistant but also considered to be part of the family. Although Mrs. Verburg claimed that the family
was unaware of his nazi sympathies, it is unavoidable to assume that he asserted
a fatal political influence on the aged and despondent Rickert who had always been
a liberal politically but developed into a right-wing conservative after the defeat of
World War I. That was apparently quite normal among German philosophy professors
of those days. It happened, for example, also with the mathematical philosopher
Gottlob Frege. Both Frege and Rickert joined the German Philosophical Society
and its journal which was a right-wing split-o from the prestigious journal Kant
Studien. It was founded by Rickerts student Bruno Bauch who after 1933 became
a devoted Nazi and anti-Semite. Glockner, himself not immune to the nazi ideology,
mentions the fact that Rickert, impressed as he allegedly was by the national-socialist revolution, held a lecture on Fichte shortly before his death. It was, as Faust
also claims, a national-socialist paean. The title (translated) was indicative: Fichte

INTRODUCTION

the university.13 This stood in strong contrast to the philosophers

father, Heinrich Rickert Sr. (18331902), who as a liberal politician
in Berlin founded in December 1890 the Society Against AntiSemitism. Franz Rickert told me that his mother for fear of the
Nazis burned after his fathers death in 1936 a stack of anti-Semitic
hate-letters addressed to her father in law.14
In the last years of his life Rickert was well aware of the fact that
his style of thinking and the problems he addressed were no longer
popular.15 In a way he sympathized with the anti-rational moods of
his contemporaries, as we shall see in Chapter Two. After all, as a
young man he too was enthused by the exuberant writings of Nietzsche
and the broody pessimism of Schopenhauer. But he soon became
weary of their irrationalism and searched for a conceptual mastering of the eternal philosophical conflict between rationality and irrationality. He believed firmly that he found the solution of this problem
in his epistemology and in particular in his philosophy of values.
Yet, he was not successful in convincing his fellow philosophers and
the young men and women of the Interbellum in Germany. After
World War II a similar situation occurred. German and French

as a Social and National Thinker. Glockner, o.c., p. VIII. Faust, ibid., p. XVIII.
There is for many Germans, as the former German Kanzler Helmuth Kohl once
said, the grace of the late birth, i.e. after 1945. It may be added that obviously
some Germans have, like Rickert, also experienced the grace of a timely death. See
Hans Sluga, Heideggers Crisis. Philosophy and Politics in Nazi Germany (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press), pp. 83100.
13
Sluga mentions in a footnote that Rickerts turn to the right caused the end
of his friendly relationship with a former, Jewish student who taught at Freiburg
university but was then in 1933 dismissed by rector Martin Heidegger. Rickert
remained silent. Sluga, o.c., p. 267, note 48. Sluga probably refers to Jonas Cohn
(18691947), an extraordinary professor for philosophy and pedagogy, who fled
in 1939 to Birmingham, England, where he died after the war. Rickert did not
intervene on his behalf.
14
Quoted interview in Munich. See Otto Friedrich, Before the Deluge (New York:
Harper & Row Publ., 1972). The Dutch edition: Vr de zondvloed (Baarn: het Wereldvenster, 1972), p. 92.
15
In his book on the philosophy of life, a current of thought which he saw as
the dominant and fashionable trend in the philosophy of his days, Rickert noted
that there were still small circles of thinkers who linked up with the work done by
great thinkers in the past and tried to elaborate on their systems of thought. He
mentioned himself as one of those, who worked in the tradition of German Idealism.
Heinrich Rickert, Die Philosophie des Lebens. Darstellung und Kritik der philosophischen
Modestrmungen unserer Zeit (The Philosophy of Life. Presentation and Critique of
Fashionable Currents in the Philosophy of our Time), 1920, (Tbingen: MohrSiebeck, 1922), p. 34.

10

INTRODUCTION

existentialism was much more akin to the post-war sentiments of the

1950s and 1960s than Rickerts neo-Kantian epistemology and philosophy of values. Later various philosophical currents emerged which
Rickert without doubt would have discounted as unscientific fads and
foiblesexcept those that maintained some degree of rationalism.
He would have labeled various brands of so-called post-modernism
as specimens of a fashionable and philosophically objectionable irrationalism. He would in all probability have appraised positively certain trends in analytic philosophy, in particular its so-called linguistic
turn.16
Lately, however, there is a renewed interest in the neo-Kantianism
of the so-called South-West German School. Rickerts opus magnum on
historical methodology, Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begrisbildung
was translated into English, albeit in an abridged edition.17 Rickerts
shorter version of this voluminous book, Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft, was reprinted in Germany in a paperback edition, while a volume
of his main essays appeared in print recently.18 Meanwhile, the philosophy department of the University of Dsseldorf has opened a
Heinrich Rickert Research Institute, the main objective of which is the
publication of Rickerts collected works in fifteen volumes.19
MOTIVES
The present book is based on a close but critical reading of Rickerts
texts, and tries to reproduce his often complex and abstract ideas in
a generally understandable language. Despite the yet pristine Rickert-

16
Cf. Richard Rorty (ed.), The Linguistic Turn, 1967, (Chicago: the University of
Chicago Press, 1992).
17
Heinrich Rickert, The Limits of Concept Formation in Natural Science. A Logical
Introduction to the Historical Sciences (abridged edition), edited and translated by Guy
Oakes, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). A rare study in the 1960s
was Hermann Seidel, Wert und Wirklichkeit in der Philosophie Heinrich Rickerts (Value
and Reality in Henrich Rickerts Philosophy), (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 1968.) A
recent, voluminous study is Christian Krijnen, Nachmetaphysischer Sinn (Postmetaphysical
Sense), (Wrzburg: Knigshausen & Neumann, 2001).
18
Heinrich Rickert, Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft (Cultural Science and
Natural Science), 1926, (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1986). Philosophische Aufstze (Philosophical
Papers), edited and introduced by Rainer A. Bast, (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999).
19
See the website www.phil-fak.uni.duesseldorf.de/philo/rickert. It is the website
of the Heinrich Rickert Forschungsstelle of the University of Dsseldorf, Germany,
of which professor Rainer A. Bast, PhD is the managing director.

INTRODUCTION

11

renaissance it should still be explained, why one would actually take

on such a rather laborious task. There are, of course, various motives
for writing about a particular philosopher. Usually there is, to begin
with, an irrational, esthetic motive, which Rickert would find philosophically inadmissible, but should not be kept secret. I have been
in sympathy with Rickerts style of thinking and writing ever since
I began to read his books in the 1970s, inspired to do so by Max
Webers essays on the logic of the social sciences. Weber was obviously
influenced by Rickerts epistemology and philosophy of values. His
references to this kind of thinking made me anxious to read the
philosopher himself. It was then my experience that, while reading
his less complex and intellectually more easily accessible texts, such
as the small volume on the cultural and the natural sciences, or his
critique of the vitalistic philosophies of his days,20 one meets a philosopher who is a lively thinker and who at times writes in an ironic
wayan experience which is quite dierent from the one Golo Mann
described in his memoirs. Certainly, Rickert excels repeatedly in
extremely complex and abstract thoughts, and sometimes gets himself
lost on the way, but he is nevertheless mostly able to express his
thoughts clearly and understandably. In fact, after a while, after one
has seriously tried to understand his thoughts and ideas, one actually
begins to like his style of thinking, arguing and writing. I for my
part began even to develop some sort of emotional liking of the man
as a thinker which, of course, does not preclude a critical stance
towards him. After all, is this not the original meaning of the word
philosophy?
In one of my interviews with Franz Rickert, I told him that reading his fathers texts I got the impression as if he was talking to me,
although he never addresses the reader directly. He smiled and then
told me that this was almost literally true, since his father did not
write his articles and books, but dictated themnot to a secretary,
because he could not bear someone in his study, when he was at
work. A friend of his around the turn of the century gave him a
Parlograph which he had bought in America. One spoke into a
kind of huge horn and the sounds were then printed into roles
of wax. The large house in Heidelberg had a small roomthe
Parlographenzimmer in which a secretary typed the spoken texts on

20

Heinrich Rickert, Die Philosophie des Lebens, o.c.

12

INTRODUCTION

a type writer. The philosopher now had a written text which he

edited by hand. The edited text was typed again, and then sent to
the publisher. The wax roles were recycled: they were wiped out
a task Franz Rickert performed as a young boyand used again.
The house always had this penetrating smell of bee wax, he recalled.21
One of the consequences of this parlando writing technique is repetition. Anyone who teaches courses realizes that one will often repeat
subjects and ideas in later lectures. That is, to a certain degree, a
helpful technique as students get the opportunity to grasp what the
course really is all about. Because the reader of Rickerts texts gets
the impression of sitting in his lecture hall, or in his study, listening
to his expositions, he is helped to get acquainted gradually with his
style of thinking and with the main themes of his idiosyncratic philosophy. At regular intervals Rickert interrupts his stream of thought
in order to recapitulate what he has just said in a summarizing fashion. It is obvious that he finds this helpful. It organizes his thoughts,
it helps him to remain on the main track. Yet, in that he is not
always successful, as we shall see in due time. Also in this respect
he was a student of Immanuel Kant who toiled on his publications
and often got lost likewise in the thicket of his complex thoughts.
There was still another, equally unphilosophical motive to subject
Rickerts thoughts and ideas to closer scrutiny. This motive was less
esthetic, more or less socio-psychological. It is intriguing that there
was this initially famous and respected philosopher, widely read,

21
Quoted interview with Franz Rickert. Glockner who rented for a while a room
in Rickerts house as did the literary historian Ernst Robert Curtius (18861956),
and the previously mentioned August Faust, gives a slightly dierent story. In a discussion with Curtius about Rickerts writing habit Glockner mentions the fact that
the parlograph was eventually set aside because the secretary could not handle it.
Rickert then dictated his texts to Frau Pfeier, without paying any attention to
punctuation in the often very long sentences, to orthography of the philosophical
concepts, and to the insertion of footnotes. That would have interrupted his stream
of thoughts. The typed manuscript, a first draft, was next drastically edited by hand,
and dictated once more to the typing secretary. This was, Glockner relates, sometimes repeated four or five times. The texts were then given to Rickerts closest
assistants for comments on clarity and readability. This dictating procedure, Glockner
concludes, made the texts too broad and too long. Rickert should have been more
ecient. But Curtius defends Rickert: An ingenious author (. . . .) always imagines,
also when he dictates, readers who are as smart and educated as he himself is;
never a bunch of unknowing students who resist conceptual thought. (Ein geistreicher Schriftsteller (. . . .) stellt sich auch beim Diktieren immer nur Leser vor, die
so klug und gebildet sind wie er selbst; niemals jedoch einen Haufen unwissender
und begristutziger Studenten.) Glockner, o.c., p. 255f.

INTRODUCTION

13

applauded and criticized in the decades before World War I, and

suddenly, within one or two decades, he was set aside and next forgotten. Since I became increasingly critical of vitalistic philosophers
from Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Bergson to Dilthey and Scheler,
and since I felt estranged also from currents like existentialism and
phenomenology, let alone structuralism and so-called post-modernism,
I became curious as to what Rickerts rationalism was actually all
about. The sentiments aired by Golo Mann, and shared by many
in his days and in later decades, were misleading, certainly when
they were not based on a careful reading of his texts. Rickert, I
thought soon after I began to subject his publications to a close reading, was not at all a dusty, humorless, old-fashioned thinker. He
deserved, it was my contention, a serious re-appraisal.
But there is a more fundamental, methodological motive why it
does make sense to get involved in Rickerts thinking and writing.
His ideas about values, culture, and the generalizing (natural-scientific)
and individualizing (cultural-scientific) concept formations had a decisive influence upon the sociologist, whom I have always considered
to be the most influential and important one in sociology, which is
my field of expertise: Max Weber. Rickert and Weber were friends
during their younger years in Berlin, and they were eventually colleagues at the universities of Freiburg and Heidelberg. Reading and
re-reading Webers methodological papers in particular demonstrated
to me that one could not understand his brand of sociology which
he called verstehende Soziologie correctly, if one did not know and understand Rickerts philosophical, methodological and logical writings. To
mention one simple point, the idea of a verstehende Soziologie is misunderstood, if one ties Webers rational notion of Verstehen to Diltheys
conception of it and views it as a psychologically oriented sociology.
Also Webers technique of constructing ideal types (reine Typen, Idealtypen)
is misunderstood, if one has not learnt what the adjectives transzendental (a priori) and rein (pure) mean in neo-Kantian epistemology.
Due to Rickert, Weber employed a neo-Kantian methodology and
was not a Husserlian phenomenologist, let alone an adherent of one
or the other kind of vitalism or psychologism. In the last chapter,
all this will be discussed in more detail.22 We will then also see how
22
Cf. Guy Oakes, Weber and Rickert. Concept Formation in the Cultural Sciences
(Cambridge, Ma.: The MIT Press, 1988). Thomas Burger, Max Webers Theory of
Concept Formation. History, Laws, and Ideal Types (Durham, North Carolina: Duke
University Press, 1976).

14

INTRODUCTION

Rickerts philosophy had a strong echo on other philosophers like

Georg Simmel, Gustav Radbruch, Emil Lask and Karl Mannheim.
RICKERTS PHILOSOPHICAL RELEVANCE ARGUED E CONTRARIO
These rather personal motives are, of course, not a sucient reason
for a detailed representation and analysis of Rickerts writings. Why
should one today pay attention to these often complex and at times
warped thoughts and reflections, and subject them to a close reading? Most of his critics have failed to do this, why should we?
It is the task of the following chapters to demonstrate why Rickerts
neo-Kantian (or maybe better post-Kantian) transcendentalism is less
old-fashioned and out of date than it is usually believed to be. At
this point, its philosophical relevance can only be painted preliminarily in some very broad and thus necessarily not very subtle outlines. To begin with, loyal to Kants three Critiques Rickerts systematic
philosophy was solidly based upon epistemology. The rather traditional epistemological questions he addressed as to the intricate relationships between knowledge and reality, between subjects and objects,
between values and facts have not been answered satisfactorily by
his critics. His detailed analyses in epistemology were usually simply
brushed aside, in particular by those philosophers who superimposed
ontology on epistemology. Likewise his methodological demarcation
of Natural Science (Naturwissenschaft) and Cultural Science (Kulturwissenschaft) was systematically misinterpreted, because its formal logic
was replaced by a substantial ontological juxtaposition of nature
versus culture. This will be discussed in detail in Chapter Five.
In this section I shall try to argue in favor of Rickerts philosophical
relevance by representing briefly and rejecting critically the usual objections against neo-Kantianism in general and Rickerts system in particular. It is, in other words, an argument e contrario which will be
formulated more positively in the succeeding chapters of this study.
It is, to begin with, somewhat rash, of course, to lump philosophical
currents with obvious internal dierences, together into a few paradigms, but this is legitimate if it sheds some light on the question
why Rickerts philosophy has been neglected in the former century
and why this neglect was and still is uncalled for. There was the
predominantly European ontological opposition to transcendentalist
epistemology, launched in particular (but not exclusively) by Nicolai

INTRODUCTION

15

Hartmann.23 In fact, an ontological primacy was juxtaposed to the

alleged epistemological primacy of Kant and a neo-Kantian like
Rickert. The main stumbling block was and still is Kants conviction
that the thing-in-itself (das Ding-an-sich) cannot be known. Reality as
it exists outside human consciousness cannot be known without the
structuring of the experiences by means of the a priori forms of perception (Anschauung), time and space, and the a priori categories of
reason (Verstand ), such as quality, quantity, relations and modality.
This has led to two misconceptions. First, it was and often still is
believed that Kant denied the existence of reality outside consciousness
which was then called his Idealism. Yet, he has stated repeatedly
that this was not his position, emphasizing time and again the objective, autonomous existence of the thing-in-itself, but adding that it
cannot be known as such without the interference of the senses (structured by the a priori forms time and space) and the a priori categories. This was the essence of the juxtaposition of what he called
the noumenon and the phaenomenona position, incidentally, which was
inspired by Humes pair of concepts sensation and reflexion. (Humes
impact on Kant and the neo-Kantians should not be underestimated.
It was, to say the least, a strong source of inspiration.) In any case,
if one wants to maintain the opposition of Idealism versus Realism
one should bear in mind that Kant and the neo-Kantians were not
at all anti-realistic. As we will see in due time, certainly Rickerts
epistemology and philosophy of values was not. His transcendentalism
was in fact a grand attempt to reconcile ontology and epistemology.
A second misconception of the (neo-)Kantian epistemological primacy
was the idea that its alleged Idealism was also a one-sided rationalism. But here again, Kant and certainly a neo-Kantian like Rickert
tried to balance rationalism and irrationalism. As we will see in
Chapter Two Rickert did indeed reject the one-sided irrationalism
of various strands of vitalism (Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Dilthey,
Bergson, Scheler, etc.), but this did not at all mean that he neglected
the irrational forces in life and reality. It was in his view the prime
task of the sciences and philosophy to rationalize the irrationality of
23
Cf. Nicolai Hartmann, Grundzge einer Metaphysik der Erkenntnis, (Essential Features
of a Metaphysics of Knowledge), 1921, (Berlin, Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter, 1925).
As was quite usual in those days (Rickert did the same), Hartmann criticizes neoKantian epistemology without mentioning any of its authors. As the title of his book
indicates, Hartmann tried to replace transcendentalist and idealist epistemology by
an ontology which in the end is metaphysical.

16

INTRODUCTION

reality-in-itself. Each attempt to understand it, is an attempt to grasp

it rationally by means of the a priori categories. This is thus not a
denial of irrationality and irrational forces. The main agenda of neoKantianism was a rational understanding of the irrational by means
of the a priori categories. It is absurd to accuse Rickert of a onesided rationalism that denies the existence, importance and influence
of irrationalism. The data which enter mans consciousness through
the senses are as such a disorganized and irrational mass which is
being put in a rational order by the a priori categories, and, as we
shall see in greater detail, by the transcendental and objective formal values as well. Yet, he did not pretend, as the vitalists do with
the help of their category Life and their emphasis upon intuition,
to be able to penetrate into the irrationality of reality-as-such.
The ontological primacy vis--vis the epistemological primacy has
inspired and reinvigorated the nineteenth century vitalism (Lebensphilosophie)
of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. Despite severe internal dierences,
vitalistic ontology and its inherent irrationalism24 penetrated deeply
into twentieth century philosophy, after World War I first, and then
under various disguises, such as French and German existentialism
and certain strands of post-modernism, again after World War II.
Not Kant, the summit of transcendentalist epistemology, was any
longer the fountain of philosophical thoughts and insights, but Marx,
Nietzsche, Freud, a vitalistically interpreted (and therefore misinterpreted) Darwin, and above all Heidegger, were the giants on the
shoulders of whom various philosophers stood and are still standing.
A common trait of this ontological and vitalistic rejection of neoKantian epistemology was and still is its anti-normative stance.25
As we shall see in the fourth chapter, Rickert emphasized the sociological fact of mans inherent attachment to values (Wertbezogenheit),
but if it comes to the scientific approach to realityand he defined
philosophy as a scientific enterpriseone should refrain from evaluating,
24
Friedrich Nietzsche and Henri Bergson were, of course, the most influential
philosophers of vitalism. Rickerts interpretation of their brands of vitalism will be
discussed in the second chapter.
25
The normative, moral and political dimensions of these intellectual giants (even
if they were illegitimately imposed, as in the case of Darwin) have had a great
influence on philosophy and the social sciences. The political component of Heideggers
ontology in particular has been broadly discussed. Cf. Pierre Bourdieu, Lontologie
politique de Martin Heidegger (The Political Ontology of Martin Heidegger), (Paris:
Les ditions de Minuit, 1988). Victor Farias, Heidegger and Nazism, 1987 (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1989). Rdiger Safranski, Ein Meister aus Deutschland. Heidegger

INTRODUCTION

17

normative judgments (Wertungsfreiheit). This position, as is well known,

was adopted also by Max Weber in his logic of the social sciences.
This has probably been the greatest stumbling block for the critics
of neo-Kantian epistemology. The Kantian concept of critique, as in
the Critique of Pure Reason, was of course not at all socio-political
and thus allegedly concrete, but epistemological and therefore
allegedly abstract.
If one keeps in mind that transcendentalist epistemology is not onesidedly idealistic and rationalistic and if one seriously listens to Rickerts
critique of vitalism and its irrationalism, one will not be convinced
by the arguments in favor of the ontological primacy. It becomes
obvious that Rickerts analyses of the traditional philosophical questions
as to the relationships of subjects and objects, of reality and consciousness, and of reality and values are not at all obsolete. Also his
logical rather than ontological demarcation of Natural Science and
Cultural Science as two mutually complementary approaches to reality
deserves closer attention than it received in the last century.
Rickerts critical analysis of irrationalism as a fashionable current
in the philosophy of his days is still much up-to-date in view of various popular so-called post-modernist philosophies which replace
abstract analytic thought by concrete aesthetic and emotional
reflections.26 And also his emphasis upon the need to abstain from
value- judgments and normative evaluations in philosophy and the
cultural sciences deserves renewed attention todaya position also
taken by Max Weber, whose logic of the social sciences was severely
criticized by the adherents of the so-called Frankfurt School during
the politically and intellectually turbulent 1960s and 1970s.27 Also
on this issue critics failed to understand the analytic distinction
between value relevance (Wertverbundenheit) as a fact and as an abstain-

und seine Zeit (A Master from Germany. Heidegger and his Time), (Mnchen, Wien:
Carl Hanser Verlag, 1994). Heidegger was a student of Rickert and despite philosophical disagreements remained, as Mrs. Verburg told me, a friend of the family.
See Martin Heidegger, Heinrich Rickert, Briefe 1912 bis 1933 und andere Dokumente,
edited by Alfred Denker (Frankfurt a.M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 2002).
26
The popular, well written publications of Richard Rorty come to mind here.
Cf. in particular his volumes of essays Contingency, irony and solidarity, 1989 (Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991) and Objectivity, Relativism and Truth (Idem, 1991).
27
The so-called kritische Theorie of the Frankfurter Schule rejected the abstaining of
value-judgments in the social sciences and in social philosophy, yet engaged in epistemological reflections. Jrgen Habermas, for instance, did not ignore Rickerts epistemology as most vitalists have done, but subjected it to a critical and extensive

18

INTRODUCTION

ing from value judgments (Wertungsfreiheit) as a methodological norm

and democratic value. This will be discussed in more detail later. It
suces here to underline that also in this respect Rickerts philosophy is not at all the kind of obsolete Fremdkrper most of his critics
have declared it to be. The problem is that these critics usually did
not carefully read and re-read Rickerts books and articles. They
usually quoted former critics, and almost blindly copied their often
mistaken views and conclusions.
After World War II Anglo-Saxon philosophy in particular developed
in the positivistic, analytic direction. There are, of course, intrinsic
dierences within this trend which was at first inspired by the prewar Vienna Circle (Carnap, Neurath) and developed later in England,
where Russell first and Wittgenstein next exerted a decisive impact
on contemporary philosophical thought. The latters focus on language
and speech led to a paradigmatic revolution which has aptly been
termed the Linguistic Turn.28 There is admittedly a world of dierence
between the rather Germanic way of thinking and writing of Rickert
and the infinitely more lucid thoughts and sentences of most AngloSaxon analytic philosophers. Yet, as the following chapters hopefully
will indicate there is also in Rickerts transcendentalism a resemblance
with the basic positions and tenets of analytic philosophers. Rickert
rarely mentioned fellow philosophers by name but he was, as we
shall see, impressed and influenced by the mathematical theories of
Frege, who was in a sense the grandfather of analytic philosophy.
For instance, although he did not mention his Begrisschrift (conceptual
script), Rickert was like Frege constantly in search of words which
could catch meanings in an analytically clear manner. He complained
time and again about the fact that he did not possess such an analytic
language, and was doomed to express his thoughts in everyday life
language. That led him to a verbosity which he regretted thoroughly.
He died in 1936 and could thus not witness the Linguistic Turn.
But it seems to me that he would be much in agreement with the
basic tenets of it. It would, for instance, be interesting to learn how
he would have reacted to Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations of
1953. He would reject the aphoristic approach since he believed in
analysis. See his Ein Literaturbericht (1967): Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften,
in: Jrgen Habermas, Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften (On the Logic of the Social
Sciences), (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970), pp. 71320.
28
Richard M. Rorty (ed.), o.c., 1992.

INTRODUCTION

19

the essentially systematic nature of philosophy. But he would be in

agreement with several of its thoughts and statements. Particularly
Rickerts concept of the meaning bestowing act (Aktsinn), to be discussed in detail later, comes close to Wittgensteins concept of language game and his linguistic behaviorism. There are, to use a
Wittgensteinian concept, a couple of family resemblances.29
Meanwhile, it seems today that analytic philosophy has developed
into a kind of orthodoxy which has acquired rather scholastic characteristics. If that is correct, contemporary philosophy is in need of
a renaissance which, as was the nature also of the Renaissance of
the sixteenth century, should start with a return to the classics in
order to open new avenues towards the future. One of these classics is definitely Immanuel Kant. The epistemological primacy of his
critical, transcendental philosophy is again attracting much attention
these days. As no other philosopher Heinrich Rickert has made an
ongoing attempt to go beyond Kant by constructing a philosophical
system in which traditional ontological, logical, epistemological and
methodological problems are discussed, analyzed and sometimes even
solved. For example, as we shall see in Chapter Five, Rickert resolves
the alleged opposition of the natural and the cultural sciences by a
constructed continuum which, if taken seriously, is able to put an
end to the methodical war (Methodenstreit) that raged in the social sciences and in the philosophical debates of the past century.30
SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY AND HETEROLOGY
Before we delve into the complex world of Rickerts philosophy, we
should try to grasp his idiosyncratic approach which he did not outline specifically but runs as a continuous thread through all of his
thinking and writing. There are three elements in particular that
stand out in this approach, namely the repeated emphasis upon the
systematic nature of philosophy, the constant application of heterology, and the persistent rejection of psychologism.

29
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, translated by G. E. M. Anscombe,
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1976), para 67, p. 32e.
30
Cf. Theodor W. Adorno c.s. (eds.), Der Positivismusstreit in der deutschen Soziologie
(The Positivism Conflict in German Sociology), 1969, (Neuwied, Berlin: Luchterhand
Verlag, 1972).

20

INTRODUCTION

As we shall see later, Rickert rejected a predominance of metaphysics in philosophy. To him philosophy is an autonomous science
alongside the specialized (natural and cultural) sciences. It is founded
upon a distinct (transcendentalist) ontology and epistemology and
subjected to the laws and norms of formal logic. It also has its specific
object of investigation and here lies the great dierence between philosophy and the other sciences whose objects are necessarily specialized compartments of reality as a whole. Whereas we experience
the world, including ourselves, pre-reflectively as an undierentiated
whole, each natural science and each cultural science investigates its
own particular, specialized part of reality. Philosophy, on the contrary, should subject das Weltall, that is reality-in-its-totality, realityin-toto (a concept, incidentally, not used by Rickert) to investigation
and concept formation, lest it loses its legitimate, autonomous place
in the realm of sciences. This encompassing object needs, of course,
a systematic, non-specialized approach. Philosophy is systematic or
it is nothing!31 This has ontological and epistemological consequences.
Ontologically Rickert distinguishes dierent yet related realities which
he calls realms: the first realm consists of observable objects (including mans psyche), the second realm consists of understandable meanings and values, and the third realm, which connects the former two,
is the reality of the transcendental I which links the formal and
abstract values to the substantial and concrete objects in a meaning
bestowing act (Aktsinn). As we shall see later, Rickert distinguished
finally a fourth realm of this total reality, the metaphysical Beyond.
This fourth realm, however, is no longer part of scientific philosophy because its concepts are similes, symbols, allegories. It is the
abode of normative worldviews which yield not knowledge but faith.
In order to realize such a systematic approach successfully, the
philosopher must be able to bridge the alternatives and opposites of
various epistemological dilemmas, otherwise he maintains a conceptual fragmentation of reality-in-toto. Rickerts concept formation there-

31
See especially the first two chapters of his Allgemeine Grundlegung der Philosophie
(General Foundation of Philosophy), (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1921), pp. 114;
1424. In his doctoral dissertation and first book sized publication Rickert already
emphasized the systematic nature of each science, including philosophy. See Heinrich
Rickert, Zur Lehre von der Definition, (On the Theory of the Definition), 1888,
(Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1929, 3rd improved ed.), p. 23.

INTRODUCTION

21

fore operates with opposite pairs which do not exclude but include
each other: subject and object, immanence and transcendence, theoretical thinking and non-theoretical thinking, thinking and acting,
form and substance, identity and dierence, empirical (sensual) reality and non-empirical (non-sensual) reality, being and validity, facts
and values, Natural Science and Cultural Science, etc. These conceptual pairs are not each others opposites, as in Hegels thesis and
antithesis which are then lifted up (aufgehoben) into a synthesis that
poses a new thesis. They constitute, on the contrary, a mutually
inclusive heterothesis in which the autonomy of the pairs is not dissolved into a synthesis, but fully maintained.32 It is the systematic
cross-reference of polar concepts. The meaning of the one is explained
in terms of the opposite meaning of the other.
Often such heterological arguments border on tautologies. For
instance, he fiercely and recurrently criticizes those philosophers who
proclaim the end of systematic philosophy because according to them
modern philosophy could only focus adequately on parts and components of reality, not on a supposedly total reality. He then argues
that it is only possible to think and talk about parts and components,
if there is a conception of a totality of which they are parts and
components. But such tautologies emerge only when one ontologizes ones concepts. If they are kept analytical, that is a priori, transcendental, heterology and heterothesis will not be tautological. The
heterological approach, as will be seen repeatedly later, rather intends
to preclude the rigidity of ontologized conceptualizations. Due to
heterothesis, Rickerts concepts are not static, but flexible. Concepts,
he says time and again in a typically Kantian vein, do not depict a
static reality, as is done by the so-called Abbildlogikthe logic which
views concepts as pictures or mirrors of reality. They instead demarcate like pickets an eternally changing and moving reality. In a sense,
reality lies or moves in the space between the heterologically juxtaposed concepts which are, as we shall see, a priori, transcendental,
to boot.

32
See e.g. Heinrich Rickert, ibid., pp. 5057. Also Heinrich Rickert, Grundprobleme
der Philosophie. Methodologie. Ontologie. Anthropologie (Fundamental Problems of Philosophy.
Methodology. Ontology. Anthropology), (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1934), para 7:
Philosophie und Heterologie, pp. 3947. See also Christian Krijnen, op. cit., pp.
227298.

22

INTRODUCTION

The main heterological pair of concepts is the real reality of

objects vis--vis the virtual reality of values. It is a crucial heterology.
Once more, Rickerts basic intention was to restore and maintain
the traditional idea that philosophy, unlike the specialized, empirical,
scientific disciplines, is a general science, the aim of which is to acquire
scientific (i.e. rationally controlled) knowledge of reality-in-toto. There
are, of course, various specialized philosophies, such as the philosophy
of religion, art, law, etc. But then the question arises what it is that
justifies the concept of philosophy in all these sub-philosophies. In
order to be able to answer this question, there must be a general
philosophy which sets out to investigate and interpret reality-in-toto
(das Weltall ). In his systematic search for a conception of reality as
a fulfilled (not a final!) totality, Rickert claims that the heterological
distinction between real reality of objects and virtual reality of values is a constitutive component. In fact, as we shall see later, realityin-toto, the admittedly awkward concept of das Weltall, is viewed by
Rickert as a formal possibility rather than a material reality. It is a
hypothesis, or better still a postulate, based upon the heterothesis of
empirical reality and ideal reality, rather than an empirically proven,
ontological thesis.
It is this continuous interplay between seemingly opposite concepts
which constitutes the basic dynamics in Rickerts concept formations.
It prevented him from drifting o into conceptual realism (Begrisrealismus)
and its inevitably static, abstract and schematic rationalism on the
one hand, and into nave empirism and its inevitably unscientific
irrationalism on the other hand.
Heterology is, as we shall see in Chapter Five, of crucial importance
in the conceptual juxtaposition of nature and culture, and concurrently in the methodological juxtaposition and mutual demarcation of Natural Science (Naturwissenschaft) and Cultural Science
(Kulturwissenschaft) as two dierent yet complementary methodologies.
They are not mutually exclusive, as is often believed by the adherents
of so-called Geisteswissenschaften, but can be reconciled heterologically.
The origin of Rickerts heterology of empirical, observable and
virtual, understandable realities lies, of course, in Kants analytic
dichotomy of the noumenon, reality-in-itself that does exist but cannot
be known on the one hand, and the phaenomenon on the other hand
which is reality as it is perceived through our senses (Anschauung)
and is then molded into knowledge by our reason (Verstand ) through
the a priori categories. This dualism, however, has led to a fatal

INTRODUCTION

23

misunderstanding of Kants philosophy in the form of psychologism

in epistemology and logic. Like Frege and the early Husserl,33 Rickert
has systematically and perpetually rejected psychologism in epistemology
and logic. Kants theory of the transcendental a priori as the nonempirical abode of the aesthetic forms time and space, and the categories of reason (quality, quantity, relation, modality), driven by an
absolute consciousness (transzendentale Apperzeption), did quite understandably, yet falsely, cause the idea of psychology as the core of Kantian
transcendentalism. Or phrased dierently, Kants Copernican revolution which claimed that reality as such (das Ding-an-sich) does exist
objectively, but can as such not be known, that, in other words,
knowledge is rather a construction of reality by the a priori, innate
categories imposed, as it were, on the sense impressions, has given
rise to the idea that this is in essence a psychological construction
of reality. Rickert rejects this misinterpretation persistently. This is
not an anti-psychological animus on his part, because he respects
the psychological discipline as an important empirical science.34
Psychology is, according to him, an empirical discipline like the other
(natural or cultural) sciences, and cannot therefore possibly be elevated
to the a priori status of transcendentalism. It is also, like the other
sciences, a specialized and thus fragmentary discipline which cannot
therefore possibly function as the foundation of a systematic philosophy. In other words, psychology should remain an empirical, scientific
discipline and not pretend to provide philosophy with an alleged
33
In 1894 Frege published his in some instances rather sarcastic critique of
Husserls book on the philosophy of mathematics of 1891, attacking its allegedly
psychologistic and subjectivist approach: Gottlob Frege, Rezension von: E. G.
Husserl, Philosophie der Arithmetik. I (Review of: E. G. Husserl, Philosophy of
Arithmetic. Vol. I) in: Gottlob Frege, Kleine Schriften, I Small Papers. Vol. I).
Angelelli (ed.), (Hildesheim, Zrich, New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1990), pp.
179193. Husserl adopted later an anti-psychologistic approach in his Logische
Untersuchungen, Bnd I: Prolegomena zur reinen Logik, (Logical Investigations. Vol. I: Preface
to Pure Logic), 1900, (Tbingen: Max Niermeyer Verlag, 1968), pp. 50192. But
under the influence of Brentanos theory of intentionality and Diltheys descriptive
psychology his phenomenology remained again close to a kind of psychologism
which Frege and Rickert rejected radically and systematically. For a detailed analysis see Jos de Mul, De tragedie van de eindigheid. Diltheys hermeneutiek van het leven, (The
Tragedy of Finiteness. Diltheys Hermeneutics of Life), (Kampen: Kok Agora, 1993,
pp. 253266.
34
For an early example of this misinterpretation of Rickerts logical view of psychology as an empirical science see H. A. Leenmans, De logica der geschiedenis-wetenschap
van H. Rickert. Een critiek, (The Logic of History by H. Rickert. A Critique), (The
Hague: no publisher mentioned, 1924).

24

INTRODUCTION

nucleus or foundation, otherwise philosophy degenerates into a

metaphysical kind of psychologism. Rickert was quite positivistic in
this. To him, psychology was an experimental and natural-scientific
discipline, as for instance developed by Wilhelm Wundt. He was consequently in disagreement with Dilthey who developed a geisteswissenschaftliche, descriptive psychology.35 This brand of hermeneutic, descriptive
psychology allegedly oered a foundation for the normative (i.e. moral
and aesthetic) statements within the Geisteswissenschaften. This, incidentally,
stands also in strong opposition to Rickerts methodological demand
to abstain from normative value-judgments.36 I shall return to Rickerts
anti-psychologism stance in Chapter Three.
THE TWO NEO-KANTIAN SCHOOLS
It is customary to distinguish two neo-Kantian schools: the so-called
South-West German School or, as it was also called, the Baden School, in
which Wilhelm Windelband (18481915), Heinrich Rickert and Emil
Lask (18751915) were the dominant thinkers, and the so-called
Marburg School, which acquired fame by Hermann Cohen (18421918),
Paul Natorp (18541925) and in particular Ernst Cassirer (18741945).37
There was not much intellectual intercourse between the two schools.
In their publications cross-references are either absent, or extremely
sparse.38 Neo-Kantianism is often identified with the Marburg School,
but the fact is that Cohen and Natorp moved away from transcendentalism. Cohen rejected Kants separation of Anschauung and Verstand,
claiming that knowledge emerges only from pure, creative thinking.
35
See e.g. his Ideen ber eine beschreibende und zergliedernde Psychologie, (Ideas about
a Descriptive and Dissecting Psychology), 1894, in: Wilhelm Dilthey, Gesammelte
Schriften, vol. V, (Stuttgart: Teubner; and Gttingen: Vanden Hoeck & Ruprecht, 1957,
2nd ed.), pp. 139240.
36
Cf. Jos de Mul, o.c., pp. 206212.
37
See Hans-Ludwig Ollig (ed.) Neukantianismus (Neo-Kantianism), (Stuttgart: Reclam,
1982). The volume contains several texts of the two neo-Kantian schools. Also:
W. Flach, H. Holzhey, eds., Erkenntnistheorie und Logik im Neukantianismus (Epistemology and Logic in Neo-Kantianism), (Hildesheim: Gerstenberg Verlag, 1980).
This book also contains several neo-Kantian texts.
38
In Ernst Cassirer, Zur Logik der Kulturwissenschaften. Fnf Studien (On the Logic of
Cultural Sciences. Five Studies), 1942, (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,
1961) Windelband and Rickert are only mentioned briefly. Neither Rickerts voluminous volume Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begrisbildung which is a fundamental
discussion on the logic of the historical discipline, nor his shorter Kulturwissenschaft
und Naturwissenschaft are refered to at all. His critique of Rickerts logic and methodology
is proportionally sparse.

INTRODUCTION

25

After a return to orthodox Judaism, he moved to Berlin, where he

taught at a Jewish theological seminary. Here he was more interested
in religious issues of worldview than in epistemology and scientific
philosophy. Natorp too moved away from transcendental philosophy
in the direction of Platonism, emphasizing its mystical thinking and
focusing on the subjective, concrete existence. Cassirer, who was initially under the strong influence of his teacher Cohen,39 was a prolific
writer, a great expert in the history of philosophy in general and of
Kants philosophy in particular.40 Cassirer developed his neo-Kantianism
into a cultural philosophy which, particularly in his celebrated Philosophie
der symbolischen Formen, was closely connected with such culturalscientific disciplines as cultural anthropology and comparative religion.41
As I shall argue in the Conclusion, Cassirer was much more successful
in his cultural philosophy than Rickert has been at the end of his life.
Wilhelm Windelband (18481915) introduced the critical, yet debatable notion that Kants vision of Wissenschaft was too one-sidedly oriented towards and influenced by the natural sciences. In his famous

39
At the end of his life Cassirer wrote an essay commemorating the hundredth
birthday of Cohen: Ernst Cassirer, Hermann Cohen, 18421918, in: Social Research,
vol. X:2, 1943, pp. 219232.
40
Cf. Ernst Cassirer, Kants Leben und Lehre (Kants Life and Doctrine), 1918,
(Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft; Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2001;
volume 8 of the Hamburg Edition of Cassirers Collected Works in 25 volumes).
Cassirer also co-edited the publication of Kants collected works. For a complete
bibliography of Cassirer see Raymond Klibansky, H. J. Paton (eds.), Philosophy and
History. The Ernst Cassirer Festschrift, 1936 (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1963), pp.
338353.
41
Ernst Cassirer, Philosophie der symbolischen Formen (Philosophy of Symbolic Forms),
three volumes, vol. One: Die Sprache (Language/Speech), vol. Two: Das mythische
Denken (Mythological Thought), vol. Three: Phnomenologie der Erkenntnis (Phenomenology
of Knowledge), 1925, (Darmstadt: Primus Verlag, 1997). This intellectual transition took place after his move to Hamburg University in June 1919. Here he got
acquainted with the famous Cultural-Scientific Library Warburg, erected by the
wealthy businessman Aby Warburg. The library harbored an enormous stock of
historical, cultural-anthropological and sociological books which Cassirer used intensively while writing his three volumes on the philosophy of symbolic forms. According
to Paetzold, Hamburg was the place where Cassirer became a cultural philosopher.
See Heinz Paetzold, Ernst Cassirer. Von Marburg to New York. Eine philosophische Biographie
(Ernst Cassirer. From Marburg to New York. A Philosophical Biography), (Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1995), p. 47. On Cassirer and the Warburg Library:
ibid., pp. 6880. At the end of his life, living in the United States as a refugee
(New Haven, 19411944; New York, 19441945) Cassirer expanded and intensified
his interests in cultural philosophy. Cf. Paetzold, o.c., pp. 191222. See Ernst Cassirer,
An Essay on Man. An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1944; reprint: New York: Doubleday, 1951) and Ernst Cassirer,
The Myth of the State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1946).

26

INTRODUCTION

inaugural address as the Rektor (Vice-President) of the University of

Strasburg, 1894, he argued that one should distinguish two basic
approaches to reality which leads to two logically and methodologically dierent, yet not mutually exclusive sciences: Geisteswissenschaften
(sciences of the mind) and Naturwissenschaften (sciences of nature).
There is not a principal dierence between these two, but they should
be distinguished methodologically: the former focus on what dierentiates
and is unique (idiographic), the latter on what is general and law
like (nomothetic).42 We will discuss Windelbands theory of the
demarcation of the sciences in greater detail in Chapter Five. Rickert,
as we will see then, elaborates on Windelbands theory, yet rejects
the concept Geisteswissenschaft as it suggests a psychologistic approach.
After all, the concept Geist (spirit, mind, consciousness) is easily identified
with Seele (soul, psyche). However, Rickerts substitution of the concept
Geisteswissenschaft by Kulturwissenschaft and of the concepts idiographicnomothetic by the concepts individualizing-generalizing is, as we
will see, more than just playing with words.43
COMPOSITION
The following chapters are the result of a close reading and re-reading of Rickerts publications. The main focus was on his books and
less on his essays, since he incorporated the latter often verbatim in
the former. I did, of course, read the essays and at times incorporated
them in my discussion of Rickerts theories, if they oered additional
information. It is my contention that most of the (often critical) discussions of Rickerts writings have not been the result of a careful

42
Wilhelm Windelband, Geschichte und Naturwissenschaft (History and Natural
Science), 1894, in: Prludien. Aufstze und Reden zur Philosophie und ihrer Geschichte
(Preludes. Essays and Lectures on Philosophy and its History), vol. 2, (Tbingen:
Mohr-Siebeck, 1915), pp. 136160. Windelband was more a historian of philosophy than a philosopher of history. He earned fame in particular with his textbook
that deservedly acquired the status of a classic, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie
(Textbook of the History of Philosophy), 1891, edited and enlarged with a chapter on philosophy in the 20th century by Heinz Heimsoeth, (Tbingen: MohrSiebeck, 1957, 15th ed.).
43
It is in this context interesting to read Hempels essay Explanation in Science
and in History, 1963, in: James H. Fetzer (ed.), The Philosophy of Carl G. Hempel. Studies
in Science, Explanation, and Rationality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 276296.
Without mentioning them he addresses the same logical and methodological issues as
Windelband and Rickert, albeit within the paradigm of analytic philosophy.

INTRODUCTION

27

reading and re-reading of his texts. They often discuss ideas and
theories in a fragmentary manner which is not only unfair but what
is worse scientifically reproachable.44 In addition critics often repeat
the criticism of other critics without apparently checking these criticisms
by reading Rickerts own texts. All this does, of course, not help at
all to understand what Rickert actually meant to say. Therefore I
found it necessary to read and re-read him closely and follow him,
as it were, step by step, trying to understand his often complex and
abstract, yet never boring and bone-dry argumentations without subjecting them to hasty judgments which are by definition almost always
prejudgments.
I found it necessary to write this book in English. His opus magnum
on the limits of Natural-Scientific concept formation which is, as we
shall see in the fifth chapter, an elaborate logic of historical research,
has been translated into English, albeit in an abridged edition.45 His
books on epistemology, methodology, logic and philosophy of values
are not available in English. It is therefore hard for the Anglo-Saxon
world to get acquainted with Rickerts peculiar philosophy which at
present is experiencing a modest renaissance in Europe. Hopefully,
the present study may lead to more translations of Rickerts work.46
But there is a more private reason for this English publication. I
found it heuristically helpful to represent Rickerts ideas in English
and to translate quotations from Rickert into English. I would find
it extremely dicult, if not impossible, to do so in the case of Hegel,
Husserl or Heidegger, but to my pleasant surprise Rickerts German
was, despite the complexity of his ideas, surprisingly transparent and,
apart from a few technically philosophical concepts, not at all dicult
to translate.
The first chapter presents a first introduction to Rickerts philosophy by means of a brief summary. It is meant to facilitate the reading of this book with a general overview that omits all the complex
44
A telling example presents R. G. Collingwood who in less than two pages summarizes and severely criticizes Rickerts concept of history and his historical methodology: The Idea of History, 1946, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 168170.
45
Heinrich Rickert, The Limits of Concept Formation in Natural Science. A Logical Introduction
to the Historical Sciences (abridged edition), edited and translated by Guy Oakes, o.c.
46
The books most appropriate for English translation are, in my view, the small,
lucid Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft, o.c., the also lucidly written introduction
to his own philosophy Grundlegung der Philosophie, o.c., and in particular the critical
and at times ironical study on vitalism which will be discussed extensively in Chapter
Two: Die Philosophie des Lebens, o.c.

28

INTRODUCTION

details of his philosophical system. The chapter can be read as a

kind of map which indicates the main roads through the thicket of
Rickerts thinking. Summaries are usually placed at the end of books.
I find it much more helpful to start with one.
The second chapter deals with Rickerts critique of Lebensphilosophie
(vitalism) which he rejects in so far as it presents a set of philosophical fads and fashions. However, in this critique too he argues
in terms of heterology, that is, he is not a proponent of the abstract,
lifeless and rationalist philosophy most vitalists object to. Throughout
his philosophical thinking and writing Rickert searches for a connection between perception and reason, between senses and mind,
between estheticism and rationalism. In addition he agrees with Kant
that ethics ( praktische Vernunft) has priority over thinking (theoretische
Vernunft). Thinking, as we will see in the second chapter, ends up in
judgments (Urteile) which are in fact acts related to values. Despite
his criticism of American pragmatism he comes at distinct moments
in his epistemology and philosophy of values close to a pragmatic
and behaviorist position.
The third chapter focuses on the most dicult part of Rickerts
philosophy: his epistemology and logic which is, again heterologically, tied to his ontology and, although almost residually, to metaphysics. It is necessary to delve into his often rather cumbersome
epistemological reflections in order to understand his philosophy of
values and his logic of the historical, cultural sciences.
The fourth chapter discusses his philosophy of values in which he,
again heterologically, juxtaposes the observable and explainable reality of objects with the understandable and virtual reality of meanings and values. He distinguishes, as we shall see, three realms: first
the reality of objective facts, second the reality of formal values,
whereas the third realm, consisting of the transcendental Ego, connects these two heterologically into a total reality. The central concept here is Aktsinn, i.e. the meaning bestowing act which ties the
second realm of values to the first realm of facts, events and objects.
At this crucial point his transcendentalism results surprisingly in a
theory of action. Beyond that reality lies the metaphysical world
which cannot be reached by rational, scientific concepts but only
suggested by symbols, similes, allegories. It lies beyond the reach of
science but constitutes the coping-stone of his systematic philosophy,
since it represents the final form of reality-in-toto.

INTRODUCTION

29

The fifth chapter discusses Rickerts demarcation of Natural Science

(Naturwissenschaft) and Cultural Science (Kulturwissenschaft) as two heterologically related approaches to reality. As in everyday life sensations and reflections, scientific approaches to reality are either
generalizing or individualizing. The generalizing approach is essentially ahistorical, whereas the individualizing approach is essentially
historical. The former aims at law-like statements, whereas the latter is rather descriptive and sensitizing. In fact, although he did not
formulate it explicitly so, Rickert constructed an ideal typical continuum between two heterological opposites. On this continuum the
various empirical sciences are locatedsome more generalizing, like
physics, chemistry, or experimental psychology, some more individualizing like history and cultural sociology, others somewhere in the
middle of the continuum.
The sixth and final chapter presents a discussion of Rickerts relevance, in particular in view of the cultural sciences. There is no
one-to-one, direct influence to speak of. However, in various publications there is a strong echo of his work. In some cases, there is
an influence on Rickerts thinking in return. I shall single out some
of the most prominent examples of this echo and its responsive chord.
Georg Simmel, Emil Lask, Gustav Radbruch, Johan Huizinga, Karl
Mannheim and in particular Max Weber will be reviewed. These
are not exhaustive representations and analyses of their writings but
rather brief discussions of their intellectual link with Rickerts work.
The conclusion will present a personal, critical evaluation of Rickerts
oeuvre and will end with the question, what then Rickerts relevance
today actually could be.

CHAPTER ONE

A BIRDS-EYE VIEW OF RICKERTS PHILOSOPHY

Before we turn to a representation and interpretation of Rickerts
ideas and theories, based on a close reading of his texts, it might
be helpful to summarize briefly the main components of his complex and at times rather abstract philosophical system. There is the
happy circumstance that Rickert himself presented a couple of summaries of his ideas. To begin with, the first chapter of his General
Foundation of Philosophy explains the main lines of his idiosyncratic thinking. Secondly, two years before his death he published
Fundamental Problems of Philosophy which reads as a recapitulation of his philosophical system, and was obviously meant as an
introductory text for lay-people. Finally, at the request of a philosophical periodical he wrote a brief summary of seven pages. This
document was published again in 1982.1 Although these publications
have been helpful in writing the present concise summary of Rickerts
thoughts and thinking, I shall allow myself a considerable amount of
interpretational liberty. The succeeding chapters will follow Rickerts
texts as closely as possible, but in this summary I shall for claritys
sake assume some distance from them. The following points, it seems
to me, provide a concise synopsis of his philosophy.
(1) Rickert is not happy when his philosophy is branded neoKantian, obviously because he finds his philosophy of values and
the related logic and methodology too original and authentic to be
put into the context of an existing brand of philosophy. Yet, particularly
in three aspects he remains a loyal follower of the great philosopher
of Knigsberg, namely (a) in the idea of a transcendental philosophy,
(b) in the ongoing emphasis upon the distinction between form and

1
Cf. (1) Heinrich Rickert, Allgemeine Grundlegung der Philosophie I, (General Foundation
of Philosophy. Vol. I (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1921), pp. 149; (2) Grundprobleme
der Philosophie. Methodologie, Ontologie, Anthropologie (Fundamental Problems of Philosophy.
Methodology, Ontology, Anthropology), (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1934); (3) Thesen
zum System der Philosophie, (Theses on the System of Philosophy), in: H.-L. Ollig
(ed.), Neukantianismus, (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1982), pp. 174181.

32

CHAPTER ONE

content, and (c) in the epistemological conviction that reality outside

human consciousness (das Ding-an-sich) is irrational and thus inaccessible for rational knowledge. Rickert calls this reality a heterogeneous
continuum.
(a) His transcendentalism is primarily epistemological, but secondly
also ontological. It has its origin in Kants view that reality-in-itself
(das Ding-an-sich), i.e. the world of facts, objects (including other living
beings) and events can as such not be known. They constitute in
that respect an irrational mass of senseless material. But human
beings experience these objects through the sense-organs, these experiences are, as it were, structured first by the a priori forms time and
space into a phenomenal Anschauung and next into a rational, intelligible order by the categories of the Verstand which function in mans
consciousness prior to any experience. We order our sense-experiences
in terms of here-and-there (space) and then-now-later (time). These
experiences are next structured by means of rational categories such
as quality, quantity, causality, etc. which are also part of human
consciousness prior to experience. This prior-to-experience of the
concepts is called transcendental. Because of this subjective nature
of the categories transcendentalism is often described in psychological terms, and because of its anti-realism (or anti-empiricism) it is
identified with metaphysics. Rickert rejects both vehemently and consistently. Psychology to him is one of the empirical sciences which
investigates the functions of the psyche, preferably in an experimental
manner, but it cannot be the philosophical essence of epistemology,
just as sociology or economics cannot assume such a philosophical
position. Moreover, Rickert emphasizes cogently that philosophy is
a scientific discipline which diers from the other (natural and cultural) sciences in that its object of investigation is not one specialized compartment of reality, as is the case with the dierent scientific
disciplines, but reality-in-toto, encompassing, total reality.
(b) As in Kants ontology and epistemology, Rickert sees concepts
as formal, abstract, contentless categories which must, as it were,
be imposed on experienced contents in order to generate rational
knowledge. This is, in fact, such a simple fact that we do not realize it in everyday life. After all, through the words and sentences of
our language we impose on experienced realities categories which
are in themselves empty (formal). The word tree is quite general
and abstract, but becomes concrete and specific when we apply it
to a particular apple or cherry tree. By doing so, we in a sense put

RICKERTS PHILOSOPHY

33

order on a reality which in and of itself cannot possibly be known.

Through our language this chaotic mass is altered into a coherent,
meaningful and valuable order. The sciences and in particular of
course philosophy, repeat this procedure but now in a logically ruled
procedure, called methodology.
(c) Rickert emphasizes the unbridgeable gap between reality and
concepts, and therefore rejects the representational logic (Abbildlogik)
and its inherent realism. Realitythe world of natural objects, historical events, psychological experiences, etc.as we experience it
through our sense-organs, does not contain and exhibit any sharp
boundaries. It is, as he phrases it, a heterogeneous continuum. There
are fluent transitions between everything that exists and occurs in
reality. Not only nature, as an old saying has it, but also culture
does not jump. Everything flows. This is realitys continuity. But
there is still something else going on in reality: not one single human
being, thing, or event is completely identical with someone else,
something else or another event. There are at most some similarities between them. In other words, each component of reality has
its own special, singular, individual character. Everything is dierent.
It is realitys heterogeneity. Wherever we look, we will always find
this combination of the floating continuity and the individual (special, singular) heterogeneity. This is why reality as a heterogeneous
continuum may be called irrational. If our concepts should represent this heterogeneous continuum, as the representational logic wants
them to do, it would saddle them with an impossible task. In the
language of everyday life, and more structured and logically ordered
in the conceptual language of the sciences, we do not depict the
complex heterogeneous continuum but, on the contrary, simplify and
in a sense distort it.
We can only master it scientifically (i.e. rationally), if we separate
the continuity from the heterogeneity, conceptually transforming the
heterogeneous continuum into a homogeneous continuum on the one
hand, and a heterogeneous discretum on the other. The former is
performed by mathematics, the latter by the dierent (natural and
cultural) sciences. As to the latter, it all depends on the point of
view, where and how such a heterogeneously discrete segment is cut
out of reality-in-toto, defining that specific segment as its proper object
of research and concept formation. Rickert distinguishes two main
points of view: the generalizing and the individualizing approach,
respectively applied by the natural and the cultural sciences.

34

CHAPTER ONE

(2) Rickert then defends, to begin with, the thesis that philosophy
ought to be both scientific (i.e. non-metaphysical) and systematic. That
is, philosophy focuses, like the other sciences on empirical reality,
i.e. the reality which we experience through our senses. The scientific
approach is also called by him theoretical, in contrast to the socalled a-theoretical approaches of music, the arts, religion, eros.2
Within the orbit of the sciences philosophy is not just a science
among other sciences, but occupies a relatively exalted position, since
its object of investigation is reality-in-toto, unlike the specialized natural and cultural sciences which explore distinct parts of reality. Its
aim is to construct concepts which refer to das Weltall, to total reality, not just to one specific, specialized part of reality. This, of course,
needs a systematic approach. The concepts and their logically coherent theories form, as it were, a network which help us to know and
understand reality not only rationally (i.e. logically and not just intuitively), but also systematically (i.e. not compartmentalized, as is necessarily the case with the specialized natural and cultural sciences).
Reality-in-toto cannot be reconstructed by simply adding up the specialized scientific accounts of reality, and their specific philosophies.
Neither does general, systematic philosophy come about by simply
adding up the philosophies of various scientific disciplines, such as
legal, social, economic, political, natural philosophy. That procedure
would, of course, not lead to a philosophy with its own autonomy
and authenticity, its own logical and methodological space among
the other sciences.
Yet once more, philosophy is not just a specialized discipline alongside, or in the service of, other specialized sciences. It has, as has
been remarked before, a relatively exalted position but that should
not be interpreted in a Platonic or Hegelian sense. Rickert uses the
following metaphor: philosophy is still the queen of the sciences, but
the days of its autocratic reign are over; it reigns today as in a constitutional monarchy, i.e. in constant communication with the parliament of sciences. Philosophy, we may also say, is no longer the
prima donna she was in former days, but a prima inter pares.

Rickert juxtaposes theoretisch and atheoretisch as synonyms of scientific and

non-scientific. I translate atheoretisch literally into a-theoretical instead of nontheoretical. Similarly, throughout this book I shall use ahistorical as a technical
term instead of non-historical.
2

RICKERTS PHILOSOPHY

35

(3) This emphasis upon a Weltall and upon the concurrent need of
a non-specialized, systematic philosophy sounds rather old-fashioned
and quite pass today. However, this was already so in Rickerts days,
and he was fully aware of that! He singles out Nietzsches vitalism and
Kierkegaards existentialism, and their manifold followers, as the main
representatives of an anti-rational and anti-systematic philosophy.
But the fragmented vision of philosophy is, he realizes, also fostered
by the strong specialization of the various, natural-scientific as well
as cultural-scientific disciplines each of which, if they are interested
in philosophy at all, develops and promotes its own field-specific
philosophy. In opposition to all this, Rickert sticks stubbornly to his
total and systemic approach for two main reasons. First, if one
sticks to the allegedly inevitable compartmentalization of philosophy
in as many specialized philosophies as there are scientific disciplines,
one must answer the question what it is that justifies the qualification
of their being philosophies. Or, in other words, what is the genus
of which these specialized philosophies are specimens? Second, to
answer this question satisfactorily general philosophy needs to possess
(a) its own object of investigation and (b) its own characteristic approach
to this object. If the object cannot be a compilation of the specialized
objects of the empirical sciences, it must be reality-in-toto. In order
to be able to investigate this total reality, it must be systematic.
That may be old-fashioned, but the question isalso nowadays
whether it is logically unsound.
Rickert does realize that Weltall, reality-in-toto, is a rather problematic
and hazardous concept. It smacks of Platonic metaphysics, i.e. the
vision of an encompassing, overarching reality from which the empirical
realities, with which we humans have to do and in which we live
day by day, emanates. This is not at all what Rickert means by it.
There are several passages in his writings which indicate that the
envisaged reality-in-toto is a Kantian postulate which one must stick
to, in order to avoid the fragmentation of philosophical thought into
many specialized philosophies. It is, in other words, more of an epistemological than an ontological and metaphysical concept. It is a
fact, Rickert argues rather phenomenologically, that in our daily
existence we do experience reality pre-reflectively as a whole, i.e. in
toto, and thus not in the specialized terms of the various, compartmentalizing sciences. It is then the task of the philosopher to systematize
and indeed rationalize this pre-reflective totality of reality, but that
does not mean that he has to get lost in the quicksand of metaphysics.

36

CHAPTER ONE

What is at stake here is, of course, the philosophical status of the

Weltanschauung, i.e. the worldview. There are, Rickert argues, many
worldviews which are founded upon a particular component of realityin-toto and then generalized into an encompassing, metaphysical status.
Examples are Nietzsches Life, Kierkegaards Existence, Freuds
Eros, Bergsons lan vital, etc. Rickert rejects the view of philosophy
as just another metaphysical worldview, or even worse as an arbitrary compilation of existing worldviews. He rather sees his own philosophy of values as a Weltanschauungslehre, i.e. as worldview theory
which reflects rationally and critically about human life. But this worldview theory, which constitutes, of course, an anthropology, does not
oer a metaphysical, normative vision of what human life should be,
or ought to be all about. This, incidentally, is one of the reasons
why Rickerts philosophy did not have the emotional appeal that
Nietzsche, Bergson, or Heidegger exertedand still exert today, we
may add.
(4) The main aim of his philosophy is to acquire scientifically sound
(theoretical) knowledge of reality-in-toto. In this sense epistemology
(closely linked to formal logic and methodology) has a primacy over
ontology and stands apart from metaphysics. However, this is not to
say that he does not engage in ontological reflections. On the contrary,
his ideas about reality are distinctly ontological. At the root of his
ontology is the distinction between two kinds of reality, the sensible
(sinnliche), explainable (Erklren) reality of the experiences and the nonsensible (unsinnliche), intelligible (Verstehen) reality of the meanings and
values. (This runs, of course, parallel to the Platonic distinction of
the aesthetic and the understandable realitythe aisthton and the
notonor what Hume called the sensible vis--vis the intelligible
reality.) Contrary to the persistent epistemological, Cartesian dualism
of body-soul (or, in German, Geist which is usually used as an equivalent for psyche, or soul), Rickert argues that reality consists of three
rather than these two dimensions: next to the sensible/observable
corporeal reality, consisting of material objects, and the also sensible/
observable psychic reality, consisting of psychic/conscious processes
both of which can be studied empirically and are open to causal
explanation (kausales Erklren)there is as a second realm the nonsensible, intelligible, understandable yet also real reality of meaning (Sinn, Bedeutung) which are open to a dierent kind of knowledge
which is usually called understanding (Verstehen). To give an example,

RICKERTS PHILOSOPHY

37

men communicate by means of language. While speaking there are

physical and psychic processes involved which can be studied empirically. However, the meaning of the words are non-sensible, yet very
real. They are understandable, rather than empirically measurable.
The linguistic meanings constitute an autonomous reality which is
demonstrated by the fact that they can continue to exist and to be
commonly understood even when there is no spoken or written
expression anymore. We do not need any spoken or written texts in
order to understand words like water, bread, air, etc. Rickert still
adds the fact that the sensible world develops all the time, is in a
constant flux. We observe, for instance, how a leaf is green in the
summer and turns brown in the fall. However, the meaning of the
word green never flows over into brown. Words in our language
have relatively permanent meanings, otherwise we would not be able
to communicate at all. The meaning of the words for the three colors of the trac lights cannot suddenly or gradually be changed into
red, white and blue.
Meanings are, of course, not limited to linguistic words. A facial
expression, a glance of the eyes, a handshake, can often say more
than words. In a shared culture we do understand (rather than cognitively know) the facial and bodily gestures of our fellow men. They
are an inherent element of our daily communication. Likewise, a
serious disruption of communication may occur, if one is not acquainted
with the meanings of gestures in a foreign culture. The very same
argument holds true for non-verbal expressions such as those of
music, the arts, religion, eros, etc. This again demonstrates the fact
that meanings constitute an autonomous reality vis--vis the sensible
reality of physical and psychic objects.
(5) There is an additional dimension or component of this nonsensible, intelligible reality of the meanings of words or similar expressions. Take theoretical (i.e. scientific) statements as an example. In
order to be communicated at all they must, of course, possess an
understandable meaning. However, we want the statement also to
be true! That is, the value of truth (and its counterpart falseness) is
involved. Meaningfulness and meaninglessness, sense and non-sense,
are interlinked with values and counter-values. A scientific statement
which is proven to be false is meaningless, and if it is true, it is
meaningful. Likewise, non-theoretical expressions like music, the arts,
religion, etc. contain understandable and communicable meanings,

38

CHAPTER ONE

but represent simultaneously also values and counter-values. In other

words, the non-sensible (unsinnliche) and understandable reality which
Rickert distinguishes from the sensible (sinnliche) and explainable reality, consists of meanings and values. And there is an important
dierence between these two realities: the denial of the facts of the
latter results in nothingness, in non-facts and can thus be summarily discarded from our epistemological interest; the denial of values
of the former results in a counter-value which in history and society may well play a dominant role. Every god encounters in this
world somewhere and some time a devil worshipped by people as
a god. It is the task of the philosophical theory of worldviews
(Weltanschauungslehre) to describe and critically analyze these gods and
devils, but it cannot decide scientifically which gods are legitimately to be demonized, or which devils ought to be deified. That
judgment is to be made by men in specific socio-cultural circumstances consisting of institutionalized meaningful configurations
(Sinngebilde). That is still another dimension of Rickerts theory of values, it is the judgment (Urteil ) which in the end connects the abstract
and formal values to the concrete and empirical contents of daily
experience, and which likewise defines objects, processes and phenomena in the empirical reality of experience as being meaningful.
For this judging activity Rickert employs the neologism Aktsinn, i.e.
meaning bestowing act.
(6) Rickert has thus conceptually split reality in two spheres, the
sensible, observable world of facts and objects and the non-sensible,
understandable world of meanings and values. He cannot leave it at
that because he is, as we have seen, in search of reality-in-toto conceptually covered by a total philosophy. There must be a third
reality which reconciles the observable and the understandable realities. His ontology coincides at this point with his epistemology.
Epistemologically, he argues, human knowledge consists of objects
to be known and a subject that knows the objects. The German
word for object is Gegenstand which means literally something standing opposite to something else. Or phrased dierently, a known
object needs a knowing I. But this epistemological subject, the I of
the knowledge process, cannot be the human psyche or consciousness because we can have knowledge of our psyche or consciousness
which then is an object again, as is the case in the specialized scientific
discipline, called psychology. It is equally incorrect to call this knowing

RICKERTS PHILOSOPHY

39

I a metaphysical reality, because it is impossible to conceptualize

such a metaphysical reality in a scientifically satisfactory manner. In
fact, Rickert claims, this I, which Kant called a transcendental apperception or a general consciousness (Bewusstsein berhaupt), precedes
as it were each kind of sensible/observable and non-sensible/understandable objectivity, and can therefore be labeled as pro-physical
rather than meta-physical. It is the immaterial and non-sensible
subject, the transcendental pure Ego which cannot be objectified,
but functions as the original, pro-physical source of all knowledge.
The I involved cannot be experienced indirectly, for instance by
means of words, concepts or intuitions, but functions directly, neither
cognitively nor emotionally, at the moment we set out to acquire
knowledge of the sensible and the non-sensible reality.
(7) Rickert demonstrates here a modus operandi which is characteristic of all of his philosophizing. He called it heterothesis and heterology. It is a permanent thinking and arguing in terms of contrary,
yet reciprocal concepts, i.e. conceptual alternatives which clarify one
another and precludes a one-sided conceptual realism. The one is
always defined in function of the other: transcendental Iexperiential
reality, subject-object, sensible/observable-intelligible/understandable,
general-particular/individual, value-unvalue, natural-cultural, deadalive, mechanical-organic, etc. It seems similar to the Hegelian dialectics, but is dierent in that the thesis-antithesis opposition is not
solved by a synthesis which is in its turn a thesis that calls forth
its antithesis. Rickert does not solve but maintains the tension and
flexibility of the thesis-antithesis dualism, until he finalizes his philosophy in a metaphysical approach of reality-in-toto.
(8) The sciences, but also everyday living outside the world of the
sciences, depend on digital judgments: yes vis--vis no, positive
vis--vis negative. Men can only make such digital judgments about
reality or life in terms of values in science and in daily life we are
driven by interests and motives which are always related to certain
values and meanings. There is, in other words, the anthropological
and ontological fact of the value-relevance, or value-relatedness
(Wertbezogenheit) of men which causes them to constantly relate to values (Wertbeziehung). However, there is also, Rickert emphasizes, a distinct dierence between scientific and everyday life knowledge: the
latter is intrinsically bound by values and their inherent norms, and

40

CHAPTER ONE

therefore will always argue in terms of normative judgments like

beautiful-ugly, kind-unkind, attractive-unattractive, etc., whereas the
latter should at all costs refrain from such normative judgments, lest
it violates the aim of an objective analysis, explanation and interpretation of reality. Scientists are related to values through their
interests, (thus, there is no value-free science), but in their research,
writing and teaching they should obey the scientific norm which tells
them to operate free from value-judgments (wertungsfrei ), lest they
explain their own, private interests and values and not the (naturalscientific) facts and (cultural-scientific) values and norms of the objects
under investigation. Indeed, since the cultural sciences deal with
meanings and values as their objects of investigation the norm of
Wertungsfreiheit is of special importance. We have, meanwhile, left the
realm of General Philosophy and entered the world of the empirical sciences which Rickert characterized in terms of a continuum of
the Natural-Scientific approach versus the Cultural-Scientific Approach.
(9) In Rickerts ontology there is the distinction between the explainable world of the senses, divided into a corporeal and a psychic reality, vis--vis the understandable world of meanings and valuesthe
one being sinnlich, the other unsinnlich. These two realities need, of
course, dierent scientific approaches. Rickert rejects the traditional
distinction of Naturwissenschaft (Natural Science) versus Geisteswissenschaft
(Spiritual Science) since the latter easily leads to all sorts of vague
connotations. Geist is connotated in particular with psyche or consciousness and may then easily lead to a psychologistic, i.e. metaphysical filling in of the idea of a Geisteswissenschaft. Rickert holds
psychology in high respect but it should be kept out of philosophy,
since it is an empirical science which focuses upon the sensible reality of mans inner experiences. (Rickert prefers to define psychologys methodology in natural-scientific terms, as in his days Wundt
did in his experimental psychology. Other social sciences too, like
sociology and economics, are viewed by him primarily in terms of
the Natural-Scientific, generalizing, ahistorical approach.) The counterpart of Natural Science is, according to Rickert, Cultural Science
(Kulturwissenschaft), i.e. the approach to empirical reality in terms of
non-empirical, historical values, norms and meanings.
Natural Science and Cultural Science are usually distinguished in
substantive terms of science of nature and science of culture, the
former investigating the value-free world of measurable, causally

RICKERTS PHILOSOPHY

41

determined, ahistorical objects, the latter investigating the understandable world of historical values and meanings. Nature in Kants
elegant definition is (liberally re-phrased) the world left to its own
development, while culture rather constitutes the world worked
upon by men with their value-related interests and designs. Rickert,
however, is not really in favor of such a substantive dierentiation
of the two main groups of sciences. He rather distinguishes Natural
Science and Cultural Science in the formal terms of two mutually
quite dierent methodologies. Natural Science then is the generalizing approach to reality which searches for general and ahistorical
concepts as the building blocks of general causal laws of development, whereas Cultural Science is the individualizing approach to
reality which coins individual and historically grounded concepts
which are the building blocks of interpretations of particular, individual men, events, and institutions. Particular facts or objects are
for Natural Science just specimens of generic concepts. When these
concepts have been formulated satisfactorily (in accordance with the
demand of verification and/or falsification), there is no need any
longer to search for and investigate more individual facts or objects.
In Cultural Science historical facts and objects remain relevant for
the ongoing research, since the values, norms and meaning to which
they are related will change and develop in time. Newly discovered
historical facts or events will also contribute to the re-formulation of
the cultural-scientific concepts and theories.
Unlike the traditional dichotomy of Naturwissenschaft versus Geisteswissenschaft, Rickerts methodological pair of Natural Science and Cultural
Science must be seen as constructed and therefore non-empirical
ends on a continuum, which is the logical space wherein the empirical sciences operatesome very close to the Natural-Scientific pole
of the continuum, like chemistry, physics, astronomy, etc., others
operating at the opposite pole, like the historical discipline in particular. But most social sciences, like psychology, sociology, economics,
etc. will operate somewhere in between the poles, sometimes close
to the Natural-Scientific end of the continuum, as in behavioristic
psychology or econometrics, sometimes closer to the Cultural Scientific
pole of the continuum, like cultural sociology or institutional economics. The latter are usually active in historical and comparative
analyses and interpretations, rather than in a search for exact laws
of development. The conclusion of this methodological demarcation
of the natural and the cultural sciences is that a conflict of methods

42

CHAPTER ONE

(Methodenstreit) in the social sciences is logically unnecessary. It produces, as the history of these sciences has demonstrated, more noise
than information.
(10) Rickert distinguishes, as we have seen, three dierent, yet interlinked realms (Reiche): first the observable (sinnliche) realm of facts,
objects and events, investigated by the specialized research of the (natural and cultural) sciences; second, the understandable (unsinnliche) realm
of values and meanings; third, the pro-physical realm of the transcendental Ego which functions, as it were, as the motor of the
knowledge process. These three realms constitute ontologically the
reality-in-toto which is the proper object of philosophy as a transcendental, systematic and scientific discipline, next to the various
empirical and specialized (natural- and cultural-) scientific disciplines.
Yet, Rickert realizes, this ontology is still not really total and not
really systematic since it still fragments the world into three components. What can be said about the fundamental anthropological
quest for a meaningful life, for a coherent and overarching view of
the world, of history and of the futurei.e. a worldview that oers
an open and positive perspective on life and history? Or phrased
dierently, what is the logical status of a full-filled (voll-ended )3 existence? These are no longer ontological reflections but clear-cut metaphysical yearnings which, however, may not be neglected, if one
aims at a truly coherent and total vision of reality and history.
To sum up, metaphysics which Rickert carefully keeps out of his
transcendental philosophy is at the end introduced as a kind of copingstone without which philosophy would not be able to remain faithful to its mission of focusing philosophically on reality-in-toto. However,
he wants to remain faithful also to the scientific nature of this total
and systematic philosophy. These two motives exclude each other
and there is no heterology that can solve this dilemma. As we shall
see in Chapter Four, he takes refuge in the theory that metaphysics
is epistemologically and ontologically indispensable as a postulate and
that it can only be conceptualized by means of symbols, similes and
allegories, not by theoretical, i.e. scientific concepts. Naturally, the
ideas of Kant come to mind here. In any case, the metaphysical

3
Instead of the word fulfilled I maintain Rickerts neologistic German concept
voll-ended, translating it into full-filled.

RICKERTS PHILOSOPHY

43

reality-in-toto thus presents an atheoretical reality, comparable to religion, ethics, literature, and the arts. This is a remarkable conclusion,
because at the end of his ontological and epistemological journey
Rickerts theoretical philosophy finds its fulfillment in an atheoretical,
metaphysical Beyond, where knowledge is superseded by faithan
non-religious, agnostic type of faith.

CHAPTER TWO

CRITIQUE OF VITALISM
Das, was lebt, ist etwas anderes als das, was denkt.
Gottfried Benn1

IRRATIONALISM AND INTELLECTUALISM REJECTED2

Rickert publishes in 1920 a small volume which provides a concise
exposition as well as a fierce critique of what he calls in the subtitle
the fashionable philosophical currents of our time. It is a curious
treatise in which he carefully and at times ironically analyses the
various currents of philosophical thought which are usually lumped
together in the concept of Lebensphilosophie, that is philosophy of life
or vitalism.3 Dierent thinkers like Nietzsche, Bergson, Simmel, Dilthey,
James and Scheler pass Rickerts revue, yet it is not so much these
individual, often quite dierent thinkers he is interested in, but rather
the convergence of their ideas as they pertain to their common
1
That which lives diers from that which thinks. Gottfried Benn, Pallas, in:
Provoziertes Leben. Ein Auswahl aus den Prosaschriften, (Provoked Life. A Selection from
the Essays), (Berlin: Ullstein Bcher, nr. 54, 1961), p. 165. Benn calls this die progressive Zerebralisation (the progressive cerebralisation).
2
This dilemma refers exclusively to the world of sciences, including Rickerts
brand of scientific philosophy. In an essay on science and Christianity he defends
the thesis that Christian faith is essentially irrational as it consists in essence of the
intimate relationship of the single soul with a personal, loving God which is, in my
view, a typically Lutheran-pietistic conception of faith. Science, on the other hand,
is, according to Rickert, due to the impact on European thought of Greek philosophy
intellectualistic and of Roman law rationalistic. Cf. Heinrich Rickert, Christentum
und Wissenschaft unter geschichtsphilosophischen Gesichtpunkten, (Christianity and
Science from the Points of View of the Philosophy of History), in: Christentum und
Wissenschaft, 6, 1930, (edited by R. Winkler, H. Sasse), pp. 361376. The essay is
mainly adopted from the seventh chapter of his book Kant als Philosoph der modernen
Kultur, (Kant as Philosopher of Modern Culture), (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1924),
pp. 7693: Griechentum, Rmertum, Christentum.
3
Like so many German concepts Lebensphilosophie is dicult to translate into
English. It means literally philosophy of life but that is quite awkward. Although
I realize this is not optimal, I shall use the concept vitalism as the English variant
of Lebensphilosophie.

46

CHAPTER TWO

irrationalist attack on the alleged intellectualism of German Idealism.4

It was, in particular, Dilthey who set the tone for the vitalism which
Rickert rejects. For instance, when he wrote: Life then is the fundamental fact, which must form the starting point of philosophy. It
is what is known from the inside, it is that behind which one cannot
retreat. Life cannot be brought before the tribunal of reason.5
However, Rickerts book on the Philosophy of Life is not just a
simple and simplistic defense of rationalism. In a sense he sympathizes
with the basic idea of vitalism, namely that ideas, thoughts and concepts do not emerge from an abstract world but from experiences,
or, if one wants to phrase it that way, from life. Knowledge, after
all, originates in sense impressions which are as such not rational by
nature. They emerge, so to say, in the mle of everyday life. These
impressions, however, according to Kant are put into a rational order
by the a priori forms of time and space and by the likewise a priori
categories of thought (Verstand ). Human reason constructs, as it were,
reality epistemologically, including everything that stands for the
concept of life. Rickert follows, as we shall see in the following
chapters, the epistemological path systematically in what he calls his
transcendental philosophy.
The book on vitalism presents a helpful introduction to his philosophical thoughts and convictions. He writes it for a broad audience,
which has the advantage that it lacks the labyrinthine sentences and
thought constructions which were customary for most of his contemporary philosophical colleaguesand, I should add in all honesty,
for Rickert himself at times as well. Its light touch, larded with witty,
at times ironical humor, adds to the accessibility of his ideas. His
expositions of the vitalistic theories and ideas he emphatically disagrees
with, are always clear-cut and fair. His critique is, though at times
quite sharp, at all times to the point. The most important thing is,
4
Heinrich Rickert, Die Philosophie des Lebens. Darstellung und Kritik der philosophischen
Modestrmungen unserer Zeit, (The Philosophy of Life. Exposition and Critique of the
Fashionable Currents of Contemporary Philosophy), 1920, (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck,
1922).
5
Leben ist nun die Grundtatsache, die den Ausgangspunkt der Philosophie bilden
muss. Es ist das von innen Bekannte, es ist dasjenige, hinter welches nicht zurckgegangen werden kann. Leben kann nicht vor den Richterstuhl der Vernunft gebracht
werden. Wilhelm Dilthey, Der Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften,
(The Construction of the Historical World in the Humanities), 1926, B. Groethuysen
ed., Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. VII, (Collected Publications, vol. VII), (Stuttgart:
Teubner Verlagsgesellschaft; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973), p. 261.

CRITIQUE OF VITALISM

47

that this critical analysis of vitalisms irrationalism provides a first

introduction to Rickerts philosophy of values which will be discussed
in greater details in Chapter Four.
Rickert makes it quite clear that he toolike Nietzsche whom he
admired passionately as a young man and still read in his later years,6
or like Bergson, Dilthey, and Simmeldislikes rationalism or intellectualism as the stale remnants of the Enlightenment, locked up in
a fossilized academic dogmatism. Philosophy he believes, in concordance with the representatives of vitalism, should not evaporate in
abstract clouds of concepts and theories which are separated from
reality as it is lived and experienced by human beings. As much as
he still believes in the power and relevance of German Idealism, he
agrees with its vitalistic critics that it has often degenerated into a
dry, dead academism and stale dogmatism. However, philosophy,
Rickert maintains, ought to remain scientific. That means, in his
view it ought to be rational. In this respect he departs from the
vitalists quite radically.
SYSTEMATIC AND SURREALISTIC PHILOSOPHY
Today, after the onslaught of logical positivism, the wide acceptance
of linguistic philosophy, the ontological revolution brought about by
Heidegger, and the irrational mle of so-called post-modernism, it
sounds rather old-fashioned, if not outdated, to learn that Rickert
maintains, even against the odds of his own days, that philosophy
is systematic by nature, or is nothing. However, on closer scrutiny,
this idea of Rickert may be less outdated than one is inclined to
believe at first sight.
To begin with, he is in search of a scientific philosophy. If philosophy
is a scientific enterprise, as Rickert emphatically believes, the question
arises what its own object of investigation is and how it relates to
the specialized, empirical sciences. Empirical reality, i.e. the reality
6
Ibid., p. 179f, footnote 1. As a young student in the summer of 1886, Rickert
confesses, he read Zarathustra with glowing enthusiasm (mit glhender Begeisterung),
in a time when Nietzsche was still unknown. He was then often warned not to
overestimate Nietzsche, but even today I return time and again to his works (und
noch jetzt greife ich immer wieder nach seinen Werken). Yet, he is not able to
range Nietzsche among the great philosophers, as he has failed to address the
timeless problems of philosophy (die zeitlosen Probleme der Philosophie). For
other reasons as well, we shall see presently.

48

CHAPTER TWO

we experience through our sense-organs, is carefully analyzed by various scientific disciplinesby the so-called natural sciences (Naturwissenschaften) first and foremost, and subsequently, where these sciences
run up against their limits, as in the case of the non-empirical values,
by the cultural sciences (Kulturwissenschaften). According to Rickert,
these two groups of sciences, as we shall see in Chapter Five, must
be seen on a continuum rather than in mutual opposition or even
exclusion. These empirical scientific disciplines necessarily compartmentalize reality, since they focus on reality in terms of their own,
specific methods of research and logic of concept formation. Philosophy
then is an additional and autonomous Wissenschaft which tries to
approach reality not in a compartmentalized but in a total, systematic
manner. Various scientific disciplinesphysics, chemistry, astronomy,
psychology, sociology, economics, history, etc.dissect, as it were,
reality into distinct parts or components. That is logically legitimate,
Rickert argues, but reality as a whole is more than and dierent
from the sum of these parts. Each of them (distinct disciplines, ACZ)
covers, according to its conception, only a part of the world. The
whole is something else than a mere stringing together of its parts.7
Rickert warns against the devastating eect, if philosophy followed
this compartmentalization and cut itself up into specialized philosophies, such as philosophy of biology, of physics, of psychology, of
sociology, of history, etc.
The consequence of such a fragmentation, Rickert adds, would in
the end of the day be an unsatisfactory kind of relativism, since these
fragmented, empirical disciplines and their philosophies would have
no access to shared and guiding values and norms. Or, in other
words, scientific disciplines and their specialized philosophies are
inherently unable to forge and formulate guiding values and norms.
In the colloquial terms of today, a scientifically and philosophically
compartmentalized world would yield a culture ruled by the dictum
anything goes. In such a fragmented world theories could not possibly be more than sets of aphorisms.8 Naturally, Nietzsche, the great

Jede von ihnen behandelt ihrem Begri nach nur einen Teil der Welt, und
das Ganze ist etwas anderes als die blosse Aneinanderreihung seiner Teile. Ibid.,
p. 13.
8
Heinrich Rickert, Allgemeine Grundlegung der Philosophie, (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck,
1921), p. 2. The first section of the first chapter deals with Rickerts ideas about
the systematic nature of philosophy. He indicates clearly that he is aware of the
7

CRITIQUE OF VITALISM

49

master of aphorisms, is then the leading and inspiring philosopher.

In such a world, it does not make any sense whatsoever to ask what
reality-in-toto is and how it could be conceptualized, how it could be
brought under rational concepts.9 In opposition to this relativism,
Rickert launches the formal and absolute values, such as Truth,
Justice, the morally Good, etc., which however become real and
then also historically relative in judgments. Judgments of historical
facts, events and objects render the formal and absolute values empirical, real, concrete. This is discussed in more details in the next
two chapters. At this point it suces to mention the fact that Rickert
actually combines an idealist view of absolute, formal and nonrelative values with a realist view of the realization of these forms
in historical, empirical facts, events and objects. This realization takes
place, as we shall see later, through judgments and their connected
acts.10 In any case, the vitalistic relativism is in his view too facile,
too superficial, too unphilosophical.
In opposition to this philosophical compartmentalization, Rickert
coins and applies the concept of Weltall, reality-in-toto, the encompassing
reality. It is the proper object of truly philosophical knowledge. The
Weltall, reality-in-toto, not cut up by scientific specialisms, is in a sense
a super-reality, a sur-reality which can of course not be experienced
as such, i.e. in toto. It is rather posited as an analytic postulate, as a
kind of conceptual and analytic, non-empirical canopy which overarches
the multiple realities of the various, specialized, scientific disciplines.
Reality-in-toto represents conceptually the core of the undivided and
indivisible reality which must be assumed, because without it there
could not be any specialization or compartmentalization to speak of.
It cannot be experienced by the sense-organs, it can not be investigated
empirically by the sciences, it is in this sense metaphysical. Yet, it
must be there as a postulate. Rickert goes one step further and comes
fact that also in his days the anti-systematic animus was rather fashionable. He
refers to Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Bergson, but also to romantic artists like Oscar
Wilde, who in dierent words and tones attacked the alleged rationalism and lifeless intellectualism of each system.
9
Unter einem Begri bringen, literally bringing under a concept, is a typically neo-Kantian formula which gives expression to the idea that reality as it objectively isdas Ding-an-sichcannot be grasped cognitively without concepts. In the
acquisition of knowledge concepts are imposed on reality.
10
This point was missed by Maurice Mandelbaum who accused Rickert of relativism in his otherwise insightful study The Problem of Historical Knowledge. An Answer
to Relativism, 1938, (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1967), pp. 119147.

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CHAPTER TWO

very close to vitalism, when he adds that in the routines of daily

existence we do experience life in an integrated manner, not divided
according to the dierent natural and cultural sciences. Philosophy
formalizes and systematizes this daily experience. In this sense, Rickerts
vision of a systematic philosophy resembles the artistic current of
surrealism.11 The dierence is, of course, that philosophy is theoretical
(scientific), whereas surrealism as an art form is atheoretical (aesthetic).
It should be kept in mind that vitalism which originated in the second half
of the 19th century but came to intellectual prosperity around the First
World War originated sociologically in the political turmoils of Europe. The
rational ideals of the Enlightenment, inspired by such values as freedom,
autonomy, tolerance, and solidarity were shattered by the political realities
of class strife, war and revolution. The First World War was in a sense
the complete demise of rationality. This war and the ensuing economic
crisis at the end of the 1920s shattered the previously relatively sheltered
lives of Rickerts compatriots. The Weimar Republic stands out as an example of a society characterized by political, societal and cultural compartmentalization. It collapsed eventually under the fragmented politics of various
parties and movements, while its culture exploded, as it were, in a dazzling
plethora of artistic and intellectual expressions. They all had one thing in
common: they lacked each form of system, coherence, order, and tradition.12
It stands to reason that such a fragmented polity, society and culture was
vulnerable. It proved to be defenseless against the onslaught of fascism and
Nazi totalitarianism. Even Rickert, philosophically rooted in neo-Kantian
rationalism, fell prey to it.13
11
The concept of surrealism and its synonym surnaturalism were for the first time
used in literature by Apollinaire in the introduction to his play Les mamelles de Tirsias,
(The Breasts of Tiresias), 1919. It refers to a super-realtiy which is not bound by
the limits of the experienced, empirical reality. This fits Rickerts ideas well. Yet,
in the arts surrealism then began to refer to the willful exclusion of the mind and
of logical reasoning in favor of explorations of the unconscious, of dreams, and of
black humor. Andr Bretons Manifeste du surralisme (1924) gives expression to this
kind of subjectivism which erupted vehemently in the manifestations of Dadaism.
Bretons subjectivism was also strongly influenced by psychology and psychoanalysis. Psychologism and thus Bretons brand of surrealism was alien to Rickerts unemotional rationalism, although his brand of neo-Kantian transcendentalism seems to
come close to it again. In any case, Breton and his fellow surrealists were more
influenced by Freuds psychoanalysis than by neo-Kantian transcendentalism as was
the case with Rickert.
12
Cf. Peter Gay, Weimar Culture. The Outsider as Insider, (New York: Harper &
Row Publishers, 1968), in particular chapter IV: The Hunger for Wholeness: Trials
of Modernity, pp. 70101. Also: Otto Friedrich, Before the Deluge, (New York: Harper
& Row Publishers, 1972).
13
See Hans Sluga, Heideggers Crisis. Philosophy and Politics in Nazi Germany, (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), pp. 93, 98100. He joined the right-wing
German Philosophical Society, and contributed to its journal, erected and led by

CRITIQUE OF VITALISM

51

Rickert, trained in the Kantian tradition, rejects the so-called Abbildungslogik, that is the representational logic which views words, concepts,
or theories as pictures of reality. In this logic truth is measured by
the realistic quality of the concepts and theories. Most vitalists hold
on to this view, since they long for concepts and theories which are
true to life. Indeed, in this view theoretical truth is not dependent
on the rules of formal logic and the results of empirical research. It
rather depends on the correspondence of concepts and theories with
lifelife which is experienced. Rickert rejects this type of logic
vehemently. Empirical reality is not just grasped by sense impressions. In daily life, for instance, we filter and order our experiences
and sense impressions through languagethrough concepts and names
that we attribute to things, events and beings. Language, according
to Rickert, is in essence a reduction of the complexity of the world.
In fact, there are two types of such complexity reducing words, names
and concepts. For practical reasons we always reduce the complexity of reality by the use of generalizing concepts, that is, by means of
generic species names (Gattungsnamen) which order individual objects
(things, persons, events, etc.) according to their shared qualities, as
specimens of general types. Or we order them in terms of individualizing proper names (Eigennamen) which rather focus on their unique
and indivisible, that is individual qualities. This is still a pre-scientific
kind of conceptualization, in which we, as speaking human beings,
engage pre-reflectively and arbitrarily. In the natural and cultural
sciences this conceptual ordering and reduction of complexity is realized in a systematic and logically cogent manner.14
But Rickert still adds another dimension to this. The world is not
just the object of philosophy as the co-coordinating science of sciences, one also expects philosophy to elucidate mans position in it.
What the scientific disciplines cannot oer, general philosophy should
oer. That is, systematic philosophy is also a philosophical anthropology, as it ought to demonstrate what mans position in the world
is, and what the meaning of his life is or could be. That, however,

his former student Bruno Bauch who was a devoted Nazi until his death in 1942.
Sluga, pp. 8285, 9295, 164167, 210214.
14
Ibid., p. 7. The dynamics of generalization and individualization in everyday
life human cognition is broadened by Rickert into a basic categorization and logic
of the sciences and humanities. We shall discuss all this in more details in Chapter
Five.

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CHAPTER TWO

is only possible, if we know what the values are that provide meaning to what we do and are in the world. Moreover, the specialized
scientific disciplines are by definition limited in time. They either
neutralize time, as in the case of the natural sciences which in actual
fact are ahistorical, or they pin down time to the past, as in history,
or the here-and-now, as in the social sciences. Philosophy with its
focus on values transcends such limits of time, introduces eternity as
a philosophical problem. After all, human evaluations are historical
and thus time-bound, but the values to which these evaluations
refertruth, beauty, justice, the good, etc.are timeless, ahistorical
and in this sense eternal.15
If we lived without language, without names and concepts, we
would experience reality as a chaos, as an irrational mle of sense
impressions, as a congeries of meaningless fragments. But when we
are able to order these bits and pieces into a meaningful whole linguistically, we will be able in principle to experience and understand
reality as a meaningful cosmos. That is, in other words, its heuristic
function. Philosophy should follow this heuristic path of everyday
language. If it is systematic and general, philosophy will be able to
contribute to such a sense of meaning and order: Reality is not at
all a world yet, as it first meets us before we understand it systematically. It is rather a congeries of fragments or a chaos. It is only after
we have ordered its components that something emerges which we
call the cosmos. Only the system makes it possible that for us the
world-chaos develops into a world-cosmos. In this respect one could
say that each philosophy should have the form of a system.16
Philosophy should not want to accomplish more, but as a universal
approach its intentions should not be less. How much it is really
able to accomplish, Rickert adds wisely, is a dierent question.
Despite their widely dierent approaches and conceptualizations,
vitalists share one basic insightthat of Life as the overarching concept which is viewed and treated as an encompassing principle
(Weltallprinzip). With the help of this principle not only the various
Rickert, Die Philosophie des Lebens, p. 13.
So wie die Wirklichkeit uns zuerst gegenbertritt, bevor wir sie systematisch
begreifen, ist sie berhaupt noch keine Welt, sondern eine Anhufung von
Bruchstcken oder ein Chaos. Erst indem wir ihre Teile ordnen, entsteht das, was
wir den Kosmos nennen. Das System allein ermglicht es also, dass aus dem
Weltchaos fr uns der Weltkosmos wird, und insofern kann man sagen, muss jede
Philosophie die Form des Systems haben. Rickert, o.c., p. 14.
15
16

CRITIQUE OF VITALISM

53

sciences and the various philosophical traditions are usually criticized

as being lifeless, if not dead, but it is also claimed that all value
problems can be solved through it. In this double sense the claims
of the vitalists are quite universal and systematic. Yetand this is
their paradoxvitalists fiercely reject the idea of a philosophical system! In fact, vitalism is anti-systematic by definition. Systems are,
vitalists claim repeatedly, sti, inflexible, rigid, lifeless things. Life
is always on the move, is an ever changing, thoroughly flexible
process. Rickert summarizes this almost post-modernist vision of the
vitalists as follows:
Just one thing must be missing (in vitalism, ACZ) which seemed to
belong to each true philosophy: the form of the system. The system is
in all conditions something sti, something established, something curdled. It therefore stands in hostile opposition to permanently floating
and streaming life. Thus, the vitalist is not allowed to think systematically in the traditional sense of the word. (. . .) His thinking has to
cling to the rhythm and dynamics of a never resting life. (. . .) Like
the distinction of form and content, that of chaos and cosmos disappears for vitalists. Life is both at once. The ongoing stream of life itself
is the organizing and organized world, because its structure consists of
flowing and streaming, and in this respect the world does at the same
time not exist.17

INTUITIONISM AND BIOLOGISM

As Rickert realizes, Lebensphilosophie is, as we say today, a black box
concept containing many often quite dierent and even contradictory ideas. For the sake of clarity he reduces this complexity by the
introduction of two main types of vitalism: intuitionism and biologism.18
Nur eines muss ihr fehlen, was bisher zu jeder echten Philosophie zu gehren
schien: die Form des Systems. Das System ist nmlich unter allen Umstnden etwas
Starres, Festgewordenes, Geronnenes und steht daher dem stets fliessenden und strmenden Leben fremd, ja feindlich gegenber. Im alten Sinn systematisch darf also
der Lebensphilosoph nicht denken. (. . .) Sein Denken hat sich der Rhythmik und
Dynamik des nie ruhenden Lebens anzuschmiegen. (. . .) Wie der Unterschied von
Form und Inhalt, so fllt auch der von Kosmos und Chaos fr sie fort. Das Leben
is beides zugleich. Der flutende Lebensstrom selbst ist die gestaltende und die gestaltete Welt, denn ihre Gestalt besteht im Fliessen und Strmen, und sie besteht
insofern zugleich auch nicht. Ibid., p. 16.
18
Rickert uses the concepts vitalism and biologism, but since I use vitalism
as a translation of Lebensphilosophie I rather speak of intuitionism and biologism.
These are, of course, but names which is not problematic as long as one applies
them consistently.
17

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CHAPTER TWO

The first one is broad, encompassing and in many respects rather

vague, the second is restricted and more or less clear, if only because
it stems from biology as a science. Yet, many vitalists managed to
come up with a combination of intuitionism and biologism.
Intuitionism then defines the notion of life primarily in terms of
an immediate, non-reflective, intuitive way of experiencing reality. It
is emphasized by intuitionism that cognitive concepts (Begrie) by
which one grasps reality, do not really yield true knowledge of reality. Such concepts, it is claimed, stand in opposition to the ever
streaming and thus changing process of life which human beings are
inherently part of. Cognitive concepts are frozen, dead, lifeless
pictures of reality which is conceived of as a frozen, dead, lifeless objectivity separated from human subjectivity. They resemble,
as Bergson once remarked, ready-made, o-the-peg clothes. However,
if one focuses primarily and constantly on life, one will need to think,
speak and argue in terms of a unity of subjectivity and objectivity,
of thinking and living, of reflection and action. Vitalist concepts
resemble clothes made to measure.
One is inclined to view the influence of Arthur Schopenhauer on this point.
Schopenhauer reformulated Kants distinction between the noumenon as the
thing-in-itself and the phaenomenon as the imagination of the thing-in-itself:
the noumenon is, according to Schopenhauer, the metaphysical will which
we experience directly in our drives and desires but which is at work in
all of reality, the inorganic world included; the phaenomenon is the imagination of the noumenon. Schopenhauer then argues that the will is a will to
live, but it is a cosmic and blind will without values and norms. Since it
can never be gratified, it is a source of suering. This will diers from and
is independent of human knowledge, or intellect, or cognition. Moreover,
the will is the primary, knowledge the secondary force: the will is not determined by knowledge, but knowledge by the will.19 Knowledge is thus, as
it were, driven by this blind, non-rational, cosmic force which is not alien
to us, because we are voluntary, mentally and physically acting beings. The
act of the will is the act of the body. In fact, the body is nothing else than
the objectified will.20

19
also nicht [. . . .] Wille durch Erkenntnis bedingt sei; wiewohl Erkenntnis durch
Wille. Arthur Schopenhauer, ber den Willen in der Natur, (On the Will in Nature),
Zrcher Ausgabe. Werke in zehn Bnden, Kleinere Schriften I, (Zrich: Diogenes,
1977), p. 203.
20
Arthur Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, (The World as Will
and Imagination), ibid., Vol. I:1, 1 para. 18, p. 143: ja, dass der ganze Leib nichts
Anderes, als der objektivirte, d.h. zur Vorstellung gewordene Wille ist.

CRITIQUE OF VITALISM

55

Simmel argues in a perceptive book on both philosophers that Nietzsches

view of life was an optimistic one, based on a sense of the festive and permanent evolution of life, whereas Schopenhauers view was rather gloomy
since the will to life could never reach its fulfillment, resulting in suering
and a deep sense of boredom.21 Nietzsches view of lifes evolution was not
teleological, i.e. there was not a final apotheosis, no final end. Lifes aim
was its very own enrichment, its Dionysian intensification. Its ethos was
immoralistic. In contrast, Schopenhauers will to live was rather amoralistic, as it was valueless, normless and aimlessa blind force. The best man
can hope for is the discontinuance of the will, either in radical asceticism
or mysticism, or in the nothingness of nirvana or death.
Rickert discusses Schopenhauer briefly as one of the intellectual predecessors of the Philosophie des Lebens and entrusts his legacy with a penetrating influence on many vitalists. Yet, strictly speaking Schopenhauers
philosophy was more a philosophy of anti-life (of boredom, stagnation, nothingness, death) than a philosophy of life (of creativeness, evolution, completion, anti-death). Nietzsches Dionysian enjoyment of life, therefore, had
a much greater impact on the Philosophie des Lebens.

According to Rickert, intuitionist vitalism declares das Leben, life, as

the authentic essence of the world-in-toto and declares it simultaneously as the proper organ of its comprehension. Life itself should
philosophize from life without the help of other concepts. Such a
philosophy should then be experienced immediately.22 This is a seemingly awkward rather redundant formulation: life is the essence of
reality and can only be understood by life which is philosophically
to be experienced immediately, i.e. intuitively and lively. Rickert
phrases it that way on purpose. Vitalism, he means to say, is monistic and logically redundant, as it starts from the autonomy of life
which does not acknowledge something else outside or beyond life.
Life is measured by life, and can only be grasped intuitively by
immersing oneself in life.
One of the attractions of vitalism, Rickert adds ironically, is the
emotionally appealing variety of the word Leben as it occurs in various emotionally gratifying verbs: sich ausleben (to live it up), erleben

21
Georg Simmel, Schopenhauer und Nietzsche. Ein Vortragszyklus, (Schopenhauer and
Nietzsche. A Cycle of Lectures), (Mnchen, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1920),
the first lecture, pp. 119.
22
Man erklrt das Leben fr das eigentliche Wesen des Weltalls und macht
es zugleich zu Organon seiner Erfassung. Das Leben selber soll aus dem Leben
heraus ohne Hilfe anderer Begrie philosophieren, und eine solche Philosophie muss
sich dann unmittelbar erleben lassen. Ibid., p. 5.

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(to experience), sich einleben (to immerse oneself ), mitleben (to sympathize with). In particular, lifes oppositedeathgives weight to the
notion of life in the vitalists view of the world: Only what is alive
dies, and what has died has died out and is actually dead.23 Note
again, Rickerts ironic use of a blatantly redundant formulation! In
particular the clich expression Erlebnisexperienceinvites his
derision. It is, he says, so hackneyed that it is not sucient enough
anymore. Therefore, one believes it essential to advance into the
notion of a primordial experience, which apparently is an even livelier experience than the ordinary one.24 In any case, the word experience, Rickert continues, can actually not be used anymore, and is
therefore often written between inverted commas. It lacks by now
any sensible meaning: Not rarely does it mean an empty phrase
and serves as a cover up for thoughtlessness.25
Vitalism has deeply penetrated into the arts, as is apparent, Rickert
adds, in expressionism, but also in the religious life of his (and, one
could add, also our) day. In expressionism the artist searches for
authentic expressions which focus on individual originality rather
than remaining faithful to the alleged coercion of artistic schools and
forms. In religion mystic or emotional experiences are sought for,
and opposed to doctrines and lifeless religious language and dead
dogmatisms. Butand this has Rickerts special interestvitalism
has in particular penetrated into the specialized sciences. The concept
of nature, often tied to that of the organic, is revitalized and contrasted to a materialist and mechanistic notion of it. It is hard to
fathom, Rickert asserts, how the natural sciences could be conceptualized in terms of these vitalist notions. What is one to understand
by lively physics? Up till now, Rickert mocks, a lively mathematics has not yet been introduced by the vitalists, but mathematics is
anyhow not cherished by most proponents of lively sciences.26

23
Nur das Lebendige stirbt, und das Gestorbene allein ist abgestorben und im
eigentlichen Sinne tot. Ibid., p. 6.
24
. . . zumal der Ausdruck Erlebnis ist allerdings bereits so abgegrien, dass er
nicht mehr gengt und man daher zum Urerlebnis glaubt vordringen zu mssen,
das wohl ein noch lebendigeres Erlebnis als das gewhnliche sein soll. Ibid., p. 7.
25
Nicht selten bedeutet es eine leere Phrase und dient zum Deckmantel fr
Gedanklenlosigkeit. Idem.
26
Ibid., p. 9. See also p. 37, where he calls the idea of a lively mathematics
absurd.

CRITIQUE OF VITALISM

57

Not surprisingly, vitalism also penetrated into ethics: Lebensethik (life

ethic) it is called. It bases ethical ideals on life. We should, according
to this ethic, experience as much as possible, and we should lead
our lives as lively as possible in all directions: live and let live. Or, as
Rickert phrases it: Live! That is the new categorical imperative. Life
acquires ethical significance only, if it is led to the apex of liveliness
and if it is run through by life in all its extensions.27 Webers concept
of a rather emotional Gesinnungsethikethic of ultimate endsas
opposed to the much more rational Verantwortungsethikethic of responsibilityis not mentioned by Rickert, but comes to mind immediately.28
The main problem of vitalism is the fact that it applies the concept
of life to everything and everybody in which case it runs completely
empty and indierent. It is next contrasted to the allegedly dead
concepts of the specialized sciences and general, rational, non-vitalist
philosophy. A lively organism, Rickert counters, is admittedly not a
mechanism, yet there is nothing wrong with attempts to construct
physical or chemical concepts in order to know empirically how an
organism functions. All that is needed is the basic awareness that
(organic, inorganic or socio-cultural) reality is logically dierent from
the conceptualizations of that reality. Rickert, in other words, rejects
vitalisms monism and defends cognitive dualism. What lives is not
just dierent from what thinks, there is also a logically fundamental
gap between what is and what thinks! Or in other words, there is
no direct correspondence between subjective and objective reality,
nor is there a direct connection between thinking and being. In daily
life as well as in science and philosophy we think, speak and experience
in terms of words, names and concepts, and these are not dead
things but the very coordinates of our experiences, emotions and
thoughts. Life too can not be experienced directly and intuitively,
but is as it were mediated by language, i.e. by words, names and
concepts. Life to begin with is such a concept. Vitalists would not
be able to experience life without the concept of life!
Moreover, by means of words, names and concepts we order the
complexity, (which in and of itself is chaotic), of reality, i.e. nature,

27
Lebe! so lautet der neue kategorische Imperativ. Ethische Bedeutung gewinnt
das Leben nur, wenn es zum Gipfel der Lebendigkeit gefhrt und in seiner ganzen
Breite vom Leben durchstrmt wird. Ibid., p. 11.
28
Max Weber, Politik als Beruf , (Politics as a Vocation), 1919, in: Gesammelte
Politische Schriften, (Mnchen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1971), pp. 551560.

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culture, history, and thus create conceptually a cosmos in which we

are able to experience life in a meaningful manner. After all, Rickert
asserts, it is in the form of a concept (Begri ) that perception (Anschauung)
stops being theoretically blind. It becomes expressible, transmittable, theoretically distinct or true. Absolute formlessness therefore
can never render science lively, but must kill it.29
Although Martin Heidegger was once Rickerts student and remained
a friend of the Rickert family throughout his life,30 he is not mentioned
in his book on vitalism. Yet, it is as if Rickert refers to Heideggers
idea of (Un)eigentlichkeit(in)authenticitywhen he introduces an additional connotation of the vitalist notion of Erlebnis (experience) or
Ereignis (event). In particular when applied with emphasis, Rickert
argues, the notion of experience or event means that what we have
experienced in an actual sense, has not remained strange (fremd),
but became our possession, became part of our Self. It has settled
down in the depth of our being and become anchored there.31 The
experience has then become the essential, the crucial, the authentic,
29
. . . denn erst in der Form des Begris hrt die Anschauung auf, theoretisch
blind zu sein, wird sagbar, bertragbar, theoretisch dierent oder wahr. Absolute
Formlosigkeit kann daher die Wissenschaft nie lebendig machen, sondern muss
sie tten. Rickert, o.c., p. 43. This is not the place to compare this neo-Kantian
conception of the Concept (Begri ) with that of Hegel. See Charles Taylor, Hegel,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), pp. 297350: The Concept. Taylor
summarizes the dierence as such: The issue between Kant and Hegel is this:
Hegel takes up Kants idea that reality or objectivity is only where the stu of sensible intuition is structured by thought. But whereas for Kant this principle was
valid only for our knowledge of the world, i.e., for phenomena, and not for things
in themselves; for Hegel this is valid ontologically. For the inner truth of things is
that they flow from thought, that they are structured by rational necessity. What
for Kant just happens to be true of our faculty of knowledge is for Hegel an ontological fact which finds its reflection in our faculty of knowledge. Ibid., p. 297f.
30
This information was given to me by Mrs. Marianne Rickert Verburg, granddaughter of the philosopher, quoted in the Introduction. She told me in the quoted
interview that Heidegger came to visit Rickerts widow directly after the war,
exchanging memories and war experiences. See the exchange of letters by the two
philosophers: Martin Heidegger, Heinrich Rickert, Briefe 1912 bis 1933, edited by
Alfred Denker, (Frankfurt a.M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 2002). Despite fundamental
dierences between them, Rickert remained loyal to his former student who already
in 1917 implicitly criticized his teacher. In a letter dated January 27, 1917 Heidegger
wrote that he had reread Rickerts book on transcendental (pure) logic. He then
said indicatively: Pure logic is an extreme, a concealed rape of the lively mind
(Die reine Logik ist ein Extrem, eine verkappte Vergewaltigung des lebendigen
Geistes). O.c., p. 38.
31
dass das, was wir im eigentlichen Sinne erlebt haben, uns nicht fremd (italics by HR) geblieben, sondern zu unserm Eigentum oder zu einem Stck unseres
Selbst geworden ist, sich in die Tiefe unseres Wesens gesenkt und dort verankert
hat. Rickert, o.c., p. 43.

CRITIQUE OF VITALISM

59

and stands in opposition to everything indierent, meaningless, valuefree, alien, inauthentic and dead. Experience means in that case not
just what is (was ist), but what actually ought to be (was sein soll )
because it has value. We desire experiences in order to enrich our
lives and to make life worthwhile. Experience becomes an overarching
value.32 At this point Rickert could have quoted Christian Morgenstern
who in one of his quite surrealistic Palmstrm-poems exclaims: And
he comes to the result: the experience was just a dream. Because,
he concludes razor-sharp, what can not be, may not be. 33
Rickert discusses two vitalist philosophers who are also sociologists:
Max Scheler and Georg Simmel. Like Max Weber he is critical of
Scheler, whose brand of phenomenological intuitionism he hardly
takes seriously, but he is also like Weber sympathetic to Georg
Simmel. In fact, he devotes a whole chapter in his book to Simmels
philosophy. Simmel published at the end of his life, when he was
dying of liver cancer, a book called Lebensanschauung.34 Rickert is fascinated by the ideas in this book, particularly since Simmel demonstrates
that he does not belong to what Rickert calls, with a hardly concealed
disdain, the prophets of vitalism. Unlike them, Simmel realizes that
life is not just a constant stream of change and evolution, but also
needs forms in order to exist. This then places him before a dilemma:
as a vitalist Simmel views life as a Bergsonian dure, a permanent
process of change and development, but as a neo-Kantian sociologist
who has developed an elaborate sociology of socio-cultural forms, he
realizes that life is limited by forms which are rather rigid, solid,
inflexible.35 Take for example the sociological phenomenon of conflict.
In terms of substance there are many dierent kinds and types of
conflict (between groups, nations, individuals), yet it is possible to
determine what the common characteristics of these conflicts are,
reducing them to a single form which is timeless and ahistorical.36

Ibid., p. 43f.
Und er kommt zu dem Ergebnis: Nur ein Traum war das Erlebnis. Weil,
so schliesst er messerscharf, nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf. Christian
Morgenstern, Palmstrm, 1910, in: Palmstrm, Palma Kunkel, (Mnchen: Deutscher
Taschenbuch Verlag, 1961), p. 68.
34
Georg Simmel, Lebensanschauung. Vier Metaphysische Kapitel, (View of Life. Four
Metaphysical Chapters), (Mnchen-Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1922).
35
Cf. Anton M. Bevers, Dynamik der Formen bei Georg Simmel, (The Dynamics of
Forms in Georg Simmel), (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1985).
36
Georg Simmel, Der Streit, in: Soziologie. Untersuchungen ber die Formen der Vergesellschaftung, (Sociology. Investigations of the Forms of Sociation), (Berlin: Duncker &
32
33

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CHAPTER TWO

This dualism of substance and life forms presents a formidable

problem which Simmel tries to solve metaphysically. Briefly summarized, Simmel claims that we are fully aware of the fact that we
are limited, that in our life we run into limits all the time. But by
this realization we manage to transcend ourselves, and yet at the
same time set our own limits. We are thus our own masters over
life, over its substance and also over its restrictive and rigid forms.
Therefore, life is always more-than-life is Simmels rather enigmatic
formula. Life always pushes beyond the restricting forms, replacing
old forms by new ones. Rickert who observes two rather disjunct
concepts of life here (one immanent, the other transcendent), maintains against Simmel that the forms of life are not and cannot be
lively forms. They are by definition rigid, inflexible, lifeless, like the
concepts we construct in order to grasp reality rationally. After all
and here Rickert argues heterologically againmovement and change
are relational concepts which presuppose something that does not
move and remains stable. That one should certainly in the era of
the relativity theory not forget.37 To Rickert, not just the forms
of life but also the concepts of science and philosophy resemble the
rigid reference bodies, or co-ordinate systems of Einsteins theory of
relativity. The co-ordinate systems set the frame of reference for the
velocity and the path of moving bodies.38 At this point he could also
have mentioned mathematics and formal logic as co-ordinate systems which in relation to reality or life, are frames of reference which
in vitalistic terms are definitely unreal and lifeless.
DARWIN, FACTS AND VALUES
We should now turn to Rickerts second type of vitalism which he
dubbed biologism. At its cradle stood, of course, Darwins evolution
theory. Rickert though is more interested in the philosophers who
used and misused Darwins theories, than in the great natural scientist
Humblot, 1958, 4th ed.), pp. 186255. See also Lewis Cosers elaboration of this
essay in his The Functions of Social Conflict, 1956, (New York: The Free Press, 1964).
37
Das sollte man gerade im Zeitalter der Relativittstheorie nicht vergessen.
Rickert, o.c., p. 72.
38
Albert Einstein, Relativity. The Special and General Theory, 1916, (New York: Crown
Publishers, 1961). Einstein: Of course we must refer the process of the propagation of light (and indeed every other process) to a rigid reference-body (co-ordinate
system). O.c., p. 18.

CRITIQUE OF VITALISM

61

himself, who despite his theological training did not extrapolate his
scientific ideas into an encompassing, metaphysical philosophy.39 It
was rather the philosopher and sociologist Herbert Spencer, who
developed an encompassing evolutionist worldview. Rickert fails to
notice the fact that Spencer (whose name, incidentally, he spells consistently wrong as Spenzer) became the founder and grand old man
of Social Darwinism which developed into a forceful socio-political
ideology, legitimating liberalism and, in particular, American laissezfaire capitalism.40 This ideology fits Rickerts descriptions of biologism
perfectly well.
Although Darwin himself, as Rickert observes astutely, was not a
philosophical vitalist, his biology and evolutionary views did give rise
to metaphysical extrapolations. Rickerts discussion of this point is
quite interesting.41 The crucial component in Darwins biology, he
claims, was the connection with Malthuss demographical theory. It
led to concepts which from the outset referred to human culture and
social life, thus enabling followers to apply the evolution theory to
areas outside nature. Malthus, as is well known, claimed that populations grow disproportionately faster than the supply of food. This
then would eventually engender severe (global) inequalities and
conflicts. Darwin applied this idea to his theory of the origins of
species in which he attributed a central place to the struggle for
food. In fact, this struggle was then generalized to all of organic
nature. It is but a small step to then speak of a general (if not metaphysical) Struggle for Life.
Before Lebensphilosophie became fashionable in Germany, Rickert
adds ironically and maybe with a wink at Heidegger, it was usually
called the struggle for Dasein. In any case, within the strictly scientific
context of Darwins theory of evolution it is the struggle for food
and for life which causes a natural selection and the concomitant
emergence, survival and decline of the various species of organic
nature. It is then but a small, yet scientifically false step to biologism
as a metaphysical worldview and socio-political ideology. In this biologistic worldview the principle of natural selection as a mechanistic
(non-voluntaristic, non-teleological) process and the closely related
Rickert calls Darwin this great researcher of nature. O.c., p. 87.
Cf. Richard Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1944, (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1967, 14th ed.).
41
Rickert, o.c., pp. 8690.
39

40

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CHAPTER TWO

processes of adjustment are essential. Not just organic nature, but

culture and society as well, are now seen as being driven by the
blind and mechanistic forces of selection and adaptation. In each
component of reality testifying to rational aims and plans, to mind
and rationality, we ought to see the impact of natural selection.42
In the biologistic worldview even the values man believes in, and
the aims he sets for his life and actions, are paradoxically viewed in
terms of this non-voluntaristic and non-teleological approach. Before
Darwin, values seemed to be suspended in the air. They were, of
course, viewed and interpreted in theological rather than in biological terms. And if one tried to determine what the meaning of life
actually was or could be, one rejected nature and natural life in
favor of a metaphysically perceived and religiously redeemed life. In
fact, nature was an evil principle. Under this qualification, Rickert
says, man stands in his surrounding world as a sad stranger.43 The
Darwinian biologists radically abolished such ideas. There is, to begin
with, in biology no space for values. But, Rickert adds once again,
natural selection and adaptation were broadened and extended in
post-Darwinian biologism. They became normative, moral concepts
which were related to values and value-judgments. Natural selection
and adaptation, it was claimed, did not just produce evolution, but
also progress, that is evolution towards the good life and the moral
betterment of mankind! If we let natural selection do its work, it
was believed and professed, we will automatically witness a better
worlda desirable world which ought to come about. This, in other
words, was a transition from Sein to Sollen, from being to ought-tobe. In logic this is called an inadmissible metabasis eis allo genos, i.e.
a transition to a dierent logical species. Throughout his philosophy
Rickert has been allergic to this primordial logical sin.
The biologistic worldview has no use any longer for the traditional
values. After all, adjustment and selection lead almost automatically

42
The contemporary reader is reminded of similar extrapolations of scientific
genetics in the direction of a rather metaphysical and mechanistic worldview. See,
for example, Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 1976, (Oxford-New York: Oxford
University Press, 1989) and Susan Blackmore, The Meme Machine, (Oxford-New York:
Oxford University Press, 1999). Needless to add that Schopenhauers metaphysical
conception of the blind will comes to mind also. The will, after all, is seen as a strong
developing force, yet this development (evolution) is aimless, non-teleological, blind.
43
Der Mensch steht unter dieser Voraussetzung als trauriger Fremdling in der
ihn umgebenden Welt. Rickert, o.c., p. 89.

CRITIQUE OF VITALISM

63

to harmony and balance. Life is a self-regulatory mechanism which

should be left alone: laissez faire! Life is eective because it resembles quite mechanistically a big machine. Yet, biologistic vitalists will
not simply withdraw into quietism, into a passive resignation which
lets the big machine do its work. Nature, it is believed, works everywhere according to the economic principle of parsimony. In order
to survive in the struggle for life, people should be parsimonious in
the application of their mental and physical energies. Parsimony
improves ones chances in the ongoing struggle for survival. American
Pragmatism, Rickert adds, is a telling example. It established the
economy of thinking as the basic principle of research. Only those
ideas are true which enable us to contemplate the world and act
upon it eectively and eciently. Reality should then be covered by
the simplest system of concepts possible. In Europe a similar application of biologism occurred in so-called energetic cultural philosophy which believed that the height of civilization depended upon
the energetic parsimony of its people. Dont waste energy, put it to
good use seems to be the categorical imperative here.44 It all ends
up, Rickert sneers, in triviality and philistine utilitarianism.
Biology, Rickert reminds us once more, is a specialized, empirical science which focuses on the structures and processes of living
organisms. It deals with a specific, limited part of reality. Although
life is in a sense its proper object of research and analysis, its concepts and theories are very specialized and certainly not lively.
Moreover, the scientific concepts and theories of biology are, as is
the case with the other sciences, objective and value-free, and are
thus not directly applicable to social life and social policy. Naturally,
biologistic vitalists reject these methodological and logical points of
view. They rather see biology as the scientific foundation of their
brand of vitalism which is not specialized but very general, and not

44
Ibid., p. 93. Vergeude keine Energie, verwerte sie. Das soll an die Stelle von
Kants kategorischem Imperativ treten! Rickert also mentions Max Webers critique in
his essay Energetische Kulturtheorien, 1909, in: Gesammelte Aufstze zur Wissenschaftslehre,
(Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1968, 3rd ed.), pp. 400426. Weber focused his critique
on Wilhelm Ostwald, Energetische Grundlagen der Kulturwissenschaft, (Energetic Foundations
of Cultural Science), (Leipzig: Klinkhardt, 1909) and takes him severely to task for
mixing value judgments with objective, scientific facts. See also Wilhelm Ostwald,
Naturphilosophie (Philosophy of Nature), in: Paul Hinneberg (ed.), Die Kultur der
Gegenwart. Ihre Entwicklung und ihre Ziele, (Contemporary Culture. Its Development
and Aims), (Berlin, Leipzig: Teubner Verlag, 1908), pp. 138172.

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objective or value-free, but subjective and normative. In fact,

this type of vitalism pretends to be a practical philosophy which is
socio-politically applicable and useful. Previously mentioned Social
Darwinism is a perfect example of this school of thought.
Biologistic vitalists usually reduce Darwins biological theories to
some basic tenets such as natural selection, adaptation, survival
of the fittest, etc. This reduced theory is then extended into a rather
encompassing Welt- and Lebensanschauung, in which the notions of rise
and decline, flowering and fading, function as emotionally and intuitively appealing metaphors. Only what rises and flowers represents
life truly, and is thus positively evaluated, while declining, fading,
sinking is valued negatively. It is the road towards death. Rickert
then argues that these two forms of life (rise and fall) with their
allegedly biological value opposition is extended into a biological
founded ideal, namely health.45 The scientifically sounding concepts
of health and sickness are then elaborated into basic norms according to which all other norms ought to be measured and evaluated.
Life form, Rickert says, becomes life norm.46 This is first applied
to the single individual. His main philosophically grounded goal in
life isor rather, ought to behealth. He must aspire to health. If
he does not aspire to health, he is not worthy of life. In this way,
Rickert says, the philosopher turns into a physician.47
All this, the biologistic vitalist believes, is applicable also to the
human species in general. Society, the nation, eventually humanity
as a whole should live healthy lives! There is, in other words, a
health of the species, as there ought to be a species hygiene. In fact
these are, in the view of the biologistic vitalists, the ultimate aims of
humanity. Natural selection, Rickert continues, occupies a crucial
position in this type of vitalism. A society or a nation must necessarily degenerate, if it declines in vitality. Rickert could have mentioned here the romantic and fascist idea of a gesundes Volksempfinden
(healthy feeling of the population). In any case, biologistic vitalists
45
Rise and fall is, as is well known, a very strong trope in history. A recent
example is Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Economic Change and
Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000, 1988, (London: Fontana Press, 1989). He published previously The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, (London, 1976).
46
Ibid., p. 77f.
47
Ibid., p. 78. Needless to add that this vitalistic preoccupation with health is
still very prominent in present day society, not in the least as an economically
profitable segment of the market.

CRITIQUE OF VITALISM

65

always emphasize the alleged fact that the law of natural selection,
which is seen as a law of progress, reigns (Sein), and even should
(Sollen) reign supremely in the body politic.
But our individual thinking, feeling and acting too have to comply with the demands of these biological norms. Ethical demands
can allegedly be derived solely from these notions of rising life,
progress, and health. Love, marriage, family, educationthey ought
to be lived in terms of these biologically based life-norms. The arts
and even the sciences too should serve Life. Religion can only be
justified existentially, if it fortifies the health of individuals and helps
to strengthen nations in their struggle for life.48
Within biologistic vitalism, however, this type of post-Darwinian
philosophy has been rejected, Rickert argues, by a new direction in
biologism. In this new direction three fateful tendencies were avoided:
the emphasis upon the Malthusian component in Darwins theory,
the mechanistic view of culture and society, and the utilitarian ideal
of parsimony. Rickert thinks that Henri Bergson in particular played
the leading role in this new direction of anti-Darwinist vitalism.
However, before we turn to this new direction in general and Bergson
in particular, we should first discuss Rickerts typology of biologistic
theories which is, I believe, still heuristically useful.
FOUR TYPES OF BIOLOGISM
By now the picture of biologistic vitalism is quite complex and thus
confusing. Rickert tries to clarify it by the introduction of four types
which represent four fundamentally dierent dimensions of biologism.
They do share a common foundation, yet stand in opposition to
each other. In a rare exercise of social philosophy, Rickert constructs
a quadrant alongside two social-political dilemmas: socialism (or
collectivism) versus individualism on the one hand, and democracy
versus aristocracy on the other. It yields four types of tendencies:
(a) liberalism (individualism plus democracy); (b) social democracy (socialism
plus democracy); (c) individual aristocracy (individualism plus aristocracy);
(d) social aristocracy (socialism plus aristocracy). Rickert provides examples
of these tendencies which he discusses in broad outlines.49
48
49

Ibid., p. 79.
Ibid., pp. 8286.

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(a) Democratic-individualistic convictions based on evolutionary

biologism were formulated more or less systematically by Herbert
Spencer. His philosophy and sociology functioned as legitimations of Manchester capitalism and liberalism. He could have
added also, as we saw before, American Social Darwinism as
an example of this type of biologism. Spencer emphasized the
inherent conflict between individual interests and species interests, but for the sake of harmony and progress the natural
selection will bring about a situation in which self-supporting
acts will coincide with species-supporting acts. It will be the
highest stage in the ongoing process of progressive evolution.
Yet, survival of the fittest may lead to an undemocratic rule
of the strongest and most powerful. It is a mistaken (socialist)
view to imbue the state in this regard with regulatory powers.
Social laws and state succor of the poor, etc. disturb the natural selection processes. What cannot thrive in its own strength
and power, should, according to the laws of nature, succumb.
(b) According to the social democrats natural selection and competition (conflict) are the basic biological principles that bring
about progress, yet they should not be identified with the existing societal order where a small minority possessing the means
of capitalist production oppresses the mass of workers without
capital. The law of natural selection is rendered inoperative by
the allegedly anti-natural brutality of inheritance capitalism. In
this way the weak and vulnerable within the class of capitalists
are artificially supported. It is a decadent situation which will
not be cured in an evolutionary way, but needs a revolutionary
change of the existing societal order.
(c) There has not been a more radical enemy of democracy than
Nietzsche. His idea of a radically aristocratic and individualistic
ideal of the bermensch was founded upon biological notions.
In Zarathustra we find the idea of a being that develops
beyond man, as if the advent of a super-vertebrate is to be
expected. Moreover, in line with the principle of natural selection
the strong shall rule over the weak, natural inequality shall be
the vehicle of progress. All Sklavenmoralslave moralitywhich
dares to question the right of the Herrenmoralthe morality of
the lordsentails decline and depravity. Nietzsche calls for a
return to nature but not, of course, the idyllic and harmonious
nature of Rousseau but the nature of competitive fights and
conflicts of modern biology.

CRITIQUE OF VITALISM

67

(d) The social-aristocrats often refer to Nietzsche as far as antidemocratic aristocracy is concerned, but they reject Nietzsches
individualism. They rather return to the ideal of the horde
which is interpreted in terms of groups, nations and races.
There is a social element in this aristocracy in that the members
of the same group, nation, race, or species should help each
other. This is not the idea of Christian neighborly love, since
that is after all more democratic than aristocratic. It is rather
the support of the best and the strongest so that the group,
nation, race or species can survive in the biological struggle
for life. Therefore, not the individual but rather society and
the state ought to be the ultimate aim of our socio-political
actions. Although Rickert does not use such concepts, it is not
dicult to fill in fascism and even National Socialism as examples
of this type of biologism. Rickert does mention the fact that
this type of biologism is the direct opposite of the Spencerean
type of individual democracy, and he does warn against the
attempt to set up the Germans as the proper Aristokratenvolk von
Lebewesen (aristocratic people of life-beings) against the French
nation which due to its anti-natural Malthusianism is allegedly
destined to decline.50
This typology is in view of Rickerts rather abstract transcendentalism remarkable, because it actually covers two specialized disciplines,
sociology and political science the basic dynamics of which he apparently understood quite well. This was probably due to his close intellectual relationship with Max Weber. In any case, the typology
presents a conceptual grid which, I think, is still quite heuristic and
useful in modern political science and sociology.
BIOLOGISM BEYOND NIETZSCHE
Once again, Rickert distinguishes between an old and a new biologism. Old biologism applies the basic tenets of Darwins evolutionary
principles, whereas new biologism, to which we must turn now, stands

50
Ibid., p. 86. Rickert could have mentioned Thomas Mann, Betrachtungen eines
Unpolitischen, (Reflections of an Unpolitical One), 1918, (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer
Verlag, 1983) as an example of such an anti-French, social-aristocratic type of
vitalism.

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more in line with Nietzsches vitalism and was initiated in particular

by Bergson.
In the Nietzschean approach the mechanistic conception of life,
as well as the principle of parsimony are rejected. Real life is not a
mere existence (blosses Dasein) which maintains itself harmoniously,
nor is adjustment in situations of crisis and danger a basic principle
of vitality. It is also erroneous to view parsimony as lifes essential
feature. Real life is, on the contrary, extravagant, if not wasteful. It
does not set out to maintain itself but it wants to grow, to become
richer, stronger, livelier! Vital lifes basic principles are activity and
the expansive impulse, both of which are excluded by post-Darwinist
biologism, in which, after all, development and change are being
neutralized in harmony and stability. Life is not static, it is dynamic.
It bears vital zest, it wants steady increments of power. Indeed, the
world is not driven by Schopenhauers will to existence (Wille zum
Dasein), but by the will to power (Wille zur Macht). As Nietzsche has
observed correctly, the continuous struggle for power is the real
meaning of truly vital life. The parsimony principle is for that reason contemptible and vulgar. It testifies to decline and general decadence. This, of course, is the aristocratic principle of biologism
which comes to the defence of the strong and powerful. It is individual aristocracy, because life as the continuous increase of power
depends on vital and outshining individualssuper-men, bermenschen.
Needless to add that truly vital life entails an ongoing struggle
against slave morality which is always in search for adjustment of
the masses and for equality and leveling. Vital life needs an immoralistic Herrenmoral, the morality of powerful lords which rejects each
kind of equality and leveling, any harmonization of interests, and
any kind of pacifism. Man should not aspire to adjust and to come
to a harmonious standstill. That would in the end lead to the emergence of the last human being (der letzte Mensch) who has found happiness but is also exposed to the final low tide of the ocean of life.
Man should want to transcend himself and ought to orient himself
to something which is beyond (ber) him. He needs the bermensch
as model for the true meaning of his life and of the world.51

51
Ibid., p. 98. Rickerts summary of Nietzsches vitalism strongly resembles Simmels
perceptive discussion of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, in which Simmel underlined
Nietzsches Lebensfreudigkeit, i.e. his zest for life. Simmel, o.c.

CRITIQUE OF VITALISM

69

Like Nietzsches, Bergsons vitalism was also in its essence biologistic, albeit anti-Darwinist. Unlike Nietzsche, however, who scorned
metaphysics as an enterprise for philosophical Hinterweltler, i.e. people who live in an alleged world behind reality, Bergson viewed,
more like Schopenhauer, life metaphysically as the very essence of
the world. In particular in his later writings he demonstrated that
he was not just an intuitionist but a biologistic vitalist as well. It
suces to refer to the typically Bergsonian concept of volution cratrice in which organic life is presented as an intrinsic part of the
world in contrast to inorganic, dead nature.52 He too rejects the
post-Darwinian, mechanistic view of the world, the highest aim of
which is harmony, balance, equilibrium, equality. The metaphysical
essence of the world is the steady increase of life and vitality. The
natural sciences with their inherent principles of mechanicity and
parsimony are not suitable to acquire knowledge of this eternally
changing and evolving, lively world. Intuition as the pre-reflective
immersion of the mind into the ongoing stream of life (dure) is the
proper epistemological vehicle.
Like Nietzsche, Rickert hastens to add, Bergson is an important
thinker and theorist.53 Their ideas became popular and entered into
the fashionable current of vitalism in popularized versions distributed
by minor minds. There is no need, Rickert argues, to discuss these
minor philosophers but he makes one exception: Max Scheler. The
few pages devoted to him are very critical, though, and do not add
much to the picture of post-Nietzschean vitalism which the previous
pages had oered.54

52
Cf. Henri Bergson, Lvolution Cratrice, (Creative Evolution), 1907, (Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 1966, 118th ed.).
53
When I interviewed her in Hamburg, Mrs. Marianne Rickert Verburg showed
me a letter by Bergson addressed to Heinrich Rickert, dated June 24th, 1909.
Bergson thanked his trs honor Collgue for sending him two of his publications,
Geschichtsphilosophie and Zwei Wege der Erkenntnistheorie. He writes that he
will take these books on vacation upon the end of the teaching semester, and adds
that he had for a long time already the plan to enter into direct contact with
Rickerts philosophy: Je crois quil y a plus dun point commun entre nous, et que,
malgr la dirence des sujets traits et des mthodes suivies, nous arrivons des
conclusions assez voisines ou tout au moins conciliables entre elles. (I believe that
we have more than one point in common, and that, despite the dierence of subjects dealt with and methods followed, we arrive at conclusions which are rather
close to or at least reconcilable with each other.) This conclusion was, I think,
more courteous than correct.
54
Ibid., pp. 100104.

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CHAPTER TWO
RICKERTS CRITIQUE OF BIOLOGISM

The present chapter began with a brief exposition of Rickerts view

of the systematic nature of philosophy and its crucial dierence with
the specialized (natural and cultural) sciences and their respective,
mainly methodologically oriented philosophies. It stands to reason
then that he fiercely criticizes biologistic vitalism for its attempt to
base its metaphysical view of life and the world on biology which
after all is a natural-scientific, specialized discipline. Biology as a specialism is part of a larger whole (science in general), but also its specialized object of research is part of a larger totality, reality-in-toto.
Now, as a generalized philosophy biologism transforms a part of
reality into a whole around which it constructs its worldview. Its
seemingly encompassing philosophy is just fake, as is its claim of an
exact scientific foundation.
Intuition, Einleben, i.e. the romantic longing for emotionally experienced and immediate knowledge, and the rejection of the alleged
mechanisticity of the (specialized natural) sciences, is crucial to the
biologistic epistemology. It is believed that of all the sciences biology comes closest to vitality and life, and thus should oer the basic
concepts and premises of vitalism. But this is, of course, a rather
false conception of biology as a scientific discipline. As such biology
is as little lively and vital as mathematics or formal logic are, in
which evidently not a trace of vitality and real life can be discovered. Of course, sciences like physics and chemistry are somewhat
closer to real life experiences than mathematics and logic, as in the
case of, for instance, gravity, or of H2O. This may be even more
so in the case of biology, since we are living organisms. Yet, natural sciences remain removed from immediately and emotionally
experienced realities, if alone because they employ general concepts
which are at all times far removed from the always individual experiences of everyday life.55 In fact, all natural sciences lead one into
a larger or smaller distance from reality and life. Biologistic vitalists
always lament that the scientific concepts of reason (Verstandesbegrie)
fail to reach real-life experiences in their alleged fullness and wealth,
and thus are unable to catch reality, let alone truth. But then, are

55
Ibid., p. 107. In a footnote Rickert refers to his book on the limits of naturalscientific conceptualization which will be discussed extensively in Chapter Five.

CRITIQUE OF VITALISM

71

not the concepts employed by these vitalists also rationalized concepts derived from biology as a scientific discipline? Are not these
biological concepts, so eagerly adopted by the vitalists, removed from
real life as it is directly lived and emotionally experienced?
As the science which it is, biology must kill life, to apply for
once the language of intuitionist vitalism. Or, to use an expression
of Bergson, like the other sciences biology indeed creates ready-made
clothes which do not fit each individual in particular, since they must
fit all individuals in general. In short, if one wants to experience life
directly, one should not engage in scientific research, even if its object
of research is life, as in the case of biology. Rickert draws a radical conclusion which is the very essence of his epistemology and general philosophy: Lifelessness and unreality is inherent to the products
of not only the generalizing natural sciences, but of each scientific
enterprise. (. . .) There is no science without conceptual thinking, and
that is precisely the sense of each concept, namely that it puts
objects at a distance from directly real life. Even the most lively
object, to which any kind of understanding turns, stops living really,
the moment it is understood. The dualism of reality and concept
can never be abolished.56
Then comes the final, typically neo-Kantian verdict of all vitalism: What is directly experienced as reality, cannot be known. Thus,
there is no metaphysics of life. (. . .) As direct reality life can only
be experienced. As immediate life it mocks any attempt to get to
know it.57 In fact, the mere experience of real life lacks a proper
language. There are no appropriate words for it. It is, Rickert, says,
born mute. The so-called essence of the real world must remain
anonymous, lest it loses its directness and its reality.58

56
Unlebendigkeit und Unwirklichkeit ist mit den Produkten nicht allein der generalisierenden Naturwissenschaften, sondern mit denen jeder Wissenschaft verknpft.
(. . .) Es gibt keine Wissenschaft ohne begriiches Denken, und das gerade ist der Sinn
jedes Begries, dass er die Dinge in einen Abstand vom unmittelbar wirklichen Leben
bringt. Das lebendigste Objekt, worauf irgend ein Erkennen sich richtet, hrt auf,
real zu leben, so weit es begrien ist. Der Dualismus von Wirklichkeit und Begri
ist niemals aufzuheben. Ibid., p. 110.
57
(. . .) was als Realitt unmittelbar erlebt wird, kann nicht erkannt werden. Also
gibt es keine Metaphysik des Lebens. (. . .) Das Leben als das unmittelbar Reale
lsst sich nur erleben. Es spottet als unmittelbares Leben jedem Erkenntnisversuch.
Ibid., p. 113.
58
Ibid., p. 114.

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Rickert realizes that his critique is rather disenchanting, but adds

that this is only so for those who want to know and understand reality theoretically and cognitively. Outside the theoretical, cognitive
attitude towards the world, in everyday life for instance, life and
reality are experienced directly and intuitively. There is nothing
wrong with that. If it pleases someone to constantly live and experience life intuitively, Rickert quips, we should not take that pleasure away from him. Only if he wants to acquire a theoretical
understanding of life and grasp the world cognitively, should he realize that there is an unbridgeable gap between abstract concepts and
experienced reality, between knowing and living. Indeed, as Gottfried
Benn said, that what lives is dierent from that which thinks.
THERE ARE NO BIOLOGISTIC VALUES
As we shall see in the fourth chapter, Rickerts general philosophy
is a philosophy of values. They represent the unsinnliche Wirklichkeit,
that is the reality which cannot be experienced by the senses. Values
are in this sense non-empirical, yet they are real in the sense of
being valid or invalid. Now, according to Rickert there is much to
criticize in the way vitalists deal with values. It is this critique which,
as it were e contrario, gives insight into his own philosophical position.
Most vitalists, in particular those of the biologistic persuasion, believe
that the natural sciences, and especially biology as the science of life,
enable us to arrive at a theoretical understanding of values. Is this
correct? Can the natural sciences contribute to our understanding
of values, and then help us in evaluating whatever is and happens
in reality?
As is his custom, Rickert begins with some basic conceptual distinctions. It is quite feasible, he says,59 that physics provides the technician with norms for his work. If he wants to build a bridge, he
ought to know what weight it can bear. For that he has to turn to
the laws of physics. The involved normswhat the technician should
doare purely causal and value-free. Physics tells him that such and
such interventions yield such and such results. It is a causal must
(Mssen), not a moral must (Sollen). Physics argues in terms of results

59

Ibid., pp. 117142.

CRITIQUE OF VITALISM

73

and asks what conditions are needed to reap these results. The causal
relationship is always conditional. A new component is introduced,
however, when the will of the technician enters the relationship. He
posits a certain eect as his desired aim or objective. That is, he
connects the aim with values and transforms thereby the conditions
into the means by which he can obtain his cherished aim. The
causality of physics is then altered into a teleological relationship.
Consequently, the means of realizing the aim acquire a normative
meaning. After all, it is the human, evaluating will that alters causal
eects into meaningful purposes, and causal conditions into teleological means which contain norms. However, physics itself does not
contain such purposes, and is unable to provide moral norms. It tells
the technician what to do, when he wants to arrive at certain eects,
but this telling what to do is a matter of amoral mssen not of
moral sollen. Likewise, the value of an allegedly perfect machine
depends solely on the human evaluation of its performance and
achievements.
Biologistic vitalists, however, claim that biology occupies in this
respect a special place in the realm of the natural sciences. Usually
the physician is taken as an example. He derives the norms of his
profession from biology directly, that is without first adding normative purposes to its concepts. Biology teaches him what the conditions are for a healthy life, and these are then the means which he
must apply in order to do his job properly. Moreover, biology works
with concepts such as organism and development which physics
lacks. The notion of an organism as a whole to which all parts and
components contribute to the advancement of its lively and healthy
state is obviously teleological. Likewise, the biologistic vitalist argues,
the notion of development is much more than just a series of merely
causal transformations. The changes refer to a final stage which is
developed teleologically. In short, the biologistic vitalist claims, purposes and means, values and norms are not brought into the biological world of organisms and developments from the outside by
the human will and its normative evaluations. They are inherent to
biology. They are the natural values and norms.
This, Rickert counters, is a grave and fundamental, logical mistake. As is often the case, he argues, the basic lack of clarity is caused
by the ambiguity of a word. In this case it is the word teleology that
is ambiguous. It is derived from the Greek telos which has a double
meaning. Its meaning is not only purpose which is a value concept

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CHAPTER TWO

to be used in order to set norms. It also means result which is a

value-free concept and therefore useless for the imposition of norms.
Now, the parts and components of a biological organism co-operate
to the development and advancement of the organism as a whole,
but this co-operation and this development are sheer causal processes
towards a value-free result, not towards an evaluative and normative
purpose! As in the other natural sciences, telos in biology is a valuefree result and the value-free eect of non-normative means. But telos
as a value concept, as purpose, is a voluntaristic concept and cannot possibly occupy a valid and legitimate position within biology as
a natural-scientific discipline. In this natural-scientific sense of telos
as value-free result and not as normative purpose, organisms are, like
technological machines, dead things. Vitalists can put life (values
and norms) into them, but that then is their imputation. It is a primitive sort of anthropomorphism and irrational magic to think otherwise. This magic, he believes, needs to be disenchanted.60
As to the physician, his purpose is to treat sick patients and if
possible to heal them. This purpose can, of course, not be found in
biology as a science, but belongs to our historically grown culture
in which life and health have become very dominant values. Are we
not constantly under pressure to render life healthy, natural, fresh,
original?61 Rickert mocks the dierent health movements which were
also in his day rather fashionable in Germany. One should bear in
mind here that his mental and physical condition was dismal. Due
to his agoraphobia he preferred to lock himself up in his library,
abhorring nature, freshness and originality. He refers to the Jugendbewegung, the youth movement of his days, as a telling example of
this fashionable, romantic health ideology. It propagates health, freshness, youth, strength, originality, and, of course, nature. It is adverse,
he continues, to the alleged intellectualism of the universities and
aestheticism of the art institutions which are usually located in cities.
Roaming through free nature (das Wandern), the rejection of alcohol
and nicotine, and, he could have added, nudism (Freikrperkultur), are
the main components of the vitalist ideology of the youth movement
of Rickerts days. All these irrational celebrations of life and living,
Ibid., p. 116. Here he speaks of Entzauberung and grndlich entzaubern.
(. . .) ist es etwa kein allgemein gltiges Lebensziel, das Leben gesund, natrlich, frisch, ursprnglich zu machen? Ibid., p. 134.
60
61

CRITIQUE OF VITALISM

75

Rickert admits, are understandable after the horrible destructions of

the First World War,62 yet as the foundations of a true philosophy
of life they are useless and scientifically counterproductive.
LIFE AND CULTURE
Values and norms are incorporated in culture, in objective cultural
goods (objektive Gter), i.e. in the state, the sciences, the arts and music,
religion, etc. Vitalists generally believe that these cultural goods too
are subjected to the vitalistic dynamics of rising and declining,
flourishing and fading. To them the highest purpose is, or rather
should be, to be alive, vital, strong and healthy. Rickert again comes
up with a sobering disenchantment: there is an unavoidably negative
relationship between culture, or cultural goods, and life, or vitality.63
The sciences present, according to Rickert, a good example. They
are an established, institutionalized cultural good in modern society,
subjecting both dead (inorganic) and alive (organic) reality to rigid
research and rational theory. It all began in Ancient Greece, where
for the first time some individuals no longer investigated reality in
order to live, but the other way around, lived in order to be able
to investigate. Truth was sought for its own sake, not just for the
sake of living. Thinking about reality, which is dierent from living
it, acquired its own, autonomous value (Eigenwert) and distanced itself
from life and living. It opened the road towards the sciences and
the scientific attitude which is based upon the fundamental dualism
of thinking and living. However, Rickert concedes, there are dierent
degrees of estrangement between life and science. The radically generalizing mathematician thinks and theorizes far removed from real
life and life experiences, while the individualizing historian, on the
contrary, often identifies with the lives of his objects. Between these
opposites there is, as we shall see in chapter four, a whole range of
scientific disciplines, of which some are closer to life than others.
Yet, in all these cases there still remains a gap between living and
thinking.

62
63

Ibid., p. 134f.
Ibid., pp. 156195.

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CHAPTER TWO

It is often claimed by vitalists that the arts, another example of

cultural goods, cannot be separated from life and its direct, vital
experiences. Many artists, it is claimed, detest the abstractions of
scientific theories. They work allegedly from their direct experiences
and intuitions. Their main source of creativity and originality is life
itself. Rickert, whose wife and one of their sons were accomplished
sculptors, spends some time criticizing the vitalist conception of art.
Most naturalistic art that claims to stay close to life and reality, is
esthetically unattractive. He gives wax museums and panoramas as
examples, but could also have mentioned kitsch as a prime example
of naturalistic art. In any case, he argues that works of art usually
carry their aesthetic value by distancing themselves from reality and
real life. In fact, the most valuable works of art construct their own
aesthetic world which is not a mere copy of the real, experienced
world. The aesthetic meaning of a work of art, he claims, which
we understand and which alone is relevant to the aesthetic human
being, is as unreal and non-alive, as the logical meaning of a true
statement is.64 One will search in vein, he adds, for a work of art
which contains exclusively vital life.65 This is true a fortiori for music
which among the arts is what mathematics is among the sciences.
Here the removal from life is in fact the most radical. Music is essentially Apollinic. One should realize, Rickert adds, that in the aesthetic sphere in general Dionysus, the god of vital and irrational
impulses, cannot find a suitable place.66
It stands to reason that the erotic impulses are in particular prone
to biologistic-vitalistic interpretations and ethical value imputations.
Rickert points out that it does not make sense to speak of ethical
values or unvalues (ethische Werte oder Unwerte) in the realm of sexual
life. The sexual impulses are as such neutral, amoral, i.e. indierent

64
Genau wie der logische Sinn eines wahren Satzes ist auch der sthetische Sinn
eines Kunstwerkes, den wir verstehen, und auf den es allein dem sthetischen
Menschen ankommt, ebenso unwirklich, wie es unlebendig ist. Ibid., p. 160f.
65
Ein Kunstwerk, das nur lebendiges Leben enthlt, wird man vergeblich suchen.
Ibid., p. 161.
66
Ibid., p. 162. This was obviously meant as a critique of Nietzsches aesthetic
theories. As to music, Rickert is quite ill informed. It suces to just mention the
naturalistic tone poems of Richard Strauss, or Jean Sibelius, and the evocations
of nature and celebration of life in Gustav Mahlers Das Lied von der Erde, or the
verismo in Italian opera (Giacomo Puccini). Naturalism is also prominent in the arts.
Rickert discusses briefly the sculptures of Gustave Rodin, and tries unsuccessfully
to deny their naturalistic animus.

CRITIQUE OF VITALISM

77

to values (wertindierent). It is the will of human beings that assign

ethical values (moralism) or unvalues (immoralism) to them. There
are, of course, areas of culture, Rickert adds, in which elementary
impulses play such a preponderant role that an extensive and intensive reflection about their functions would have a disturbing eect
on their vitality. This is, for example, the case in institutions such
as marriage and the family. Rickert would, in all probability, not be
a proponent of marriage counseling, as he was hesitant towards psychotherapy. If done well, i.e. scientifically sound, it would deaden
the vitality of our primary, vital impulses. Yet, in and of themselves
such impulses and their vitality are and remain neutral, i.e. indierent
to values. Values are imputed voluntaristically by people. The alleged
right to erotic vitality and to the liberty to live it up erotically, as
if this were a moral imperative, is nave and has in the final analysis nothing to do with culture.67
Religion is a special case. It stands to reason, Rickert claims, that
religious values are not an intrinsic part of biological life.68 They
usually transcend all other values, and for the true believer they are
absolute values. Religious man ought to reject attempts to underpin his values by other values. In a sense, religious man comes closest to life and its direct experiences, since religion, certainly in its
non-institutional form, is devoid of specializations and compartmentalizations. In order to exist, religion needs to penetrate into existence deeply and totally. But its values cannot possibly be derived
from biological life. As there is a dualism of thought and concepts
on the one hand and life and experiences on the other, there is this
dualism between a god people believe in and the life people live.
To sum up, here too Rickert rejects vitalistic monism which boils
everything down into a single, vague and multi-interpretable concept of life. In religion too that which lives diers from that which
thinks (believes).69

Ibid., p. 165.
One could counter this thesis of Rickert by claiming that there may well be
religious genes, as there are perhaps erotic, artistic and scientific genes. Rickert
would answer though that these are still the biological impulses, not the values
imputed to them by men.
69
Rickert fails to observe that there is such a thing as natural religion as opposed
to religion based on a believed revelation. Proponents of natural religion could well
argue in terms of biologistic and/or intuitionist vitalism. Moreover, in mysticism
the dualism of God and life is dissolved in a monism of irrational religiosity, the
so-called unio mystica.
67
68

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CHAPTER TWO
VITALISMS CREDIT SIDE

Meanwhile, the impression may have arisen that Rickert could not
discover anything positive and worthwhile in vitalism.The concluding chapter of his book on vitalism negates this impression.70 He
argues that this school of thought has a certain right of existence.
According to Rickert, philosophy is, as we saw before, a non-specialized, systematic science, based upon and ruled by formal logic.
It is in a sense an empirical science, since its sense-data stem from
reality, or, if you want, from life, as it is experienced through the
senses. It is systematic in that it transcends the fragmented views of
reality by the specialized scientific disciplines, arriving at a rational
comprehension of the world-in-toto. As we will see in the following
chapters, this totalizing comprehension comes about by means of
abstract concepts (the transcendental categories) and through the
relating of values to facts in acts of judgment. As a scientific enterprise philosophy, like the specialized sciences, works with concepts
and theories which are detached from life and direct existential experiences. Yet, Rickert is well aware of the fact that the history of philosophy has demonstrated time and again, how great and classic
philosophers have been followed slavishly by multitudes of admirers,
smaller minds which swear by the words of the masters, even when
these words have become obsolete and have been surpassed by the
ongoing development of thinking and research. The result is a stale
dogmatism which correctly can be called rigid. It is a kind of deadening scholasticism which severely impairs the progress of philosophy.
It stands to reason that people will emerge who rebel against this
rigid dogmatism and scholasticism, dealing summarily with it.
Understandably, yet falsely, these people will revolt subsequently
against each and any system, seeing them as the seedbeds of dry
and lifeless rationalism. It is a kind of reaction which emphasizes
what is conceived of as being original, elementary, natural. Allegedly,
the original, the elementary, the natural cannot be grasped by
reason but must be experienced in an irrational, intuitive manner.
Such a naturalistic reaction was exemplified by German romanticism (particularly in Sturm und Drang), but its basic tenets occur also

70

Ibid., pp. 171195: Das Recht der Lebensphilosophie (The Right of Vitalism).

CRITIQUE OF VITALISM

79

in various currents of vitalism. Rickert then views vitalism as a basically false, yet fully understandable naturalistic reaction against a
rationalism which had become petrified into a dogmatic and indeed
lifeless kind of intellectualism.
Bergsons complaint about the ready-made clothing and reach-medowns of rationalistic concepts comes to mind immediately. And in
all fairness, Rickert says, his intuitionist vitalism has its advantages.
Those who rigidly stick to obsolete systems of thought and certainly
those who believe that a mix of natural-scientific concepts can be
employed in order to understand and grasp the world-in-totobasing
their ideas and concepts, for instance, on the physics of Newton, the
biology of Darwin, or the mathematics and astronomy of Einstein71
should be advised to read Bergson. The world is not so small and
poor that it can be understood completely and exclusively by statistical calculations. Bergson, Rickert comments, has seen the other side
of reality which is impervious to calculation. As no one in his day
he saw the limits of natural-scientific conceptualizations.
Before him, Nietzsche exerted the same eect on his readers. With
an overwhelming linguistic force (Sprachgewalt) he managed to communicate the atheoretical importance of what cannot be forged into
concepts. One feels it directly while reading Nietzsche, without understanding it logically.72 Nietzsches enticing, Dionysian celebration of
life is not philosophy yet, but it reminds us, Rickert claims, of the
fact that philosophy is not a mere game of abstract concepts and
theories. Indeed, although philosophical concepts and theories are
necessarily estranged from life, they yet focus at the end of the day
on life and try to grasp it theoretically. If this is forgotten, one ends
up in a fruitless and abstract intellectualism and rationalism.
Rickert then formulates the dilemma somewhat enigmatically as
follows: We are unable to think about what we do not somehow
live, and in philosophy we must think about all of life.73 He claims
then that he too wants to develop a Lebensphilosophie, but he is not
prepared to let it drift o into irrationalism. He wants to remain

Ibid., p. 177.
(. . .) die ungeheure atheoretische Wichtigkeit dessen, was sich in keinen Begri
bringen lsst. Man fhlt sie bei Nietzsche unmittelbar, auch ohne dass man sie
logisch versteht. Ibid., p. 179.
73
Was wir nicht irgendwie leben, darber knnen wir auch nicht denken, und
ber alles Leben haben wir in der Philosophie zu denken. Ibid., p. 181.
71
72

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CHAPTER TWO

loyal to the tradition of German Idealism, in particular as it was

explored by Kant.74 He was, however, not a slavish follower of the
great man from Knigsberg, and forged his own brand of philosophy.
Rickert sees still another advantage in vitalism. It not only placed
the concept of life but also that of value in the center of philosophical attention. Vital life, vitalists emphasized time and again, is
wertendes Leben, evaluating life.75 The problems of life are problems
of values, as for example Nietzsche claimed when he called for an
Umwertung aller Werte, a re-evaluation of all values. Evaluating life and
re-evaluating valuesthese are enchanting ideas and notions. Rickert
is fully aware of the attractiveness of such conceptual celebrations of
life and values, but then engages immediately in a thorough and
sobering disenchantment. Apart from the question whether values
can be re-evaluated as values, which Rickert denies, such an exercise can never be the task of science and scientific philosophy. Human
evaluations (Wertungen) and their adoption of positions vis--vis values in practical life (Stellungnahmen) should not be confused with values. One can influence the evaluations of people. One can, for
instance, exert such an influence by substituting one value for the
other. But the values themselvestruth, beauty, justice, etc.cannot be influenced, transformed, or re-evaluated. They remain what
they are: Values as values cannot alter themselves. Only our taking
position towards them is subjected to change.76 That is, beauty as
general value remains unalterable, yet our artistic and aesthetic evaluations in terms of beauty (or its opposite) will be subjected to change
in the course of history. Moreover, philosophy as a Wissenschaft is
not interested in a practical evaluation of values. It only wants to
grasp values theoretically. Therefore, a Nietzschean re-evaluation of
values, if one wants to maintain that idea at all, cannot fall within
its competence.
Values belong to our world as much as the value-free reality of
the natural sciences does. But values are real in quite a dierent
sense than the objects of the natural sciences are. Rickerts philosophy

74
For Rickerts philsophical anity with Kant see his Kant als Philosoph der modernen Kultur, (Kant as Philosopher of Modern Culture), o.c.
75
Ibid., p. 185.
76
Werte als Werte knnen sich nicht ndern. Nur unsere Stellungnahme zu
ihnen ist dem Wandel unterworfen. Ibid., p. 185f.

CRITIQUE OF VITALISM

81

of values presents the idea of a realm made up of non-empirical,

formal values, whose main characteristic is that they do not exist
in the sense of being. Values are not real, they rather are valid
or invalid.
How can these unreal but valid values be known theoretically?
One resorts often, Rickert says, to Verstehen (understanding) which
is then opposed to description (Beschreiben) and explanation (Erklren).
The concept of Verstehen is often blurred. To Rickert it maintains its
pregnant meaning only, if it stands in relation to the sense (Sinn) or
significance (Bedeutung) of objects. But an object without a connection to values, value-free reality in and of itself, is senseless and without significance, and thus inaccessible for Verstehen: When one wants
to understand, one may not ignore the values. Otherwise one
would not know, what it is that one understands.77 We return to
Rickerts ideas about values and understanding in later chapters. At
this point, we should rather focus upon his notion of the validity of
values; that is, values are not real or unreal, but valid ( gltig) or
invalid (ungltig).
Rickert then states rather bluntly that what merely is (das bloss
Seiende), is neither valid, nor can it be understood.78 Yet, we often
say that a fact is valid. But that is an imprecise expression. Not the
fact, but the sentence (Satz) that something is a fact, is valid. And
the statement is only valid, if it carries a true meaning. Truth is, of
course, a value. Thus, theoretical validitythe validity of statements
about factsis not value-free. Stronger still, truth is a value which
is directed towards our interests. We adopt an evaluating stance
towards truth, as will be demonstrated in more detail in the next
chapter. This point was made also by the epistemology of American
Pragmatism, although it went astray, when it defined a theoretical
value (truth) in utilitarian terms of usefulness which, of course, is an
atheoretical (practical) good. All of this shows that philosophy in general should be a philosophy that focuses its main attention upon the
realm of valid or invalid values to which people in practical life refer
all the time in their evaluations.

77
Wo man (daher) verstehen will, darf man die Werte nicht ignorieren. Sonst
weiss man nicht, was man versteht. Ibid., p. 187.
78
Das bloss Seiende gilt nie, ebenso wie es unverstndlich ist. Ibid., p. 187.

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CHAPTER TWO
PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Rickerts book on vitalism was published in the early 1920s. It would

be interesting to know, how he would have reacted to a current in
German philosophy which went beyond intuitionist and biologistic
vitalism, yet ignored his critique of vitalism and by-passed his philosophy of values: the philosophical anthropology of Helmuth Plessner
and Arnold Gehlen.
In one of his early essays Arnold Gehlen (19041976) discussed
Rickerts transcendental philosophy. In another essay, published
the same year (1933), he engaged in a fierce polemic against the
existential philosophies of Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Jaspers in
defense of traditional Idealism. But his opus magnum in philosophical
anthropology, Der Mensch (1940), departed from that tradition an was
based on biology.79 He then left the German idealist tradition and
claimed to profess an empirical philosophy, called philosophical
anthropology.
Biology as a specialized natural science in particular was of great
importance to the philosophical anthropology of Helmuth Plessner
(18921985) and Gehlen. Each in his own way tried to design a
scientific (empirical) philosophy that avoided the fatal trap of biologism as well as the equally fatal trap of metaphysics. Both were students of the biologist Hans Driesch at the University of Leipzig in
the early 1920s, both became professional philosophers and sociologists during and after World War II. Max Scheler who was less
averse to metaphysics, phrased the basic problem of philosophical
anthropology as mans position in the cosmos.80 Plessner and Gehlen
then developed their respective anthropologies in two influential books
which testified to their systematic and scientific mindset. Rickert

79
Arnold Gehlen, Idealismus und Existentialphilosophie, 1933, in: Arnold Gehlen,
Philosophische Schriften I (19251933), (Philosophical Essays, vol. I, 19251933),
Gesamtausgabe Band I, (Collected Works, vol. I), (Frankfurt a.M.: Vittorio Klostermann, pp. 383403). See also his paper Heinrich Rickert und die Transzendentalphilosophie, 1933, ibid., pp. 403417. His anthropology was systematically treated
in Der Mensch. Seine Natur und seine Stellung in der Welt, (Man. His Nature and Position
in the World), K.-S. Rehberg, ed., two volumes, Collected Works, vol. 3.1 and
3.2, (Frankfurt a.M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1993).
80
Max Scheler, Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos, 1928, (Bern: Francke Verlag,
1962).

CRITIQUE OF VITALISM

83

would, of course, have appreciated this.81 But he would not have

accepted their claim that a philosophy of man would and should
coincide with the sociology and psychology of human behavior and
socio-cultural institutions. It meant, of course, a departure from
Idealism in general and Rickerts brand of transcendental philosophy in particular. Naturally Rickert would point out that sociology
and psychology as specialized scientific disciplines could never be
generalized validly into a systemic philosophy that covers reality-intoto, or as Scheler phrased it, the cosmos. A biologically and sociologically based philosophical anthropology, he would argue, must
remain stuck in a fragmented view of the world, and cannot fulfill
its promise to forge an encompassing theory about mans position
in the world. What kind of world and how is it to be conceptualized adequately? Rickert would ask. However, this is not the place
to discuss such questions regarding philosophical anthropology in further detail, since it would need a rather detailed exposition of its
theories and concepts. That would transcend the boundaries of this
book.82
Rickert would in all probability feel at home philosophically with
Ludwig Wittgensteins thesis 6.41 of the Tractatus logico-philosophicus,
where it is stated that everything in the world is as it is, and happens as it happens, that there is in it no valueand if there were
a value in it, it would not have value. In Wittgensteins view of the
world everything that happens, and also being-as-it-is by itself, is
accidental. That which makes it non-accidental, lies outside the world.
Rickert viewed the world likewise as being chaotic and in that sense
accidental and irrational. Meaningful and valuable characteristics,
rendering the world into a cosmos, are imputed by men from the
outside through practical evaluations which necessarily draw upon
the transcendent non-reality of eternal values. That is admittedly a
position Wittgenstein in his turn would not accept, since he thought,

Helmuth Plessner, Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch, (The Stages of the
Organic and Man), 1926, (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1965). Arnold Gehlen, Der
Mensch, o.c. For an introduction to biologically founded anthropology see Marjorie
Grene, Approaches to a Philosophical Biology, 1965, (New York-London: Basic Books,
1968). She does, however, not discuss Arnold Gehlen which is a serious omission.
82
I discussed Plessner and Gehlen in my The Institutional Imperative. The Interface
of Institutions and Networks, (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2000). See in
particular chapter 2, Institutions and the Transcendence of Biology, pp. 4376.
On Plessner, pp. 4551; on Gehlen, pp. 5163.
81

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unlike Rickert, that nothing sensible can be said about such a transcendent reality. Practical evaluations are after all ethical statements,
and these are in Wittgensteins view senseless. It is clear, Wittgenstein
declares in thesis 6.421, that ethics cannot be expressed verbally.
Ethics is transcendental.83 Note the concept transcendental!
Rickert would immediately want to know what Wittgenstein means
by the concept transcendental. He had some ideas about that. What
are his ideas about transcendental philosophy, its peculiar logic and
its related epistemology? This is the main subject of the next chapter.

83
Es ist klar, dass sich die Ethik nicht aussprechen lsst. Die Ethik ist transcendental. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, 1921, (Frankfurt a.M.:
Suhrkamp Verlag, 1964), p. 112.

CHAPTER THREE

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY

Form: in ihr ist Ferne, in ihr ist Dauer.
Gottfried Benn1

EPISTEMOLOGY AND ONTOLOGY

Rickerts neo-Kantianism is not a servile following of the thoughts and
theories of the master of Knigsberg, but in one respect he definitely
is Kants successor.2 Particularly in his thesis for the German doctorate
(Habilitation), Gegenstand der Erkenntnis (The Object of Knowledge), the
first edition of which was published in 1892, he followed Kants positing of the epistemological primacy over against ontology. In this respect
Rickert diered from Nicolai Hartmann who, in opposition to the
Kantian thesis that the thing-in-itselfreality, or being prior to experiencecannot be known, defended the ontological primacy, as had
been customary in most traditional (medieval and Classic) philosophies.
In their view being is the origin, cause, and context of knowing.
Philosophy is therefore first and foremost ontology, and beyond that
metaphysics, and not logic and epistemology. Rickert rejects this idea.
To him and his fellow neo-Kantians of the South-West German School,
epistemology precedes ontology, not the other way about. After all,
the concept itself suggests this epistemological precedence: onto-logy!
This has lead to the standard criticism that neo-Kantianism suers
from a general neglect of ontology and an overemphasis of epistemology. At the end of his career Rickert counters this critique. As we
1
Form: in it is distance, in it is permanence. Gottfried Benn, Zukunft und
Gegenwart (Future and Presence), in: Doppelleben, (Double Life), 1944, (Frankfurt
a.M.: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1984), p. 468.
2
Cf. Heinrich Rickert, Kant als Philosoph der modernen Kultur. Ein geschichtsphilosophischer
Versuch, (Kant as Philosopher of Modern Culture. An Essay in the History of
Philosophy), (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1924). He admits in the Preface to be ein
Kantianer, but not in a scholastic sense. The greatness of Kant is, according to
him, that he did not create a System which one must either accept or reject in its
totality. It is rather the Kantian critique as a philosophical attitude and method
which inspires one to engage in philosophy.

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shall see shortly, he then re-defines the concept of Being which he

initially had separated from the non-sensual reality of values and
meanings. He admits that the final concept of systematic philosophy
which is, as we shall see, reality-in-toto (das Weltall ), is, of course, an
ontological concept. In this sense, systematic philosophy is indeed
first and foremost ontology and may even end up in metaphysics.
However, since philosophy aims at an understanding of the world, the
balance between being and knowing leans towards the latter. But
philosophy can, of course, never be defined as just epistemology,
nor can it be defined as being just ontology. In fact, knowledge is
expressed in language, i.e. in sentences, in judgments. The basic logical structure of these sentences is always a connection by the copula
is of a subject and a predicate. Beyond its mere copula-function
being is contained by the predicate. The logic of the predicate is
the essence of ontology.3 Thus, logic and epistemology cannot be separated strictly from ontology and vice versa. Rickert argues that true
enough the sentence: there is no problem of knowledge without a
problem of being is correct, but precisely as correct, however, is
simultaneously, at least in the case of general ontology, the reversal
of this sentence: there is no problem of being without a problem
of knowledge.4 Yet, since philosophys aim is the conceptual understanding of reality, epistemology must occupy an autonomous position in philosophy and cannot be viewed as a derivative of ontology.
Rickert argues that the close bond between epistemology and logic on the
one hand and ontology on the other constituted the heart of Platos theory of the metaphysical Ideas. In order to be true, knowledge ought to be
general, i.e. ought to transcend the particularity of the individual observations of the senses. For this epistemological and logical reason he distin-

3
Heinrich Rickert, Die Logik des Prdikats und das Problem der Ontologie, (The Logic
of the Predicate and the Problem of Ontology), (Heidelberg: Carl Winters
Universittsbuchhandlung, 1930), passim. For the copula-function, cf. ibid., p. 60f.
4
dass zwar der Satz: es gibt keine Erkenntnisfrage ohne Seinsfrage richtig ist,
genau ebenso richtig jedoch zugleich, wenigstens fr die allgemeine Ontologie, die
Umkehrung dieses Satzes: es gibt keine Seinsfrage ohne Erkenntnisfrage. Ibid.,
p. 172. When Rickert uses the concept logic he does not refer to formal logic,
as in Aristotelian logic, but much broader to a form of epistemology. The proper
object of logic is, according to Rickert, the truth of thought and knowledge, and
beyond that the essence of truth. How do we arrive at, and what is actually, a true
sentence about reality which then yields true knowledge? Logic is always epistemology,
epistemology is not necessarily always logic. Epistemology studies and analyzes the
processes of knowledge production, the formation of concepts in the first place.

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY

87

guished ontologically two realms, the aistheton and the noeton, i.e. the
relative phaenomena and the absolute noumena. The latter constitute a
world of non-empirical concepts, the Ideas. They transcend the sheer appearance of the senses which are unable to produce any true and generally
valid knowledge. (Needless to add that this is quite dierent from Kants
definition of the noumenon.) The metaphysical Ideas constitute a transcendent reality which must be understood and functions as the aboriginal
picture of reality and as the model for all general concepts of reality. It is
the world of absolute Being which is the source and origin of everythingthat-is: ontos on.
This exhibits a second presupposition of the Platonic epistemology and
ontology, namely the notion that true knowledge is a representation, a picture of reality. It is in fact the origin of the Abbildlogik, the representational
logic, that was elaborated in the medieval, scholastic doctrine of the adequatio rei et intellectus, also adopted by early-modern philosophers, like Hume,
and then vehemently rejected by Kant. However, this presupposition too
demonstrates that in the Platonic philosophy the ontological concept of true
Being depends on the epistemological concept of true knowledge. The
question which metaphysics must answer is, what in sentences about reality does constitute a true predicate and what must be defined as sheer
appearance. Before one answers the question one must know what true
knowledge is.
In early-modern philosophy the search was for an ontology without metaphysics. According to Rickert, Hume was in this respect the most important eye-opener. He is usually discussed as a theoretician of knowledge, but
he was, Rickert emphasizes, at the same time an ontologist who searched
for an understanding of the being of the world in its totality. Although
he maintained the Platonic representational logic, he developed in fact a
radically opposed theory. If Plato created a metaphysical ontology, Hume
was the originator of an anti-metaphysical, sensualistic ontology. He defined
being as a combination of sense-impressions and its copies, i.e. the ideas.
Everything outside these impressions and ideas is, in his view, fictitious.
Here again we encounter the close bond between ontology and epistemology or logic: Ontology is the result of logic.5
Rickert, as we shall see later, is a great admirer of Hume, but certainly
not an uncritical one. In particular the notion that concepts, ideas, were
the representations or pictures of the sensual impressions, could not meet
with his approval. Hume, he points out, forged and applied concepts all
the time which were not all representations of impressions. His theory of
causality, for example, presupposed a conception or an idea of causality
which is far removed from sensual observations. Causality emerges, Hume
claimed, from habits and thus eectuates itself. Humes ontology and epistemology, Rickert concludes, got stuck in the logical fallacies of sensualism, i.e. the belief that knowledge emerges from sense impressions which
5

Aus der Logik ergibt sich die Ontologie. Ibid., p. 182.

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are then, as it were inductively, represented by concepts, or ideas. Kant,

as is well known, turned this around, when he claimed that we do indeed
experience reality intuitively , but these in themselves chaotic and irrational
intuitions and impressions of the senses are structured into perception
(Anschauung) by the forms time and space, and then put into a rational order
by the a priori categories of the Verstand. But this, Rickert emphasizes, is
not a one-sided epistemological and logical approach but aims in the end
at an understanding of reality, the world, being.6

Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Kant were the founders of

a great philosophical tradition which focused on the question what
precisely human knowledge is, and how its reasoning behaves. It
was, in a sense, a reprise of the epistemological and logical ideas of
Plato and Aristotle, but at the same time these early-modern philosophers tried to avoid Platonism and Aristotelianism as the metaphysical systems of thought so dear to medieval philosophers and
theologians. After all scientists and mathematicians like Copernicus,
Kepler, Galilei and their culmination in Newton and Boyle had
altered the medieval worldview radically, causing a paradigmatic
change in philosophyin epistemology in particular. What precisely
is human thinking and what is the relationship between our concepts and theories with the objective world of things and events?
How can we arrive at an empirically tested knowledge of the objects
outside our minds? We do experience them through our senses, so
the question arises if we can know them prior to this experience
as they are, so to say, in and of themselves. Kant tried to make us
believe that his transcendentalismknowledge through the a priori
categories imposed on the experiences of realityconstituted a
Copernican change in philosophy, and posited an epistemological
primacy over traditional ontology. But he was less original in this
than he himself wanted to believe. He had predecessors, particularly
in France, England, Scotland and Ireland.
Descartes set the epistemological tone in post-medieval philosophy by his
call for systematic doubt. Actually, there is, according to him, but one certainty in life and that is cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am). This was
a revolutionary turn around from being (ontology) to thinking (epistemology): my essence consists in this alone, that I am a thinking thing, or
a substance whose whole essence or nature consists of thinking.7 Obviously,

For Rickerts critique of Hume, cf. ibid., pp. 183185.

Ren Descartes, Sixth Meditation, in: Descartes, Discourse on Method and the Meditations, translated by F. E. Sutcli, 1968, (London: Penguin Classics, 1974), p. 156.
6
7

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY

89

however, he was still unable to free himself from the dominant ontological thinking of his days, inherited from Classic and medieval philosophies,
completely. After all, he saw man as a thinking thing tied to a body in
a rather contradictory manner: And although perhaps (or rather I shall
shortly say, certainly,) I have a body to which I am very closely united,
nevertheless, because, on the one hand, I have a clear and distinct idea of
myself in so far as I am only a thinking and unextended thing, and because,
on the other hand I have a distinct idea of the body in so far as it is only
an extended thing but which does not think, it is certain that I, that is to
say my mind, by which I am what I am, is entirely and truly distinct from
my body, and may exist without it.8 This is a crucial point in Descartes
argument: my mind by which I am what I amindependently, that is,
of the body.
In fact, this argument in the Sixth Meditation reads like a foreshadowing of the Kantian transcendental a priori. Descartes continues to discuss
the faculties of imagination and perceiving which he views as faculties of
thought. Such faculties cannot be conceived without some sort of attachment to the body as an extended thing. But the conceptions (ideas) of
these faculties do not just emerge in my mind passively. There must be in
me an active faculty capable of forming and producing those ideas.9 This
saddles Descartes with a formidable problem because, he continues, this
active faculty is obviously not part of me as a thinking thing since these
ideas often emerge in my mind without any contribution to them on my
part. Indeed they frequently do so against my will. This active faculty must
be a substance dierent from me. Descartes then jumps to the metaphysical conclusion that it is God himself, or some other creature more noble
than body, in which body itself is contained eminently.10 Needless to add
that neither Kant, nor Rickert or Husserl would accept this epistemological deus ex machina. In neo-Kantian transcendental philosophy and in Husserls
phenomenology this active faculty consists of the completely unextended,
formal transcendental Ego. Prior to Kant, Rickert and Husserl the earlymodern philosophers would more often have recourse to the epistemological deus ex machina.
Locke confronted a basic problematic issue in Descartess epistemology
and ontology. If the unextended thinking thing (res cogitans) is separated
from the extended things (res extensae) the fundamental epistemological question emerges how it could be possible at all that the subjective mind acquires
knowledge about the objective world. Ontologically Locke stuck to the socalled corpuscular theory which in eect was a resumption of the Classic
atomism of Democritus and Epicurus, felt to be adequate again in the

Descartes, idem.
Descartes, ibid., p. 157. The concept of ideas is used by most philosophers
discussed in this section but that is done with many dierent meanings. This is not
the place to discuss this concept in the broader context of early modern philosophy. It would deserve a special monograph though.
10
Ibid., p. 158.
8
9

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context of the recently emerged natural sciences as introduced by Newton

and Boyle.11 The basic idea of the corpuscular theory was that the world
consisted of atoms or miniscule particles moving in an infinite empty space,
where they coalesce incessantly. Locke then saw causality as a perpetual
coalescence of these atoms, or particles, an ongoing process which he called
impulse. He then believed in conformity with the corpuscular philosophy
that knowledge is the result of the impulse of the invisible atoms on the
human senses. These movements are led through the nerves to the brain
and cause the emergence of sensationswhich he also called ideas. As to
God, Locke posited him as the prime mover who initially set the whole
mechanism of the world and its incessant impulses in working, and then
left it alone.
Locke then introduced the distinction between two kinds of qualities of
the objects of knowledge: primary and secondary qualities. The primary
qualities of things or objects are extension, figure, motion, rest, solidity or
impenetrability and number. They are the intrinsic qualities of matter or
substance which exist without any interference of the senses. Matter would
thus continue to exist even if there were no human beings to experience
it through their senses. (It reminds one of Kants thing-in-itself.) In fact, he
called matter unthinking and even stupid. Color, heat, cold, sound, smell,
on the contrary, are secondary qualities. They are not true qualities of
objects or material bodies, but subjective sensations called forth by the
objects or bodies. They are, unlike the primary qualities, highly variable
and fluctuating. As Warnock summarizes it elegantly, we can find no one
such quality to be assigned as the quality of the object. Things look dierent
colors in dierent lights and from dierent points of view, they taste dierent
to dierent percipients, water feels warm or cold depending on the temperature of the hands with which we feel it; and so on. But there is no
reason to suppose that the object itself varies in this extreme fashion; the
ideas we have vary, as our own physical state of the conditions of observation
vary, but the object itself does not vary in this way.12 (This, of course,
reminds one of Kants distinction of the noumenon vis--vis the phaenomenon.)
It is at this point that Berkeley opened his attack on Locke whom he,
apart from his epistemology, admired greatly. Berkeley was an empirist in
the sense that knowledge about the world was only possible through the
senses. It is through our senses that we forge our ideas about the world.
Now if matter or substance due to its primary qualities, in and of itself,
cannot be experienced, it cannot be understood. After all, matter without

11
Cf. J. O. Urmson, Berkeley, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), chapter
one. I used the Dutch translation by A. van Kersbergen: J. O. Urmson, Berkeley,
(Rotterdam: Lemniscaat, 2003, 2nd ed.), pp. 723. See also G. J. Warnock, Berkeley,
1953, (London: Penguin Books, 1969), pp. 91109. Locke developed his ontology
and epistemology in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1689.
12
Warnock, o.c., p. 93.

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY

91

color, smell, taste, heat or cold cannot be perceived, experienced and

observed, and thus may as well not exist. It is impossible to form ideas
about this senseless material world, it cannot be object of the human mind,
it cannot be known. Matter is just an empty word. Moreover, Lockes
epistemology is quite mistaken in another respect, because why would the
primary qualities, such as extension, motion, solidity, etc., not be located
in the mind like the secondary qualities, such as color, heat and cold? Are
not, for instance, extension and color inseparably united? Any object which
is extended and solid must have some color?13
Berkeley then elaborated this criticism in the direction of a surprising
brand of Idealism. Locke, he argued, maintained the existence of external
objects beyond the ideas we actually perceive and carry about in our minds.
However, due to the primary qualities these objects cannot be experienced
and observed. In other words, matter is in Lockes terminology something
we know not what which nevertheless supports the alleged qualities. Now,
according to the fashionable representation theory the ideas were, according to Locke, pictures of the objects they represent but these objects could
not to be observed and experienced. So how do we know then that the
ideas are in fact pictures of the material objects? Moreover, what is the
use of ideas which would duplicate objects which are completely unobservable counterparts to boot? Warnock again formulates Berkeleys criticism succinctly as follows: What could be the point of supposing a second
set of things behind the scenes, things that we never perceive? We could
not possibly know that there were any such things, and it could make no
dierence at all to us if there were not.14 Berkeley drew the conclusion
that the whole notion of matter or substance is superfluous. He coined a
brief and famous, if not notorious formula: esse is percipi , being is just perceiving and being perceived. Objects do exist only when they are being
perceived by us. That, of course, is quite problematic! Does the table I am
presently working on no longer exist, when it is no longer being perceived
by me because I have left the room? Berkeley calls upon the deus ex machina
of pre-modern philosophy, in order to avoid the absurdity of a denial: yes,
it would still be perceived by the Eternal Mind, called God. To the majority
of readers this answer would not be less absurd.15
Without a recourse to the deus ex machina of medieval philosophy and
theology, Hume continued the epistemological line of thinking of Descartes
and Locke. Yet, he went beyond them and served as an influential source
of inspiration for Kant and his transcendental epistemology. The only thing
we can be certain of, Hume argued, is the fact that we are thinking. Perceptions
of the mind are the prime elements of human thought. Hume discerned
two dierent types of such perceptions. The first and most important ones

13
Ibid., p. 99. Berkeley developed his epistemology in his A Treatise Concerning the
Principles of Human Knowledge, 1710.
14
Ibid., p. 101. See also p. 108.
15
See the Dutch edition of J. O. Urmson, o.c., pp. 6669.

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are the often lively impressions when we hear, or see, or feel, or hate, or
desire. There are secondly the less powerful and lively, more abstract
thoughts or ideas which are representations or copies of these impressions.
The human mind is able to combine the impressions into sometimes fantastic images as long as the components of these images are based upon
impressions. Thus, we can imagine a golden mountain because we know
from experience what gold is and what mountains are, although a golden
mountain does, of course, not exist empirically and objectively.16 Is there
then, according to Hume, such an objective reality of things and objects
independently of the human mind?
Hume argues that it is the natural attitude of man to assume that the
images of the senses reflect external objects: This very table, which we see
white, and which we feel hard, is believed to exist, independent of our perception, and to be something external to our mind, which perceives it. Our
presence bestows not being on it: our absence does not annihilate it. It
preserves its existence uniform and entire, independent of the situation of
intelligent beings, who perceive or contemplate it.17 It would be nice, Hume
admits, to be able to believe in the existence of independent objectsa
belief which is widely spread and popular. Yet, this is, he admits, not possible. He deplores, as Ayer claims, the consequential skepticism but does
not know how to avoid it.18 His position is a bit wavering: It is a question of fact, whether the perceptions of the senses be produced by external objects, resembling them: how shall this question be determined? By
experience surely; as all other questions of a like nature. But here experience is, and must be entirely silent. The mind has never anything present
to it but the perceptions, and cannot possibly reach any experience of their
connexion with objects. The supposition of such a connexion is, therefore,
without any foundation in reasoning.19 He then illustrates this point by his
famous and best known analysis of the phenomenon of cause and eect.
The steady succession of cause and eectis, of course, not caused by
God, or any other metaphysical force, but by the association of ideas in
our mind. If a billiard ball bounces against another still billiard ball, we see
the movement of the first ball, then the collision, and then the movement of
the other ball which did not move before. That is all. The eect of the collision of the two balls cannot be found in the supposed cause, because the
eect diers totally from the cause: Motion in the second billiard-ball is a
quite distinct event from motion in the first; nor is there anything in the
one to suggest the smallest hint of the other.20 Due to experiences and past
observations we have been able to ascertain certain regularities and then
16
Cf. David Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1772, (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1975, 3rd ed.), Section II, On the Origin of Ideas, pp. 1723.
17
Ibid., p. 151f.
18
A. J. Ayer, Hume, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980). I used the Dutch
translation by W. Visser (Rotterdam: Lemniscaat, 1999), p. 57.
19
Hume, o.c., p. 153.
20
Hume, o.c., para 25, p. 29.

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY

93

to develop certain laws which should explain the process of cause and eect.
However, we shall never know what precisely last causes are and what precisely causality is. In this sense, Humes epistemology ends in skepticism.21

Kant, as we know, elaborated on this idea by claiming that we are

indeed not able to know what objective reality in itself, i.e. prior to
our observations and sense perceptions, actually is. The Ding-an-sich
does, of course, exist. It is in fact the ontological rock bed of Kants
epistemology. The question, however, is whether this thing-in-itself
can be known, can be reached adequately by our mind. Kant then
introduced his well-known distinction of the noumenon and the phaenomenon. The former remains closed for human knowledge, but it appears
to us, it is experienced by us through our senses. In that respect it
is a phenomenon also. The mind then molds these sense perceptions by means of a priori, i.e. non-empirical (transcendental) forms
and categories, the forms of perception (Anschauung), time and space
to begin with. We structure our sense perceptions in the sequence
of past-present-future, and in terms of here-and-there. We next structure them through the a priori (mainly Aristotelian) categories of
Verstand, like quality, quantity, relation (including causality), modality. Kant himself called this a Copernican change in philosophy:
from the primacy of ontology to that of epistemology, and within
the latter from a passive, receptive cognition to an active and constructive cognition through the molding of sense perceptions by a
priori (transcendental) forms and categories.
BETWEEN IDEALISM AND EMPIRISM
In a rare reflection upon his own development as a philosopher
Rickert writes in 1924 that it was reading David Hume as a young
man which inspired him to become a philosopher.22 As so many
21
This is, of course, not the place to give an extensive survey of the evolution
of epistemology in Western philosophy. I have only focused on some highlights
which as it were foreshadowed Kant and neo-Kantianism which is, of course, the
main frame of reference of Rickerts epistemology. For a detailed historical survey
see Ernst Cassirer, Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren
Zeit (The Problem of Knowledge in the Philosophy and Science of Modernity),
1906, four volumes, (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 19992000).
22
He would have agreed with A. J. Ayer who began his book on Hume with
the statement that for him Hume had been the greatest philosopher England had
ever known. Ayer, o.c., Dutch edition, p. 9.

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young men and women in the final days of the nineteenth century
he is enticed, he admits, by Humes empirism which claims that
our ideas and thoughts are caused by impressions which must be
ascertained as facts. What is not an impression or a copy of an
impression is a fiction. Rickert believes that this nave empirism is
essentially what contemporary phenomenology (Edmund Husserl) is
in essence still all about, since it claims that knowledge is in the end
the result of what is viewed immediately and intuitivelyWesensschau.
This is not altogether wrong but too one-sided. Kant, Rickert continues, can help us to overcome such nave impressionism and intuitionism. Sheer impressions of reality, intuitively viewed, observed
and absorbed can, according to Kant, never yield reliable and valid
knowledge. Such knowledge emerges only, when the content of the
impressions and sensations is in a sense molded by logical, rational
forms, called concepts (Begrie) or categories, such as causality, quality, quantity, etc. Kant, in other words, did not dismiss Humes
impressionism but corrected it by the consequent linking of the
impressions and sensations (content) with the abstract concepts or
categories (forms).
It is more than linking, we may add. The passive impressionism
of Hume is transformed by Kant into an active constructionism,
because by our concepts or categories we in a sense construct reality. This dualism was aptly formulated by Kant in these often quoted
words: without conceptual forms perceptions (Anschauungen) are blind,
while concepts or categories without perceptions remain empty. If
we follow this basic epistemological idea of Kant consistently, and
that is what Rickert sets out to do, we will avoid the empirism of
Hume and the rationalism of, for example, Hegel or the Marburg
School of Neo-Kantianism (particularly Paul Natorp). Avoiding both
pitfalls, yet acknowledging their partial validity, he forged an epistemology which once was called transcendental empirism a label Rickert
did accept with a few reservations.23
However, Rickert is not an orthodox neo-Kantian philosopher. In
many respects he follows his own idiosyncratic path. But from one
point of view he is definitely a follower of the great philosopher of

23
Heinrich Rickert, Das Eine, die Einheit und die Eins. Bemerkungen zur Logik des
Zahlbegris (The One [as opposed to the Other], the Unity, and the First [as in
number 1]), (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1924), pp. 8486.

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY

95

Knigsberg: he sees and treats not ontology but epistemology as the

first and basic discipline of philosophy. What is knowledge, and how
is it possible that we have valid knowledge of the transcendent world
outside our consciousness? Naturally, epistemologythe systematic
investigation of knowledge, in particular of the conditions of its truth
or falsehoodis closely related to logic and scientific methodology.
His epistemological investigations are in eect logical investigations,
comparable to Freges or Husserls Logische Untersuchungen.24
But there is still one point we must discuss first. Rickert refuses
to reduce epistemology to psychology, as happened repeatedly in his
day. My book wants to present only a theory of knowledge, and
not psychology or metaphysics, he wrote in the Preface of the second edition of Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis (The Object of Knowledge).25
He is, to give just one example, a great admirer of Franz Brentano
(18381917), and actually uses, without giving him credit by mentioning his name, his idea of the intentionality of consciousness. I.e.
consciousness is always consciousness of something, of things, events,
other human beings, even of our own consciousness.26 But he takes
Brentano to task severely for his alleged psycholigism. If one deals with
concepts like mind and consciousness all the time, as epistemologists of the idealist tradition, including Rickert himself, do, one will
easily take refuge in psychology and psychological conceptualizations.

24
A detailed and systematic analysis of Husserls logical investigations was given
by Herman Philipse, De fundering van de logica in Husserls Logische Untersuchungen, (The
Foundation of Logic in Husserls Logical Investigations), PhD dissertation Leiden
University 1983, (Leiden: Labor Vincit, 1983). For Frege see his Logische Untersuchungen, 1918,1923, in: Gottlob Frege, Kleine Schriften (Small Papers), 1967, (Hildesheim, Zrich, New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1990), pp. 242394.
25
meine Schrift will nur Erkenntnistheorie, und nicht Psychologie oder Metaphysik
geben. Heinrich Rickert, Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis, 1892, (Tbingen: SiebeckMohr, 1921, 4th and 5th ed.), p. VII. His fight against any introduction of psychology in epistemology and logic is very similar to Freges rejection of attempts
to found logic and arithmetic on psychology. See e.g. Freges very critical appraisal
of Husserls book on the philosophy of arithmetic: Rezension von: E. G. Husserl,
Philosophie der Arithmetik. I, (1891), (Review of E. G. Husserl, Philosophy of
Arithmetic, vol. I), 1894, in: Gottlob Frege, o.c., pp. 179192. Frege speaks of the
devastations which the infringement of psychology caused in logic and called it a
widely spread philosophical disease. Ibid., p. 192.
26
For a concise and adequate survey of Brentanos philosophy in general and
his concept of intentionality in particular which, incidentally, also influenced Husserl
phenomenology, see Wolfgang Stegmller, Hauptstrmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie.
Eine kritische Einfhrung, (Main Currents of Contemporary Philosophy. A Critical
Introduction), (Stuttgart: Alfred Krner Verlag, 1960), pp. 248.

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Kants transcendentalism seems to open indeed the gates for psychological notions and concepts, although Kant himself was critical
of any psychologicalization of his epistemology. Rickert, as we saw
before, claims repeatedly that there is a distinct dierence between
philosophy as a general discipline which tries to grasp reality-in-toto
and the various specialized sciences which approach and investigate
reality in the compartmentalized terms of their specific world of
objective facts and their specific methodological focus. Psychology is
such a specialized scientific discipline and is as such unable to function as a foundation of general philosophy and general epistemology. As a specialized and exact scientific discipline, psychology has
in his view nothing to oer to general philosophy and general epistemology, and the other way around. In fact, all attempts at introducing psychology into epistemology and logic result eventually in a
rather murky, metaphysical psychologism which does harm to both
psychology as a specialized science and philosophy as a general science. Philosophy, he emphasizes time and again, is a science which
tries to acquire knowledge of total reality, unlike the specialized sciences, including psychology, which focus their scientific attention on
specific parts of reality.
BASIC TERMINOLOGY
In his book on epistemology Rickert complains at regular intervals
about a linguistic problem that plagues him permanently but cannot be solved by him in a satisfactory manner. With this book he
tries to introduce the reader into his brand of Transzendentalphilosophie
(transcendental philosophy) and wants to stay as close as possible to
everyday life language in order to remain understandable for students and lay philosophers. Yet, he permanently feels that this language is not able to express precisely and exactly what he wants to
say and convey. Actually, everyday language is not just inadequate
but, which is, of course, much worse, rather misleading too. Since,
for instance, consciousness and mind play a leading role in epistemology, one is easily seduced to attribute scores of psychological
features to it, and thus gradually relapse in psychologism. Rickert
complains, as we saw previously in the introduction, about the fact
that normal, everyday-life language does not oer words and concepts that are in accordance with the theoretical, epistemological

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standpoint of transcendentalism. Maybe, Rickert surmises, eventually

a special terminology will be forged for the theory of knowledge.27
In the mean time, he realizes, he must do with multi-interpretable
concepts and expressions. I do not know, if he had any knowledge
of Freges attempt to come up indeed with a formalized language
of logic which he called Begrisschrift.28 He would have concluded in
all probability that such a formalized language does not really solve
the problem, because it cannot be used in the kind of introductory
text that he wants to present to his readers. Since he lacks a concise, formalized, yet commonly understandable language for his epistemology, he is forced to explain things in extenso and to engage in
lengthy explanations.
Before we follow Rickert in his guided tour through the often
complex, labyrinthine world of his transcendentalist theory of knowledge, we must focus first on Rickerts basic epistemological terminology which he fails to do in advance, probably because it belongs
to the common philosophical knowledge of his days. If one is not
acquainted with the world of German Idealism it may take some time
to grasp Rickerts basic epistemological concepts and theorems. To
start with, there is the crucial adjective theoretical. Whenever it is
used by Rickert, it means specifically logical, i.e. strictly rational,
formal, in opposition to direct and concrete. But it also means
non-practical and normatively neutral or free of value-judgments.
Actually, theoretical means scientific and is juxtaposed to a-theoretical which refers to the arts, music, religion, ethics. It takes a
while for the reader who is not trained in the neo-Kantian and idealistic ways of thinking and arguing to grasp the rather heavy heuristic load of this seemingly simple word theoretical.
The greatest obstacle for someone not trained in Kantian philosophy may be presented by the concepts of immanence, transcendence and
transcendental as in Kants and Rickerts Transzendentalphilosophie.
Vielleicht bildet sich einmal fr die Erkenntnistheorie eine besondere
Terminologie. Rickert, o.c., p. 100f. Also: Language has not construed words for
the epistemological point of view, and it was not able to do so. (Die Sprache hat
fr den erkenntnistheoretischen Standpunkt keine Worte gebildet, und sie konnte
es nicht.) Ibid. p. 100.
28
Gottlob Frege, Begrisschrift, eine der arithmetischen nachgebildete Formelsprache des reinen
Denkens (Conceptual Script, a Formal, Arithmetically Modelled Language of Pure
Thinking), 1879, Ignacio Angelelli (ed.), (Hildesheim, Zrich, New York: Georg
Olms Verlag, 1998).
27

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Transcendence, derived from the Latin noun transcendens, meaning exceeding,

refers to what goes beyond a certain area or order, what exists independently
of it, or is not explained by it. Epistemologically, transcendence then refers
to objects which go beyond the experience and knowledge of them, and
exist independently of them. Ontologically, transcendence refers to what
transcends a presupposed order, such as organic vis--vis inorganic matter,
the present vis--vis the past or future, the spiritual vis--vis the physical.
Transcendent is in this sense also everything which goes beyond the worldin-toto, or exceeds all finite beings. Theologically, this conception of transcendence, is then, of course, applied to God who is believed not to be
dependent at all of his creation. Yet, in Christian theology it is believed
that Gods transcendence does not exclude his immanence, since his creation
depends on him and reveals his power. In this sense God is immanent to
the world-in-toto. His immanence is radicalized in pantheism which holds
that all of reality, the world-in-toto is in fact divine.
Immanence, derived from the Latin in and manere, meaning remaining
within something or someone, refers philosophically to the fact that a certain sphere or order cannot be transcended, that a certain development or
process can occur without any outside influence. For instance, a critique
of theories, doctrines, or theses is epistemologically immanent, if it originates
from its very own premises.
Transcendental referred originally to transcendere, meaning to exceed, to go
beyond. It stems from medieval philosophy, where it refers to concepts
such as being, good, beautiful etc. which apply to everything that is
and therefore transcends the categorical classification of things and their
specific characteristics. It acquired a specific meaning in Kants philosophy,
i.e. in his (and Rickerts) Transzendentalphilosophie the adjective transcendental
relates to the a priori preconditions of knowledge, not to its objects. Kants
basic transcendental question was, how a priori and synthetic knowledge is
at all possible. (Knowledge-a-priori is independent of experiences, knowledgea-posteriori is derived from experiences. Synthetic knowledge is knowledge
which adds something to a concept which was previously not inherent to
it, yet is applicable to reality and in that sense objectively valid.) But not
just the reflection about our a priori epistemic preconditions, but also these
preconditions themselves are called transcendental. For instance, there are
epistemic conditions in the knowing subject prior to any experience or any
real knowledge. When they enable objectively valid knowledge, Kant calls
them transcendental. He mentions in this respect the transcendental imaginative
power (transzendentale Einbildungskraft), the a priori forms of Anschauung, time
and space, the categories of Verstand, such as quantity, quality, causality,
and the ideas of Vernunft, God, freedom and the immortality of the soul.
Finally, the knowing subject itself, the transcendental consciousness, is viewed
as the final cause of all knowledge.29
29
This necessarily brief discussion of the Kantian notions of immanence, transcendence and transcendetal philosophy depended heavily on Kants expositions in
his Kritik der reinen Vernunft and his Prolegomena, but was also influenced by secondary

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Rickert is largely in agreement with these conceptual distinctions but

still adds his own peculiar interpretations to them. In his Gegenstand
der Erkenntnis he hardly defines them, since he obviously trusted that
his readers were suciently acquainted with them.30 This is regretful since he deviates from Kants conceptions in some respects.
Transcendence is, according to him, the act of leaving the abodes
of subjective consciousness and transcendent reality is then everything beyond this subjective consciousness. We then think immediately of the real world of objective things and events, like Descartess
res extensae vis--vis the res cogitans. But that is not what is meant by
transcendence and transcendent. Faithful to Kants epistemology
Rickert emphasizes that the objective reality of things and events
(Kants Ding-an-sich) cannot be cognitively grasped. It is experienced
by our sense-organs, and all we really can get to know are these
phenomenal experiences. (Kants distinction between the noumenon
and the phaenomenon). We are conscious of these experiences (even
our self-experiences, i.e. self-consciousness), and as such the latter
are transcendent vis--vis our consciousness. We shall see later that
Rickert also defines the non-empirical, un-real values as being transcendent vis--vis our consciousness.
Rickert is particularly interested in consciousness as a transcendental condition of objectively valid knowledge of and about the
world. As we shall see presently in more detail, he focuses on the
transcendental immanence of the pure Ego which he labelled absolute
consciousness (Bewusstsein berhaupt, or Bewusstheit rather). It is the
abstract instance that thinks, feels, observes, and that is conscious of
its consciousness. It is bodiless, space- and timeless, and thus a pure
formin short, transcendental.31

literature. Particularly helpful have been H. J. de Vleeschauwer, Immanuel Kant,

(Nijmegen: Dekker & Van de Vegt, 1931), pp. 112123, 224254; Otfried He,
Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Die Grundlegung der modernen Philosophie, 2003, (Mnchen:
C. H. Beck, 2004), pp. 5368, 331334; Roger Scruton, Kant, (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1982), chapter 3: The transcendental deduction. I used the Dutch
translation by T. Bos: Roger Scruton, Kant, (Rotterdam: Lemniscaat, 2004, 4th ed.),
pp. 3455; and the concise yet informative exposition of A. E. Loen, Inleiding tot de
Wijsbegeerte, (Introduction to Philosophy), (The Hague: Boekencentrum, 1955, 3rd ed.):
Kant, pp. 116124.
30
Cf. Rickert, Gegenstand der Erkenntnis, o.c., passim, in particular pp. 2027; 61117.
31
This goes back to Kants transzendentale, reine Apperzeption (transcendental, pure
apperception) which is the instance that enables us to think at all. See Immanuel
Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, para 16, 1781, (Wiesbaden: Insel Verlag, 1956), p. 136.

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Immanence then is the subjective reality of mind and consciousnesstwo of such misleading concepts which we must use in
default of adequate epistemological words. Mind, the cognitive Geist,
is manageable theoretically, but consciousness (Bewusstsein) is, Rickert
acknowledges, an awkward concept. Yet, it suces here to realize
that one can grasp it intuitively by realizing that we humans do not
only experience fellow men, animals, things, and events, but are also
able to reflect upon them in our mind and next reflect upon our
experiences of them. In fact, consciousness is first and foremost selfconsciousness. I know that I know, I experience that I experience,
I am aware that I am aware. The I is immanent, but so are its feelings, impressions, ideas, observations. All this is lumped together in
the concept of immanence which stands vis--vis transcendence.
But, as we shall see, loyal to the Idealist tradition he bridged the
Cartesian gap between them by arguing that transcendent reality is
in epistemology only viewed as reality because we, conscious human
beings, adorn it with the idea of reality which is an empty, epistemological form put to use by our mind in its judging capacity. That
needs, of course, a further explanation which will be given presently.
It is also useful to reflect preliminarily on Rickerts concept of
Gegenstand which is hard to translate. In the expression Gegenstand der
Erkenntnis the translation could be object of knowledge. Rickert realizes fully that the Idealist tradition is in danger of a radical subjectivism in which subjective consciousness, as it were, colonizes the
objective world of things. He rejects that position and emphasizes,
as we shall see, the simple fact that in the case of knowledge there
ought to be a reality to be known which somehow is in contrast to
the knowing subject. The German word Gegen-stand means literally
something that stands over against something else: ob-jectum. Naturally
das Ding-an-sich, Kants reality in and of itself, does exist. It is the
substance of all knowledge, it is the chaotic and complex stu of
which knowledge is made. Yet, the object of knowledge is not, as
one tends to believe at first sight, the world of things-in-themselves
because epistemologically a Ding-an-sich acquires the status of reality
only after it has been experienced (as phaenomenon) and after the
human mind has invested it with the form of reality in the act of judging. In this respect the object of knowledge is partly, i.e. as far as
the form is concerned, the product of the subjective mind. Later we
shall see that to Rickert the proper Gegenstand, or object of knowledge is not empirical reality, as the empirists want us to believe,

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but in the final analysis the transcendent (i.e. not subjectively conscious), non-empirical values. (It is for this reason also that his epistemology must end up in a philosophy of values. That is the subject
of the fourth chapter.)
This distinction of objective content and subjective form is essential to Rickerts epistemology, in particular since he wants to avoid
what he calls the absurdity of solipsism which is the point of view in
which all knowledge is reduced to the subjective construction of reality. The solipsist, he sneers, goes to bed at ten oclock in the
evening and wakes up again at six in the morning without having
dreamed. The real existence of the world was thus interrupted for
eight hours. The solipsist was born in the year such and such at this
and this definite time of the day. This means that this moment was
the beginning of the real world. And from then on the world continues to exist with daily interruptions of so and so many hours while
being asleep, until his death, and then there is no real world anymore. What was there before the year of his birth? And what will
there be after his death? He can come up with only one answer:
nothing that would really exist. This result is after all a bit dubious.32
In a sense, subjectivist solipsism is the exact opposite of nave realism, or empirism. Rickert tries to avoid both erroneous positions
erroneous, that is, in the context of epistemology. As to the distinct,
specialized, empirical sciences, he argues, there is nothing wrong with
such empirism.
Rickert puts so much emphasis upon the Gegenstand dimension of
knowledge, because it represents the standard or measuring rod
(Massstab) of its objectivity and truth. Without a proper and objective
Gegenstand knowledge would float around without sense or meaning, just
as, by the way, the Gegenstand in its turn needs the conscious form of
reality in order to be molded into reality. But again, within the context of Rickerts epistemology Gegenstand, object of knowledge, does not

32
Der Solipsist legt sich abends um 10 Uhr schlafen und wacht um 6 Uhr
wieder auf, ohne getrumt zu haben; dann ist das reale Sein der Welt fr acht
Stunden unterbrochen gewesen. Der Solipsist ist im Jahre so und so viel um die
und die Zeit geboren. Daraus folgt, dass dieser Zeitpunkt der Anfang der wirklichen Welt war. Von da an dauert die Welt mit tglichen Unterbrechungen von
so und so vielen Stunden, whrend er schlft, bis zu seinem Tode, und dann gibts
keine reale Welt mehr. Was war vor dem Jahre seiner Geburt, und was wird nach
seinem Tode sein? Er kann darauf nur eine Antwort geben: Nichts, was real existiert.
Dies Resultat ist doch etwas bedenklich. Rickert, o.c., p. 76f.

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belong to the naively experienced world of inorganic and organic

things. He calls it a minor Copernican revolution, when he argues
that the true object of knowledge which functions as measuring rod
for its objectivity and truth, is the world of values, not that of things.
This needs some explanation which must be summarized in advance.
Rickert views knowledge primarily in terms of judgments (Urteile).
Knowing is judging in positive or negative termsquite digitally by
means of yes or no. The criteria needed for such judgments are
the values which in a sense steer and mold them. He distinguished
two main groups of values: (1) the theoretical values (truth/falsehood,
reality/unreality) on which he mainly focuses in his epistemology,
and (2) the a-theoretical values, such as erotic (lust/pain), aesthetic
(beauty/ugliness), legal ( justice/injustice) and ethical (good/evil) values. Epistemology should avoid the second group of values and their
inherent normative value-judgments. Epistemologically, only the first
group of values and their logical, non-normative value-judgments are
relevant. In the final analysis, Rickert claims, these values contain
the (transcendental) Gegenstand of knowledge, and where knowledge
is concerned the values of truth or falsehood function as the final
measuring rod or Massstab of knowledges validity. Again, all this will
be further discussed in this chapter, yet had to be mentioned in
advance in order to grasp the main gist of Rickerts often very complex and abstract thoughts and concepts.
THE SUBJECTIVE (IMMANENT) AND THE OBJECTIVE
(TRANSCENDENT) PATH
In his monumental and at times quite baroque epistemological treatise Rickert tries to determine what knowledge of the world is and
what precisely the object of this knowledge (Gegenstand der Erkenntnis),
as its criterion of objectivity and truth, is. It is a basic fact of epistemology that one can and should distinguish conceptually between
a knowing subject and a known object. In the reality of everyday
life both are intertwined, as is illustrated by the close connections of
the subject and the predicate in the language we speak and write.
But if one wants to grasp what knowledge is all about, one must
start with conceptual distinctions, and the one between subject and
object is the first and most basic one. One can begin ones epistemological investigations by focusing upon the object and then try to

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determine what epistemologically speaking the nature and functions

of the object of knowledge are, and then what the position of the
knowing subject is. It is the transcendent path. But one can also
start from the other end, i.e. the knowing subject, trying to determine what its place and functions are in the process of knowing,
and then what the nature of its object is. It is the subjective, or
immanent path.33
Rickert starts with the latter, the immanent path, since it is the
easiest way, because, he asserts, after all, we are knowing subjects.
Speaking about the role and functions of the subject can easily be
understood empathically and intuitively. The subjective path along
which Rickert leads his readers, covers more than half of the book.
Surprisingly though, at the end of this path he draws the conclusion that it is a dead end road. That, of course, is quite a disappointment to the reader who up till then has followed his complex
arguments with a considerable investment of time and mental energies. Although one should, of course, be careful with any imputation of motive, I cannot help thinking that he thoroughly enjoys the
trick. Rickert takes the reader by the hand, shows him around in a
kind of epistemological wonderland which the reader slowly begins
to understand, and then tells him abruptly that this is not the way
to do it. He then starts all over again but this time it is the objective,
transcendent path.
The subjective path he calls Immanenzphilosophie, it is the philosophy
and epistemology which was so eminently introduced by David Hume,
when he defined knowledge as the interplay between impressions which
stem from the senses and the sensorial experiences and the ideas
which impose their formal order (notions of causality, quality, quantity,
space, time) on them. Most neo-Kantians, Arnold Gehlen has argued,34
followed this path which starts with the impressions of reality
(Wahrnehmungen), and are next confronted by the ideas (Vorstellungen).
The disadvantage and the epistemological fault of this road is the
subjectivist, if not solipsistic deconstruction of objective reality. Even
the formal, a priori, transcendental categories of Kant fell prey to
Rickert, o.c., pp. 26: Zwei Wege der Erkenntnis (Two Roads of Knowledge).
See Arnold Gehlen, Heinrich Rickert und die Transzendentalphilosophie
(Rickert and Transcendental Philosophy), 1933, in: Arnold Gehlen, Philosophische
Schriften I, 19251933, (Philosophical Papers), (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann,
1978), pp. 403413.
33

34

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subjectivism, often in the disguise of psychologism. Rickert would

probably agree with this interpretation.
His Transzendentalphilosophie rejects this subjective path of Immanenzphilosophie. It begins by defining knowledge in terms of judgments
(Urteile). In immanent philosophy reigns still what Rickert dubbed
the Abbildungslogik, the representational logic, that is the logic of depicting reality. In this approach, knowledge is true, if it represents an
exact picture of reality. The direct impressions (Wahrnehmungen) are
allegedly true to the transcendent reality outside consciousness, while
within consciousness the ideas (Vorstellungen) cover again in their turn the
impressions. Knowledge thus is, so to say, a double picture: of realityoutside and of the impressions and ideas within consciousness.35 Like
Berkeley Rickert rejects this nave, representational logic. Unlike Berkeley,
however, he replaces it by a logic in which knowledge is defined in
terms of judgments guided by values (i.e. in the case of knowledge:
truth/falsehood, and reality/unreality). Such judgments, as we shall
see later in more detail, do not depict reality but put it in a value perspective, and thus reconstruct it. It is not Abbildungslogik but on the
contrary Umbildungslogik, i.e. logic that deconstruct and reconstruct.
What then is transcendental about Rickerts Transzendentalphilosophie?
The answer isstill rudely and thus inadequately formulatedthat
the object of knowledge (Gegenstand der Erkenntnis) which is the standard or measuring rod of knowledges objectivity and truth, is neither the thing-in-itself, the objective reality as such, nor the sense
impressions within consciousness to which the concepts relate, but
the non-empirical world of values as empty, a priori forms.36
Before we follow Rickert on his journey through transcendental
epistemology which starts, as announced, with the subjective, immanent path, we must first discuss Rickerts treatment of an ages-old
epistemological dilemma.
KNOWLEDGE AND THE SUBJECT-OBJECT DILEMMA
When talking about knowledge we usually distinguish a knowing subject vis--vis an object which is known or needs to be known. The
latter is a Gegen-stand, an ob-jectum, that is something that stands over
Cf. Rickert, o.c., pp. 104117.
This will be dealt with in more detail in chapter four, where Rickerts philosophy
of values will be discussed.
35
36

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against the knowing subject as something independent in the sense

that the act of knowing ought to conform to it, if it wants to realize
its aims. The object of knowledge, in other words, is the criterion
of the truth or falsehood of knowledge.37 The epistemologically nave
person is inclined to come up with the following explanation of what
knowledge is all about: there is this objective reality outside our consciousness (i.e. so-called empirical reality) about which I have due
to the senses (seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, touching) certain impressions; these impressions then constitute correct or true knowledge,
when they manage to cover, represent, or depict reality.
This kind of logic (Abbildungslogik) is rather problematic. Reality
as it is in itself, i.e. outside our consciousness and its categories, is
very complex, chaotic and thus not rational. (Later Rickert introduces the concept of heterogeneous continuum for this irrational
reality.)38 What is the use of a picture of it in our consciousness? It
would just be a duplication of the complexity and irrationality of
reality, and thus not yield any knowledge or understanding. Obviously,
in epistemological terms knowledge is not just a direct, unmediated
imagining of an objective, independent reality outside my consciousness.
Knowledge is rather the result of concepts which impose a conceptual
order on reality. It is put into a rational perspective by space and
time, it is structured by the notion of causality, in fact it is subjected to start with by the concept of reality. What we therefore
need, is another conception of the knowing subject and then also
another conception of the epistemological object, the Gegenstand of
knowledge which is to function as the criterion of its objectivity and
truth.
There is, it cannot be repeated often enough, no room for subjectivism in Rickerts epistemology. He rejects, as we saw, solipsism as
an absurdity, but also the various brands of spiritualism which have
in common that they deny the existence of an objective reality outside
human consciousness. In fact, in spiritualism reality is viewed as and
reduced to a world of consciousness (Bewusstseinswelt), as an illusion
or a veil or similar metaphysical notions. Maybe, such spiritualism may

Rickert, o.c., p. 1.
Rickert fails to distinguish between non-rational and irrational. A stone as such
is non-rational, but a person who in an attack of fury throws a stone at someone
else acts irrationally. I prefer to call the Kantian thing-in-itself non-rational, and
not, as Rickert does, irrational. However, this is not the place to discuss this distinction in more detail. I follow Rickerts use of the adjective irrational.
37
38

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lead to an enticing worldview, as was, for example, oered, allegedly

inspired by Buddhism, by Schopenhauer. However, it does most certainly not yield sound epistemology. Epistemologically as absurd is
the skeptical point of view which throws doubt on the possibility of
any kind of knowledge. Solipsism, spiritualism, skepticismRickert
rejects them radically as epistemological absurdities.39
This is not to say, Rickert hastens to add, that we should not
engage in any doubt as to the objective reality of things. Since
Descartes rule de omnibus dubitandum est (everything ought to be
doubted) philosophers have engaged in such exercises of epistemological doubt. Descartes doubt, however, was inspired by a false
preposition. He believed that the sciences of his days were still philosophically unreliable and stood in need of a solid foundation in mans
rationality. So far so good, but he identified consciousness, psyche
and logical thought which causes all sorts of confusions. Moreover,
it is epistemologically incorrect to proclaim philosophical doubt as a
remedy for the scientific weaknesses of the day. This is, to begin
with, not a systematic but a historical and thus contingent and unsystematic instigation of doubt. It is, however, equally incorrect to believe
that epistemological doubt about everything would be of any influence
in the specialized sciences. It is hard to envisage, Rickert remarks,
how through it (epistemological doubt, AZ) the views of special sciences, say about the surface of Mars or the functions of the cerebral cortex, ever could be corrected or corroborated.40 Specialized
sciences are always in search of substantial truths, whereas epistemology leaves them for what they are, and subjects all knowledge
to formal questions: It asks: what does it mean that objects are
real? Thus, it investigates something which is of no consequence
to the content of knowledge.41 Here we encounter again Rickerts
distinction between the content and the form of knowledge, and the
epistemological and logical primacy of the form.
One should not take for granted that there is an objective reality outside consciousness. The question is not, if such a reality really

Ibid., pp. 7f.

Es ist nicht einzusehen, wie hierdurch spezialwissenschaftliche Ansichten, etwa
ber die Oberflche des Mars oder die Funktionen der Grosshirnrinde, jemals korrigiert oder besttigt werden knnten. Rickert, o.c., p. 10.
41
Sie fragt: was heisst es, dass Objekte real sind? Sie untersucht also etwas,
das den Inhalt der Erkenntnis nicht berhrt. Idem.
39
40

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107

does exist, because the answer is obviously armative. The question

rather is, if, and if so, how this reality can be known, and how it
can convey objectivity to the knowledge of it. Once more, this kind
of epistemological doubt is irrelevant to the nave man of practical
life, and it is also of no concern to the man of science in his laboratory or library. It is, however, the prime question for any serious
philosophical theory of knowledge.42 The main issue here is what
precisely should be understood by the concept of object of knowledge (Gegenstand der Erkenntnis)? Rickert distinguishes three of them.
There is, first of all, the notion of the object of knowledge as a
spatial world-outside (rumliche Aussenwelt). This world is viewed as a reality which stands opposite the I as the unity of body and soul or
psyche. The I , in other words, as a psycho-physical subject vis--vis
an objective reality of things. The world-outside is, Rickert adds,
always there where I am not, and the boundary between myself
and it is located on the surface of my skin.43 It is a spatial reality,
it fills space except for the place which I, as a bodily I, occupy.
Rickert will dismiss, as we shall see presently, this spatial world outside our bodies as a valid Gegenstand, as a valid object of knowledge,
much to the obvious chagrin of naive realists and materialists who
tend to proclaim this spatial and material world as the ultimate reality of knowledge. That is, according to Rickert, a legitimate, empirist
position to be taken by the naive man of the practical, everyday life
world, and by the man of specialized science. It is, however, a false
position, if one wants to grasp philosophically, what the essential
nature of knowledge actually is.44
But there is a second notion of the object of knowledge, called
the transcendent object (das transzendente Objekt). It is the world as it exists
outside my consciousness, including my own body, objectified into
a soulless thing. It is, in other words, the total physical world, including my body and my fellow men. That is, the transcendent object
is all of reality, except my I as consciousness and psyche. As not
Ibid., p. 13.
Die Aussenwelt ist also immer dort, wo ich nicht bin, und die Grenze zwischen
mir und ihr liegt an der Oberflche meiner Haut. Ibid., p. 14.
44
Husserls concepts the natural attitude or the natural thinking is similar. Cf.
for example Husserl, o.c., p. 19. Husserl includes, however, pure grammar and
pure logic in the sphere of natural thinking which is, of course, quite problematic, as the adjective pure (rein) refers also in Husserls logic to the sphere of the
transcendental.
42
43

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belonging to this object remains only my psychical I with its ideas,

impressions, feelings, expressions of the will, etc.45 There is no spatial boundary between myself and this transcendent object, because
my body, conceptually stripped of its consciousness and psyche, is
part of this object. This does, of course, not just pertain to my individual I and consciousness, but holds true of all consciousness and
each manifestation of the I in man. In other words, the transcendent object is reality outside my consciousness, including my own
body as it exists independent of my awareness of itmy body, so
to say, as a thing or object, just as it lies unconsciously on the operating table of a surgeon. Naturally, the transcendent object is not
just juxtaposed to my consciousness, but stands over against the total
world of consciousness (die gesammte Bewusstseinswelt), which is the
immanent world (die immanente Welt).
The third object of knowledge is the immanent object (das immanente
Object). Up till now we have spoken about the subject in terms of
the I with its ideas, impressions, feelings and expressions of the will.
That means, within the subject we juxtaposed consciousness and the
content of consciousness. We thus distinguish within the subject
between this contentthe ideas, impressions, feelings and expressions of the will, etc.and confront it as an object by the subject
that issues the ideas, impressions, feelings, expressions of the will,
etc. This subjectan a priori, transcendental subjectis without content, is as it were empty. It is pure consciousness, a pure Ego.46
Rickert called it absolute consciousness (Bewusstsein berhaupt).
Thus, Rickert distinguishes three objects of knowledge and juxtaposes them to three parallel subjects:
Objects:

Subjects:

1. the spatial world

2. the transcendent object
3. the immanent object

1. the I as body and psyche/soul

2. consciousness and its content
3. pure consciousness without content
(transcendental, pure Ego)

Which object should then be subjected to epistemological doubt? Let

us begin with the third object, the immanent object. There can be
no doubt whatsoever that I feel my feelings, experience my impressions,
45
Als nicht zum Objekt gehrig bleibt dann nur brig mein seelisches Ich mit
seinen Vorstellungen, Wahrnehmungen, Willensusserungen usw. Rickert, o.c., p. 15.
46
Ibid., p. 16.

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think my thoughts or want my expressed will. The twopure Ego

and content of consciousnessform an inseparable correlation. There
is no way to separate the two conceptually. This is the standpoint
of immanence which, amazingly, Rickert also called positivism.47
The first object, the world of spatial things, can likewise not really
be doubted. Its existence is, after all, not less certain than that of
my own body. Would this certainty stop, Rickerts asks rhetorically,
on the spot where my hand lies, would doubt begin at the tabletop
on which my hand rests? The spatial world-outside is as certain as
the fact that my body and the supposedly enclosed soul are real.
Whoever sees the reality of the spatial world-outside or the things
outside us as a philosophical problem, Rickert puts it as a philosophy
teacher addressing sophomores in college, has not yet understood
what the theory of knowledge is all about.48
However, truly problematic in terms of the theory of knowledge
is the second, transcendent object which lies beyond, or vis--vis my
consciousness and its content of impressions, ideas, feelings and
expressed will. How is it possible that the world of immanence (the
I with its ideas, impressions, feelings and expressions of the will)
reaches at the transcendent world of my own unconscious body, the
bodies of others, the physical world, etc.? After all, the basic problem of epistemology is this one: knowledge needs an objective reality as Massstab, as criterion of objectivity and truth, which one could
that be? It is certainly not Lockes matter with its primary qualities,
or the world of objects and things of nave realism.
Nave realism which is, Rickert repeats time and again, legitimate in the
case of the specialized, empirical sciences, is quite popular in philosophy
because it is so easy to understand. However, it is epistemologically objectionable. Lockes distinction of the primary (quantitative) and secondary
(qualitative) qualities of the transcendent reality, for example, can be helpful or even indispensable to the natural sciences, but it is irrelevant to epistemology, for the simple reason that the allegedly objective primary qualities
(extension, movement, position, etc.) are epistemologically as much conceptual
as the qualitative secondary qualities (color, temperature, tone, etc.) are.
Rickert comes close to Berkeleys position, when he argues that in terms

47
Ibid., p. 17. Rickerts use of the word positivism is not very clear, nor very
consistent but that is in the totality of his thinking a minor point.
48
Wer die Realitt der rumlichen Aussenwelt oder der Dinge ausser uns fr
ein philosophisches Problem hlt, hat noch nichts von Erkenntnistheorie verstanden.
Ibid., p. 19.

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of epistemology both the quantitative and the qualitative qualities of the

objective world (Lockes matter) belong to the immanent world of consciousness, since they are the result of concept formation. If one defines
reality with its primary qualities as an autonomous world vis--vis the immanent world of consciousness, and in addition as the source and cause of
this immanent world of consciousnesse.g. physiology as the cause of
thought and thinkingone engages not only in concept formation, but also
in a kind of metaphysical realism. It is in fact a hypostatization or ontologization of concepts which are by definition immanent and conscious.
Epistemological Idealism is, Rickert observes, often defined and even
ridiculed as dream idealism (Traumidealismus). This would be correct, if
epistemological idealism denied the existence of things and objects outside
our bodies, if it claimed that we are made to believe through the arousal
of our nerves and brains that there still exist other bodies in addition to
our psychophysical Is, whereas in reality they do not exist. This is a meaningless point of view, a piece of spiritualistic metaphysic, Rickert concludes.
The world of objective things cannot be subjected to any doubt, but epistemologically we must maintain the fact that we bestow this indubitable
reality with concepts the moment we try to get to know and understand
it. Reality is, as we will see shortly, probably the most elementary concept. But quality, quantity, objectivity, subjectivity, etc. are other concepts
which are not components of the Ding-an-sich but belong to the immanent world of consciousness.49

Thus, Rickert defines the epistemological dilemma of subject vis--vis

object in terms of immanence vis--vis transcendencei.e. the I with
its ideas, impressions, feelings and expressions of the will vis--vis the
world of bodies and things, including my own body. How can this
epistemological gap be bridged? We shall eventually see that he adds
the values to this world of transcendence, and even defines them as
the ultimate Gegenstand der Erkenntnis and criterion of objectivity!
THE STANDPOINT OF IMMANENCE
Let us return once more to the third type of epistemological objects:
the immanent objects. They consist of conscious contents (ideas,
impressions, expressions of the will, etc.). They are, of course, immediately given and directly experienced realities. These contents of
consciousnessthe ideas, impressions, etc.emerge from reality
through the senses, since they obviously do not fall out of the skies.
49
See Ibid., 6470. Also Heinrich Rickert, Psychophysische Causalitt und psychophysischer Parallelismus, (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1900).

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY

111

(Rickert is, of course, not in need of Berkeleys deus ex machina.) Yet,

they are immanent, i.e. within consciousness, and in that sense
ideal, not real. This would mean that the ideas, feelings, impressions, etc. produced by direct experiences constitute the unquestionable object (Gegenstand ) of knowledge, and not a transcendent
reality, like Lockes matter, which is independent of human consciousness. Thus, from the standpoint of immanence reality would
consist of the contents of consciousness. It is an immediately experienced reality consisting of observations (Wahrnehmungen), emotions,
willful expressions, and imaginations (Vorstellungen). This position could,
therefore, also be called Vorstellungsidealismus, i.e. imaginary idealism.
Nothing can guarantee us that these immanent realities are still something else or more than such contents of consciousness. This then is
the thesis of immanence, according to which everything that exists for
me, must obey to the most general condition of being a fact of consciousness.50 What then is, according to the immanence thesis, the
knowing subject vis--vis the known (immanent) object? The concept
of consciousness has come up time and again. What is consciousness (Bewusstsein), or the conscious (das Bewusste)?
There is, to begin with, an instance which feels the experiences,
thinks the ideas, undergoes the impressions, wants the expressions of
the will: the I which is, as the saying goes, conscious of itself and
his ideas.51 It is consciousness (subject) which contains contents of
consciousness (immanent objects). The latter constitute das Bewusste,
the conscious, i.e. everything that is immediately given and experienced,
embodied in impressions and ideas. This is, of course, easily associated
with knowing: the conscious (das Bewusste) as the known (das Gewusste).
If I am conscious of something, I obviously know it. But Rickert
issues a warning here. Knowledge is unlike consciousness the result
of logical and rational, i.e. theoretical thinking. However, obviously we
can be aware of something without any logical and rational conclusions.
This is the case with the irrational in us, as well as in the world of
everyday life which we are conscious of without penetrating it rationally and logically. Moreover, there are contents of consciousness

50
der Satz der Immanenz (. . .), wonach alles, was fr mich da ist, unter der allgemeinsten Bedingung steht, Tatsache des Bewusstseins zu sein. Ibid., p. 27. (Italics by
Rickert)
51
. . . das Ich das sich, wie man sagt, seiner selbst und zugleich seiner Vorstellungen
bewusst ist. Ibid., p. 28.

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impressions, ideas, feelings, etc.of which we are rationally and logically ignorant. Knowing, knowledge, the knownthey constitute theoretical behavior in which logical rationality plays a dominant role. This
diers, for instance, from aesthetic behavior which is often devoid
of knowledge and rather illogical and irrational. A good example is
to be seen in listening to music: the contents of music enters our
consciousness and is thus bewusst, but for musical enjoyment there is
no need for (musicological) knowledge of the score. It is therefore
not gewusst by the ordinary listener.52 This is also illustrated by our
memories. Remembering things from the past is a conscious activity, but it is usually not a theoretical behavior, as it is in the case
of history as a scientific discipline. In fact, memories are often very
illogical, irrational, emotional.
Three sorts of conscious objects ought to be distinguished: (a) logically permeated, rational objects; (b) real or possibly ideal objects
which are logically impenetrable, yet known and recognized; (c)
objects in consciousness which are neither logically permeated, nor
acknowledged or known. These three types of conscious objects correlate with three types of conscious subjects which Rickert discusses in
reversed order: (c) the most comprehensive subject (das umfassendste
Subjekt), or consciousness which has conscious content without knowing
anything theoretically about it; (b) the theoretical or knowing subject
which knows its objects even though they are irrational; (a) the knowing subject which knows its objects as being rational (logical) as in
the case of mathematics or formal logic. Later, when we follow the
objective path, we shall see that the last type (a) predominates in
transcendental philosophy. In the standpoint of immanence, it is the
first type (c) which plays the leading role.53
Rickert issues another warning still. In the tradition of transcendental philosophy one should not equate consciousness with spatial
realities, to which ordinary language often invites, or rather seduces
us. The expression within consciousness is often equated with in
our head. Yet, this is not very helpful since in the theory of knowledge
consciousness is not an entity in space and time. It is to be conceived
of as a brainless subject (hirnloses Subjekt). Naturally, thinking, knowing,
being aware and being conscious need physical brains, but rational

52
53

Idem.
Idem.

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113

and empirical knowledge of the (nature and functions of the) brains

is irrelevant to transcendental epistemology. Brains are the proper objects
of investigation and analysis within the specialized science of neurology. This, we may add, is also the case with cognitive psychology.
But neurology and psychology have nothing of theoretical interest
to oer to epistemology, just as epistemology could not contribute a
thing to the neurologists or the psychologists empirical knowledge.
Moreover, epistemologys doubt with regard to transcendent reality
is irrelevant to neurology and psychology. They hsd better stick to
their naively realistic belief in the objectivity of their fields of research.
Finally, one should not equate consciousness and subject, because,
as we saw before, consciousness can be divided in a subjective part
(that what thinks, feels, expresses, etc.) and an objective part (impressions, ideas, feelings, expressions, etc.). In other words, there is consciousness which is not a subject but an (immanent) object. In addition,
although this is hard to imagine, one must, as in a hypothesis, keep
open the possibility of an unconscious subject which is correlated
with the unconscious and irrational transcendent reality. An example,
I may add, could be the complete emptiness of the mind in mysticism. This is admittedly hard to fathom, because we are only able
to imagine conscious objects (impressions, ideas, etc.). Yet, an unconscious and thus irrational subject can be constructed logically and
hypothetically as the subjective, opposite pole of transcendent, objective reality. It sounds a bit over-ingenious and quibbling, Rickert
admits, but we must conclude that if there is consciousness which is
not a subject, there can be subjects which are not conscious.54
THE SUBJECT AS EMPTY FORM
Our journey through the world of immanence should next explore
what then in terms of epistemology subjects actually are and do. We
have seen that the standpoint of immanence juxtaposes within consciousness a subject that imagines, feels, thinks, expresses and objects
which are the impressions, ideas, imaginations, feelings, expressions
of will, etc. Its point of departure, in other words, is that everything
we acknowledge and know, including our own bodies, is an immanent

54

Ibid., p. 31.

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object and as such dependent upon our consciousness.55 Now, that

is at first sight quite odd because, if this were true, the immanent
were dependent upon the immanent. Should there not be a transcendent compared to which immanent (as well as transcendent)
objects are related? Would this subject be something absolute? The
I as subject should remain part of consciousness (unless one takes
refuge in metaphysics), yet should it also be transcendent? Let us
leave the question for the moment and focus on the nature and
functions of the subject.
Here we run into a formidable problem. We can speak of and
about the immanent objects (impressions, ideas, feelings, etc.), but
how is it possible to speak about the subject of consciousness, the I
that experiences, thinks, feels, expresses? Here we enter rather thin
air. Particularly men of science who are used to dealing with a solidly
empirical, objective reality to be investigated by a solidly empirical
researcher, will suocate in it. What is worse, Rickert adds still, the
moment one enters into the a priori reality of the transcendental
subject, ordinary language with its empirical conceptsreality,
objects, subjects, things, etc.deserts us. We must resort to
metaphors and parables. Maybe, all this cannot be said, is vielleicht
unsagbar,56 because the moment I speak about the I it is reduced to
an object. Yet, even in everyday life we want to speak about ourselves
and then not as objects but as subjects. In terms of grammar, the
nominative must become an accusative, yet remain a nominative!57
Rickert tries to solve this problem as follows. To begin with, he
calls to mind the memories we have. I can remember myself as a
child. But in this act of remembering I duplicate myself into the I
then which is an object to the I-now which is a subject. Moreover,
I know myself, I know of myself, I know that I am. Again, I am a
knowing subject and at the same time a known object. Naturally,

Ibid., p. 32.
Ibid., p. 33.
57
Ibid., p. 34. George Herbert Mead who distinguished within the Self an I
and a me argued in a similar manner, albeit within the context of empirical social
psychology: The I does not get into the limelight. . . . I talk to myself, and I
remember what I said and perhaps the emotional content that went with it. The
I of this moment is present in the me of the next moment. There again I cannot turn around quick enough to catch myself. I become a me in so far as I
remember what I said. Mead, o.c., p. 174.
55
56

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the knowing I is not the same as the known I.58 The yesterday
known and the today knowing I are not identical, but only one part
of the I is the known of yesterday, and the other part is the knowing
I of today. (. . .) We may conclude then that the complete I can never
be knowing and known at the same time.59
Now, how do we arrive at a subject which is not an object? Rickert
employs a method which he uses quite often: thinking away components of a phenomenon, conceptually stripping it successively of
its constitutive elements or dimensions. The concept of consciousness, he argues, is often used thoughtlessly, as if it were a coherent
thing. This is wrong, it is a complex and always changing world
which we reduce for claritys sake to two main components: the
immanent subject and the immanent object. Now, in order to arrive
at a proper understanding of what the I is as nominative, i.e. as
pure subject, we should mentally strip consciousness of all its objective elements and dimensions, i.e. of its predicative contents. What
remains is the subject for itself (das Subjekt fr sich) which cannot be
reduced into an object. This contentless, formal, pure subject which
is hard to imagine and impossible to define with the help of ordinary language, is the counterpart of the immanent objects and the
transcendent objects.60
We saw earlier that Rickert distinguishes three types of subjects
which are correlated to three types of objects. Let us retake once
more the first, psycho-physical subject, i.e. the I as my body plus a
psyche/soul. Now, Rickert proposes, let us de-objectify and think
away one hand first, the second hand next, the legs, the torso, and
finally even the head with its brains. What is left in this physical
reduction in the form of a thought experiment is the psychic sphere
as a border concept (Grenzbegri ). It is the concept of a bodyless and
brainless subject. Its counterpart is the massive, transcendent objectivity

58
Rickert, o.c., p. 38. Once again, this is similar to Meads distinction between
the I and the me.
59
Das gestrige gewusste und das heutige wissende Ich sind nicht identisch, sondern nur der eine Teil des Ich ist das gewusste gestrige, der andere Teil ist das wissende heutige Ich. (. . .) So kommen wir zu dem Ergebnis: das ganze Ich kann nie
wissendes und zugleich gewusstes sein. (Italics by Rickert) Ibid., p. 39.
60
Idem. Rickert elaborates here on Kants concept of the transzendentale
Apperzeption. Similarities and dierences of this pure I and the transzendentales
Ego of Husserl cannot be discussed here. It would take us too far away from the
main path alongside which Rickert leads us now. Cf. Ibid., p. 39.

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consisting of things and objects, including my own body. The psycho-physical subject has become less and less physical and more and
more psychical until it has reached the ultimate concept of the psychical I vis--vis a massive objective reality, including my own body.
Rickert continues this de-objectifying, de-ontologizing process, stripping the psychical subject too of all possible characteristics and objective elements/dimensions. In fact, as long as we think of the psychical
subject as some sort of substance or entity in our consciousness
(vis--vis the immanent and transcendent objects) it is still invested
with objectivity and reality. If we think all that away, we arrive at
a final border concept: the subject as an empty form. Rickert calls it the
epistemological subject (das erkenntnistheoretische Subjekt).
At the end of the de-objectifying, object stripping process we are
thus left with a concept of the subject as a contentless empty form.
Without this subject form or formal subject, Rickert claims, we would be
unable to even think about subjects!61 He uses still another concept
for this subject form or formal subject: Bewusstsein berhaupt, which
can be translated as absolute consciousness. Or better still, since Bewusstsein
still carries the concept of being (Sein), Bewusstheitthe absolute conscious status. It will play a crucial role in the second part of our
journey, the objective path, but Rickert introduces it here in order
to complete the picture of the subject-component of the subjectobject relationship in knowledge. This idea of a formal subject
subject conceived as a contentless, empty formmay be odd at first
sight but is on second thought quite understandable. After all, we
all know from experience what we mean when we say subject, just
as we understand immediately what the word form means since all
reality consists of content and form. Now then, the concept subject
form is that which cannot be objectified, which cannot be thought
as an object, and is yet understandable as long as we do not relate
it to real things but to a conceptually isolated, formal dimension only.
With each real subject we also think of this form of subject, that is,
if we think at all of a subject distinguishable from an object. All it
needs is to think of the form itself, while we disregard all content.62

Ibid., p. 42.
Bei jedem realen Subjekt denken wir diese Form des Subjekts mit, falls wir
berhaupt ein Subjekt im Unterschied vom Objekt denken, und es kommt nur
darauf an, die Form fr sich zu denken, indem wir von allem Inhalt abstrahieren.
Ibid., p. 49.
61
62

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It stands to reason that even the idea of an I ought to be eliminated from the subject form. The contentless absolute consciousness
can never be my consciousness since that would re-introduce notions
of substance and content again. Everything individual in the I, or
everything that made me into this unique and special, real person,
is objectifiable. It must therefore as object be juxtaposed to the formal, unreal, epistemological subject which is the end of the series of
subjects.63 Absolute consciousness is formal and timeless, comparable to mathematics and the rules of formal logic. But we should at
all times keep in mind what Rickert says about its main function: it
is because of the subject form that we are able at all to think, speak
and write about subjects. That is precisely why it is called the epistemological subject! In fact, Rickert adds, we should refrain from
speaking about a subject which experiences impressions and thinks
ideas, since such a subject is still not an empty form. We are confronted here with a nameless, general, impersonal consciousness.64
It is indeed an absolute consciousness (Bewusstsein berhaupt), Bewusstheit
which is impossible to translate but means something like the state
of being conscious.65 But again, it is actually not wise to speak in
ontological terms about this absolute consciousness. Actually, Rickert
thinks and writes about it in functionalist terms. We cannot determine what it is, but only what it does.
All this leads to an epistemological question which is, incidentally,
not asked within the standpoint of immanence, but very crucial to
Rickerts brand of transcendentalism: is there outside the immanently

63
Alles Individuelle am Ich oder alles, was mich zu dieser einmaligen, besonderen realen Person macht, ist objektivierbar. Es muss daher als Objekt dem formalen irrealen erkenntnistheoretischen Subjekt gegenber gestellt werden, das am
Ende der Reihe von Subjekten steht. Ibid., p. 43f.
64
ein namenloses, allgemeines, unpersnliches Bewusstsein. Ibid., p. 45.
65
Not surprisingly Rickert and his assistants had quite a few Buddhist students
from Japan. See Glockner, op. cit., 229234. There is, of course, a kind of selective anity between the mystical elements of buddhism and (neo)Kantian transcendentalism. Rickert even taught in private an extremely rich samurai, named
Kuki. With him he read Kants Critique of Pure Reason. There were two advantages for the philosopher: first, he enjoyed to once again subject Kant to a close
reading; second, he could improve his private finances which had suered great
losses during the inflation years of the 1920s. Kuki claimed himself that his name
meant Neunteufel (Nine Devils), and in the family circle of Rickert he was always
called Baron Neunteufel. Mrs. Rickert Verburg gave me a witty poem written by
Rickert for a festive occasion in the family, in which he praised his Japanese student,
in particular because of his financial succor. See also Glockner, op. cit., p. 232.

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conscious objects (the impressions, ideas, feelings, expressions of will

etc.) which depend on the formal, epistemological subject still another
reality which is transcendent and consists of things in themselves
which do not carry the character of consciousness, or are unable to
ever become immanently real objects?66 In the second half of our
journey we shall discover that this other (transcendent) reality to
which the absolute consciousness as formal subject is correlated, does
exist indeed. It is a realm of values which are unrealthey dont
have being but they are valid or invalid. Not being (Sein) but
validity (Geltung) is what makes values real. The formal subject
bestows reality on them. But that is all for later. At this moment we
are still moving forward on the first path exploring the immanent
standpoint.
TRANSCENDENCE IN THE IMMANENT STANDPOINT
We must now return once more to the concept of transcendence,
since we are able to describe and analyze it more precisely after we
have received a better understanding of the concepts of immanence,
immanent objects, and formal subject as absolute consciousness.
Rickert begins with a typically Idealistic statement that must be
oensive to all empirist realists. In terms of the theory of knowledge,
i.e. epistemologically (and thus not ontologically or metaphysically),
transcendent reality cannot occupy the space in which we live and
in which the natural sciences conceptually locate their moving (evolving,
functioning, changing) objects.67 The reason is that, if it comes to
knowledge, this space is filled with immanent realities. All of the socalled objective facts within spatial reality, including those of the

66
Rickert phrases this question, which I paraphrased, as follows: gibt es ausser
dem formalen erkenntnistheoretischen Subjektzugehrigen oder von ihm abhngigen,
immanenten, bewussten Objekten noch transzendenten Objekte als Realitten? Oder:
gibt es ausser den vorgestellten Dingen, die Inhalte eines Bewusstseins berhaupt
sind, noch Dinge an sich, die als transzendent reale Dinge nie den Charakter der
Bewusstheit tragen oder nie immanent reale Objekte werden knnen? Ibid., p. 46f.
67
This reference to the evolving, functioning and changing objects of the empirical sciences reminds one of Ernst Cassirer, Substanzbegri und Funktionsbegri. Untersuschungen
ber die Grundfragen der Erkenntniskritik, (Concept of Substance and Concept of Function.
Investigations about the Fundamental Problems of the Critique of Knowledge),
1910, (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2000. Collected Works, vol. 6). Rickerts
conception of the transcendent objects is predominantly substantive (almost cor-

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natural sciences, are in epistemological terms contents of consciousness:

observations (Wahrnehmungen), theories (Vorstellungen), and yes often also
expressions of the will. Again, as Kant emphasized, the thing-in-itself
does exist. It would be absurd to deny this ontological fact. But the
point is epistemological: the thing-in-itself as it exists outside consciousness cannot be known, yet it is to be noted that thing-in-itself
is a concept all the same! Indeed, it is to be conceived as the irrational substance of our sensual experiences and observations which
are to be rationalized by formal conceptsthe notion of space to
begin with. It belongs to our consciousness. The same holds true for
time: past, present and future are immanent facts of consciousness
(Bewusstseinstatsachen), and thus is everything that somehow exists temporally, immanently real. But here again language plays nasty tricks
on us. The word transcendent world and a sentence like the world
of the senses is immanent sound spatial. In and outside consciousness, as we have characterized immanence and transcendence,
are very misleading expressions. As was said before, Rickert actually
longed for a formal language stripped of the empirical connotations
of ordinary or scientific languagea language which could avoid
such hypostatizations. He settled for ordinary language and the necessity to express his ideas with lengthy explanations.68
In any case, at the start of a theory of knowledge one can only
say about transcendence that it represents that which is not immediately
given and experienced. It is a reality in and of itself which is beyond
(or better: prior to) experiences and initially (logically) independent
of the absolute consciousness. It has been said that transcendence,
viewed as independence of consciousness, cannot exist since transcendence transforms into immanent consciousness the moment one
starts thinking about it with the help of the concept transcendence.
This Rickert says, is as incorrect as the statement about the subject
changing into an object the moment one starts thinking and talking

puscular), but comes often also close to Cassirers more modern functionalism.
However, since his epistemological focus is primarily on what goes on in the observing, thinking and judging subject the dierence between a substantive and a functional view of objective reality is not very relevant. Moreover, Rickert would
probably argue that Cassirers discussion pertains to the specialized, empirical sciences, not to his own brand of transcendental epistemology. Rickert, incidentally,
did exchange a few brief letters with Cassirer but did not incorporate his extensive
writings in his own publications, neither did Cassirer in his.
68
Rickert, o.c., p. 54f.

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about it. The basic fault of this kind of criticism is that one defines
thinking as imagining (vorstellen) and a concept as a kind of imagination (eine Art Vorstellung). But what we have here is judging (urteilen).
The judgment the transcendent is not a content of consciousness is
valid and not at all a contradiction.69 (We will later return to Rickerts
theory of judgments.)
The concept of transcendent object is problematic, since this
object is apparently independent of a subject which is not possible,
since in our thinking subject and predicative object always presuppose each other. Yet, we saw before that we could and conceptually should as in a theoretical hypothesis coin the concept unconscious
subject. In that case we can also speak of a correlated unconscious
i.e. transcendentobject. It is admittedly very thin conceptual air,
but Rickert believes that in the conceptual world which is, to phrase
it in modern terms, a virtual world, such constructions are possible,
admissible and even unavoidable. He then comes to the following
concluding, negative definition of the concept of transcendence. It is
something of which it is denied that its destiny would be to become
a content of consciousness, or to be imagined by consciousness.70
Kant used, of course, a less cumbersome description of the transcendent
world: das Ding-an-sich, the thing in and of itself, without the interference of subjective consciousness. But, as we have just seen, Rickert
would comment that the concept of Ding already contains as concept
or as name the interference of subjective consciousness.
One of the major problems of the epistemological concept of transcendence is the naive realism by which we usually think and reflect
about it. For example, there is a tenacious tendency to interpret the
relationship between subject and object in physiological terms. The
idea behind it is that physiology could function as a reliable, scientifically under girded foundation for epistemology. Rickert rejects that
conclusion relentlessly. There is really nothing more simple, he argues,
than the following chain of thought: here is a table; its color, solidity,
temperature etc., which is all subjective, content of consciousness,
pure experience, immanent. That can surely not be doubted. But all
this is, at the same time, just the eect of the table, as it exists really,
independent of any experience of the subject. Without transcendent
table there would be no immanent table. As a result one may not
69
70

Ibid., p. 57.
Ibid., p. 60.

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cast doubt on the one or the other.71 The typically realistic idea
behind this chain of thought is, of course, that reality outside consciousness is the main cause, the causa eciens, of the impressions and
sensations of it in the human mind. So far so good, but what sort
of cause is the realist thinking of ? Certainly not the epistemological
subject of the absolute consciousness (Bewusstsein berhaupt), but the
psycho-physical objectthe body invested with psyche or consciousness.
In fact, the realist arguing in physiological terms views the subjectobject relationship in terms of physiological processes between bodies. That is certainly correct within the context of the natural-scientific,
specialized discipline of physiology, but it does in no way whatsoever bear on the epistemological problem of immanence and transcendence in knowledge.
Let us recall once more the three types of subject correlated with
the three types of object, as has been explained before. It was the
third type of subjectthe epistemological one as a contentless form72
which was correlated to a very problematic transcendence. Transcendence is a problem, not physiologically, but epistemologically, because
it is permeated by immanence due to the concepts which are imposed
on it. Even the realities of the natural sciences, e.g. physiology, are
not real in and of themselves but real due to the concepts which
the knowing subject employs and applies in order to understand
them. Color, temperature, solidity, and yes the overarching concept
of realitythey are not intrinsic components of the table but
conceptually imposed upon it by us who are epistemological subjects. Rickert speaks of the immanence of all spatial beings.73

71
Es gibt wirklich nichts Einfacheres als diese Gedankengang: hier ist ein Tisch;
seine Farbe, seine Hrte, seine Temperatur usw., das alles ist subjektiv, Bewusstseinsinhalt, blosse Empfindung, immanent. Daran drfen wir gewiss nicht zweifeln. Aber
das alles ist zugleich nur Wirkung des Tisches, wie er an sich, unabhngig von
jeder Empfindung des Subjekts real besteht. Ohne transzendenten Tisch gbe es
auch keinen immanenten Tisch. Folglich darf man den einen so wenig wie den
anderen in Frage stellen. Ibid. p. 64.
72
Das Bewusstsein als Subjekt ist keine transzendente Seele; es ist berhaupt
keine Realitt. (Consciousness as subject is not a transcendent soul; it is no reality at all. Ibid., p. 73.
73
Ibid., p. 63. The thesis that there is a logical dierence between the natural
sciences on the one hand and (transcendental) epistemology on the other, and that
there is no conflict between the two, is essential in Rickerts thinking. We will discuss it again in the chapter on the natural and cultural sciences. It returns several
times in Rickerts Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis, but is elaborated specifically in the
section Das Transzendente als Ursache (Transcendence as Cause), o.c., pp. 6273.

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Through our words, concepts, in short language, we spread, as it

were, a blanket of consciousness and thus of immanence over reality. But it is in addition not the reality of neutral things and objects,
Rickert argues, but the unreal reality of values which through judgments constitutes the object (Gegenstand ) that correlates with the epistemological subject and provides it with validity and objectivity. This
at first sight strange point will return presently.
But we must repeat what was said before: Rickert rejects any sort
of spiritualism or solipsism which somehow denies the existence of
transcendent reality. A thing does, of course, not disappear, he mocks,
when I close my eyes and have no experience of it. Reality did exist
before I was born and will continue to exist after my death. My
parents were not called into existence by me and my consciousness.
This is ontologically obvious and indubitable. But transcendental realism, which is Rickerts position elaborated in the second part of his
Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis, does not argue ontologically, let alone
metaphysically, but epistemologically and logically. From this point
of view, transcendent objects, including those of the natural sciences,
are permeated with (conceptual and linguistic) immanence, unlike
the unreal reality of mathematics, formal rules of logic, and values.
We can now leave the path towards the standpoint of immanence
which ended up in a insoluble problem: the allegedly transcendent
object of knowledge appeared to be also immanent which is problematic, because it cannot serve as the much needed objective criterion
(Massstab) for the knowing subject. Indeed, the standpoint of immanence
must eventually evaporate into solipsism, or deteriorate into psychologism and metaphysics. It is a dead end road. Rickert then invites
us to follow him on the second path which will lead us to the standpoint
of transcendence, that is to an epistemology which avoids the pitfall of
(naive) realism, because it stays in the tradition of (Kantian) Idealism,
yet remains loyal to realism as well. It is in search of a transcendent
reality as objective criterion, outside subjective consciousness, yet also
outside the objective world of things and events of everyday life experience and of the specialized sciences. This objective criterion, we
shall see, lies, according to Rickert, in the unreal reality of the values
which constitute a realm that is not founded upon being but upon
validity: values are not (Sein) but they are valid (Gelten). The entrance
to this realm is the judgment (das Urteil ). Let us follow Rickert on this
path which will lead us eventually to his comprehensive, systemic
philosophy of valuesthe subject of the next chapter.

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123

REALITY AS AN EMPTY FORM

It must be asked again: what is the object of our knowledge (Gegenstand
der Erkenntnis)? As we have seen so far, it is not the transcendence
of the realists, nor the immanence of the subjectivist idealists. Actually,
it is no reality in the common sense of the word whatsoever. In
addition, in knowledge the object is always correlated to a subject.
So the question emerges next: what is the knowing subject? We begin
with the subject and move from there to the object.
We must return once more to the theory which states that knowledge consists of impressions and observations (Vorstellungen) which are
immanent contents of consciousness and as such represent, or rather
depict, real objects. It is the tenacious representational logic (Abbildungslogik) according to which knowledge consists of the ascertainment
of a concurrence of a picture and an original. However, there is a
major problem here: (transcendent) reality and thus its (immanent)
representations or pictures present a chaotic, immense, constantly
changing and moving pluriformity. It is, as Rickert calls it, a heterogeneous continuum, because it does in itself not possess any homogeneity,
nor any fixed and fixing borders.74 This well-nigh oceanic, and in
itself irrational heterogeneous continuum cannot possibly be portrayed naturalistically by our limited consciousness. Knowledge consists of an ordering of this chaotic material through concepts and is,
therefore, a conceptual transformation (Umbildung) of the (immanent)
imaginations and impressions.75 We run now into two basic epistemological questions: first, which (immanent) instance performs the
conceptual transformation of the heterogeneous continuum; second,
what is the (transcendent) origin of the (immanent) imaginations and
impressions? We begin with the second question which is, as Rickert
phrases it, the epistemological problem of reality76

See for an explanation of the heterogeneous continuum: Chapter One, 1(c).

Machs thesis of conceptual parsimony, Denkkonomie, comes to mind here.
Rickert, however, does not refer to him. He was in general rather parsimonious in
referring to other philosophers, except when he was criticized by them. Cf. Ernst
Mach, Die konomische Natur der physikalischen Forschung, lecture at Vienna
University, May 25, 1882, published in a volume of lectures: Ernst Mach, Populrwissenschaftliche Vorlesungen, (Leipzig, 1896). I made use of a Dutch translation in a
volume of essays: Ernst Mach, Natuurkunde, wetenschap en filosofie, (Physics, science and
philosophy), transl. by W. de Ruiter, (Amsterdam: Boom Meppel, 1980), pp. 7294.
76
das erkenntnistheoretiche Problem der Wirklichkeit, Rickert, o.c., pp. 120123.
74

75

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What do we focus on, when we ascertain (which is, of course, a

judgment!) that something is real ? The questionand this is crucial
in Rickerts epistemologyrelates to form, not to content! Take for
example the statement this sheet of paper is real. The word real
is an empty form. Real is not paperish or so. It is a form which
we put on substancein this case a sheet of paper. Or, in a typically neo-Kantian expression, we bring the sheet of paper under the
concept of reality. Or, to use another metaphor, the concept of reality functions as an empty shell. In fact, Rickert argues, we must distinguish between the real as the content filled object or, for that matter,
as the material of scientific research, and reality as the conceptual
form according to which the content is molded, i.e. transformed from
chaotic material into conceptually ordered and thus understandable
reality. He uses the often quoted example given by Kant who once
said that hundred real Taler do not contain one bit more than hundred possible Taler. That is, the content of the concept of hundred real
Taler diers from that of hundred possible Taler only by the addition of the conceptual form of reality. That must be seen as sheer
form, because it does not change anything in the content. Thus, the
knowledge or judgment that something is real poses the problem of
reality as form.77 We experience (transcendent) reality in daily life
immediately, while the sensations, images, pictures of it in our consciousness (i.e. the immanent objects) are chaotic, formless, indeed
in need of conceptual forms such as reality, quality, quantity, etc.,
if we want to acquire structured knowledge about it: this sheet of
paper is real, white, and light-weight.
The words real, white, light-weight but also this, which we,
as it were, impose on the content (the sheet of paper) are general,
abstract, timeless and spaceless, whereas the experienced content (this
particular sheet of paper as an immanent object) in contrast is individual, i.e. concrete, time and space bound. Those words can be
applied to other objects than this particular piece of paper, to a
butterfly for instance. But in the case of our example we focus our
attention on this concrete and specific sheet of paper, not on a
butterfly, or for that matter on a chair, a dog, or another piece of
reality. All this means epistemologically that we cannot think and
speak about (immanent) contentsabout realitywithout mentioning

77

Ibid., p. 125.

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125

the forms in which we mold them conceptually. Content without

form is inexpressible (unsagbar). It is indeed because of form that we
enter the theory of knowledge. All problems of the theory of knowledge are for that reason, Rickert concludes, problems of form, and
everywhere the question arises: to which should the form of the content of knowledge orient itself so that the knowledge becomes true,
i.e. becomes true knowledge?78 That is, in epistemology we are concerned not just with the object of knowledge (Gegenstand der Erkenntnis)
but with the object of the form of knowledge (Gegenstand der Erkenntnisform).79
This must be applied also to statements of fact and that has far
reaching consequences for the empirical sciences, as they claim correctly to be sciences of facts. Facts too constitute a form which is
conceptually imposed on the contents the sciences investigate. It is
in Rickerts terminology the empty form of pure actuality or facticity
(reine Gegebenheit oder Tatschlichkeit). Pure and emptythat means, general, ahistorical, non-experiential, devoid of conscious content. Facticity
is added to (immanent) contents as a form without which these contents would remain sheer chaos, epistemological wilderness. Yet, facticity itself is not inherent to the contents. It is a priori and added
to it by the previously discussed pure Ego, or absolute consciousness. We must return to the latter presently, but should first draw
an important conclusion which pertains to our later discussion of the
natural and cultural sciences (Chapter Five): if scientific work wants
to maintain its sense and usefulness, it must presuppose that its material is molded by the conceptual form of reality, i.e. is actual and
factual. But that leads to the epistemological question, what actually
the object of knowledge is that claims: this or that content is real.
Or, in other words, what is the ground of its truth? This ground
cannot be found, as the standpoint of immanence falsely claims, in
the (immanent) impressions and ideas because they are the raw material which is to be molded by the form reality or facticity, or if
you wish truth.80
78
Darum sind alle Probleme der Erkenntnistheorie Formprobleme, und berall
entsteht die Frage: wonach soll die Form des Erkenntnisinhaltes sich richten, damit
die Erkenntnis wahr, d.h. Erkenntnis wird? Ibid., p. 127. His is an intriguing formulation of the question. I believe it should be read as follows: to which form
should the (immanent) content of knowledge be oriented in order to ascertain truth,
i.e. true knowledge.
79
Idem.
80
Ibid., p. 129.

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Rickert finally reaches the destination of his epistemological journey, when he decides to further investigate the knowledge act, that is
the act of attributing conceptual forms (real, actual, factual, true,
etc.) to immanent contents (experiences, impressions, ideas, etc.). If
we conclude that something is real or a fact, we express a judgment
(Urteil ). Till now our search for the epistemological object of knowledge has been negative. We have investigated various roads which
were unsatisfying, although in many respects enlightening and at
some points not totally incorrect. But Rickert invites us now to look
at the problem of knowledge and its criterion of truth and objectivity in a positive manner: knowing is an act, namely judging: Each
knowledge starts with judging, progresses to judgments and can only
end in judgments. Therefore, as actual knowledge it consists only
of acts of judgment.81
THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL ACT
If we define knowing in terms of the act of judging, we choose for
the primacy of the practical reason above the theoretical reason. Or, phrased
dierently, we define the theoretical reason which generates words
and concepts in terms of the practical reason which generates acts.
But here another change is involved still. From the standpoint of
immanence knowledge is an aair of consciousness. Reduced to its
essence, knowledge is from this standpoint, as we have seen, an
immanent imagining (Vorstellen) of the equally immanent impressions
(Wahrnehmungen). Now we must go beyond that position and define
knowledge in terms of an act of judgment by which a form, e.g. reality or truth, is imposed on experiences and impressions. Knowledge
is then transformed from something conscious (Bewusstes) to something known (Gewusstes). What then is the object (Gegenstand ), i.e. the
objective criterion (Massstab) which is independent of the judging subject and therefore transcendent? Also, what then is the judging subject which imposes its judgments on the immanent impressions and
experiences? We are back at the initial question of the subject-object
relationship of knowledge, but this time knowledge is defined in terms
of an act, not an inner-consciousness aairthe act of judging.
Jede Erkenntnis beginnt mit Urteilen, schreitet in Urteilen fort und kann nur
in Urteilen enden. Sie besteht also als aktuelle Erkenntnis allein aus Urteilsakten.
Ibid., p. 163.
81

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127

In epistemology we are, of course, not interested in the question

what precisely, say psychologically, the act of judging is, but we want
to know, what judging does and means to knowledge. The concept
act of judging is not an ontological question, is not concerned with
Dasein, but a purely epistemological one, concerned with significance
(Bedeutung) and sense (Sinn). It is, Rickert adds, a concept of performance (Leistungsbegri ), or, as we would say today, it is a concept of
function.82 This is, according to Rickert, a simple but little acknowledged distinction. After all, we can look at objects in terms of what
they in themselves really are. We then confine ourselves to the description and analysis of their Dasein, there sheer being there, without
asking questions like what is their sense and meaning?, or what
are their functions? In the sciences such a description and analysis
is quite normal. Rickert calls it Daseinswissenschaft which focuses its
attention on reality as being-without-sense (sinnfreies Dasein). But we
can also approach objects by asking what they mean and do to other
objects beyond their sheer, meaningless and senseless being. In that
case, the objects interest us because in their performance they point
beyond there own being towards other objects for which they apparently carry sense (Sinn) and significance (Bedeutung). This is no longer
meaningless and senseless being, but reality filled with meaningful,
sensible performance (sinnvolle Leistung).83
What then is the act of judging? What is, in Rickerts wording,
its meaning structure (Sinnstruktur)? The answer is simple: judging is
giving a positive or a negative answer to a question. Judging is, to
phrase it in contemporary words, digital because it is saying yes (bejahen) or it is saying no (verneinen) to a questionit is plus or minus,
one or zero. This is comparable to the act of wanting (wollen) which
is also bifurcated: we desire something or we despise it. In moral
and in cognitive judgments we approve (billigen) or disapprove (missbilligen). Such an act of judging is, of course, not an uninvolved

82
Once again, this resembles the main argument of Ernst Cassirer, Substanzbegri
und Funktionsbegri. Untersuchungen ber die Grundfragen der Erkenntniskritik, o.c. The dierence
between Rickert and Cassirer is the fact that the former argues in terms of systematic transcendentalism, while the latter argues in terms of the specialized discipline of the history of philosophy.
83
Ibid., p. 140f. Gottlob Freges important distinction of Sinn and Bedeutung will
be discussed in Chapter Four. Rickert does not distinguish as sharply between sense
and significance, as Frege does.

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observing of reality. On the contrary, in judgments we take positions vis--vis one or more values! That is, we value things, rate them,
estimate thempositively (approving) or negatively (disapproving).
True or false judgments are always evaluating acts.84
Thus, knowledge is not a neutral, value-free, and passive observation, but it is an act of judging in terms of an approval or a disapproval, based upon positive or negative values. But we should keep
in mind that this brand of epistemology is Idealistic by nature. We
make observations and receive impressions (Wahrnehmungen). These
immanent objects, however, are in and of themselves rather chaotic
contents which must be molded and ordered by forms in order to
become coherent, solid and reliable knowledge. Well then, in the
case of judgments these forms are the approvals or disapprovals of
the act of judging which in their turn again are related to positive
or negative values.
Meanwhile, Rickert emphasizes the fact that we are dealing here
with knowledge, and thus with a purely theoretical approving and disapproving related to the theoretical values of truth/falsehood, or
reality/unreality. If I say this is a sheet of paper, I do not express
a purely neutral fact, but issue (usually without being aware of it)
a judgment in which I impose forms like facticity and reality on
my impression of the sheet of paper. But these impositions are values because the question to be answered after the statement was
made, is something like this: is it true? Is this object really a piece
of paper? The question is to be approved or disapproved. Now,
Rickert acknowledges that all this is rather strange at first sight. It
is strange, because in everyday life we usually rate and evaluate in
terms of non-theoretical values, such as the hedonistic values (pleasure/displeasure, lust/pain), aesthetic values (beautiful/ugly), or ethical values (good/evil).85 In epistemology, however, these non-theoretical
values should be distinguished from the cognitive, theoretical act of
judging. Only truth/falsehood and reality/unreality are admissible in
our theoretical judgments about realityor, more precisely, about
the immanent objects, i.e. our impressions and experiences of reality.

84
Ibid., p. 165. This is similar to Brentanos epistemology in which the positive
or negative judgment (Urteil ) plays a crucial role. The dierence again is that
Brentano sees the act of judging as a psychological act which Rickert rejects as a
psychologistic fallacy. For Brentano see Stegmller, o.c., pp. 217.
85
Ibid., p. 170. We will return to this in more detail in the next chapter.

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY

129

Thus the meaning of sentences like: this smell is pleasant, or: this
picture is beautiful, or: this will is morally good, remain outside consideration.86 These sentences, Rickert adds, are strictly speaking also
truth claiming judgments, but fall outside the realm of epistemology
because they refer predominantly to hedonistic, aesthetic and ethical values and ratings. If the question of their truth is raised, it is
very hard to decide whether hedonistic, aesthetic and ethic evaluations are correct or incorrect, true or false. In epistemology which
searches theoretically for objectivity and truth, we should abstain
from them.
We must now direct our attention to the knowing subject. It is,
so much is clear by now, the approving or disapproving, evaluating
and rating subject. However, it should not be confused with the individual, historical knowing person of flesh and blood. Rickert disagrees with Wilhelm Dilthey on this point. In his philosophy Dilthey
warned not to isolate a knowing subject from the total human being
of flesh and blood. He stood, as we saw before, in the tradition of
Lebensphilosophie and rejected any attempt, such as Rickerts, to isolate the knowing function from the rest of the human being. This
may be the correct thing to do, Rickert counters, in psychology or
in history as scientific disciplines, but it is inadmissible in epistemology which works with a theoretical concept of knowledge and
searches for the objectivity of the cognitive performance of judging.
Epistemology is not to be confused with philosophical anthropology.
Its mission is much more modest. After all, we only want to understand the essence of theoretical thinking and its capacity to arrive
at objectivity.87 The theory of knowledge is only concerned with the
theoretical behavior of the subject, and is in that sense a theory of
theory.88 But it must be repeated once more, the subject acquires
reliable knowledge only by issuing judgments. That is, knowing is
not only theoretical but above all practical as well: it approves or
disapproves and thereby relates objects to positive or negative values.

86
Der Sinn von Stzen wie z.B.: dieser Geruch ist angenehm, oder: dieses Bild
ist schn, oder: dieser Wille ist sittlich, bleibt deshalb hier vllig ausser Betracht.
Ibid., p. 169f.
87
Wir wollen ja lediglich das Wesen des theoretischen Denkens und seine Fhigkeit
zur Objektivitt verstehen. Ibid., p. 168.
88
eine Theorie der Theorie. (Italics by Rickert). Idem.

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THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE OF JUDGMENTS

At this point of our journey which nears its end, another dimension
must still be added to the act of judging in terms of positive or negative values. Rickert calls it the judgments necessity (die Urteilsnotwendigkeit), or its commanding dimension expressed in verbs like to
have to, or ought to which contrasts with beingin German: das
Sollen as opposed to the facticity of das Sein.89 It is obvious that the
theoretical and non-theoretical values to which the judgments relate,
cannot be characterized by the concept of being. Values do not
exist in terms of sheer being, as things, human beings, animals, and
also events and happenings exist. Values cannot be experienced by
the senses. That is, values are not, but are valid or not valid. Not
being, or existence but validity is their essence, although one should
actually not talk about them in such essentialist terms. In any case,
in and of themselves values are not real. They acquire reality (being)
by attaching them to real beings through their judgments. We want
these judgments about reality to be true in the sense of valid. If
that is accomplished, we may even experience a hedonistic sense of
certainty. (The famous German Aha-Erlebnis comes to mind here.)
But, Rickert hastens to add, this is a psychological category which
should be left out of the exclusively theoretical, scientific orientation
of his epistemology. It certainly cannot function as the theoretical
foundation of the judgments necessity we are discussing here.
Rickert did (and probably would) not phrase it this way, but I am
inclined to call this necessity of judgment an epistemological categorical
imperative which is again to be seen and interpreted as an empty and
timeless form attached to equally timeless, ahistorical values as forms
(true-false, real-unreal). Unlike the hedonistic values (pleasure and
pain) which are historical, time bound and individually real, the theoretical values (true-false, real-unreal) are logical values and thus, like
the rules of mathematics, ahistorical, timeless and formal. More relevant still, these theoretical values are independent of our individual contents of consciousness, i.e. our impressions, imaginations,
feelings, expressions of the will. The latter are not general or universal but individual and time bound, since they have a beginning
at our birth and find their end in our death. Theoretical values, on

89

Ibid., pp. 171180.

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131

the contrary, are and remain valid independent of our birth and
death. They are universal and general like the rules of mathematics. Because of the universal and general nature of the theoretical,
logical values we cannot judge, i.e. approve or disapprove, vicariously but are bound by a power which we are obliged to acknowledge and obey. To give a simple example, when I hear tones and
am asked, if I hear anything, I must, I have to admit that I hear tones:
Yes, I hear music. Without this necessity, this Sollen, I would remain
stuck in uncertainty, and either not judge at all, or decide to abstain
from any judgment. This certainty gives my yes-judgment the character of unconditional necessity. It is a thought necessity and judgment necessity (Denknotwendigkeit and Urteilsnotwendigkeit),90 that is, a
categorical imperative. Naturally, this pertains equally to statements
of fact. They acknowledge the necessity that one has to judge this
and this way and not dierently. It is the necessity of the Sollen which
is not a causal-psychic coercion but a logical ground: it is a logical
Sollen, not a causal Mssen.91
Rickert then draws a spectacular conclusion which he himself
labeled as our Copernican standpoint:92 the assignment of reality and truth to the impressions and observations (Wahrnehmungen and
Vorstellungen), and not these impressions and observations themselves,
decides what is real and true, or unreal and false. Such an assigning Urteil can only be accomplished by the interference of logical
values (true/false, real/unreal), and by valuing, rating judgments in
the form of admitting (bejahen) or denying (verneinen). These values
are, in the theoretical sphere of epistemology, not specific, historical
and individual, but timeless, general and universal. They are above
all couched in the necessity of the verb ought to (Sollen). In the
final analysis thenand this concludes Rickerts epistemological search
for the Gegenstand der Erkenntniss, i.e. for the object of knowledge that
functions as the criterion (Massstab) of truth and objectivitythe
object of knowledge and criterion of its objectivity and truth is not

Ibid., p. 177.
Ibid., p. 179, footnote 1. It is for a non-native user of the German language
hard to distinguish Mssen from Sollen. Maybe the following simple example may
help somewhat: all human beings must (Mssen) eventually die; a prisoner condemned to death has to (Sollen) die on a set date. Mssen (have to) is naturally
causal, Sollen (ought to) on the other hand is morally, or legally causal.
92
unser kopernikanischer Standpunkt, ibid., p. 182.
90
91

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the thing-in-itself as the nave realists believe, nor the impressions

and observations as the immanent idealists claim. The object of theoretical knowledge consists of the theoretical values (truth/falsehood,
reality/unreality) which are ontologically unreal yet valid or invalid,
plus their inherent necessity, their intrinsic Sollen. The searched for
Gegenstand der Erkenntnis is thus the combination of values and necessity of judgmentWerte plus Sollen. They are, of course, not immanent, intrinsic components of consciousness, but as transcendent as
the objects and facts of the empirical, everyday experiences and of
the specialized sciences!
Rickert called this epistemological position transcendental Idealism. It
remains loyal to the German Idealistic tradition, since the knowing
and judging subject focuses on the immanent contents of consciousness
consisting of the impressions and observations of a transcendent
reality.93 Yet, it is at the same time also transcendental in that the final
Gegenstand der Erkenntnis is found in the unreal (but not metaphysical) reality of values with their compelling and obliging Sollen character as essential components of mans judging acts (Urteile). To sum
up, epistemological object (Gegenstand ) and objective criterion (Massstab)
consist of the logical values (true-false, real-unreal) couched in an
epistemological categorical imperative and expressed in practical judgments. This peculiar Gegenstand, Rickert adds, is as objective and as
transcendent as the empirical objects of the specialized sciences which
believe and trust in their given nature and objectivity. Their philosophically nave empirism is, given the logical and methodological
framework of the specialized sciences, understandable and legitimate.
It is, however, within philosophy as a general science that such a
nave epistemological empirism is fallacious and objectionable.

93
In the next chapter we shall see that Rickert has called his position also transcendental empirism. After all, he never denied the existence of an objective, transcendent reality (Kants thing-in-itself ) which is the proper object of the empirical,
specialized sciences and the very source of human experiences and sensations. This
is indeed an empirist dimension of his epistemology, but the Kantian idea that the
proper object of knowledge is not the thing-in-itself that cannot be known but the
immanent deposit of the experiences and sensations in consciousness is its Idealist
dimension.

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133

CONCLUSION
With this conclusion we have reached the final destination of our
epistemological search for the object and the subject of theoretical
knowledge. We are, as Rickert observes correctly, in everyday life
and in the dierent scientific disciplines as well, thoroughly embedded in empirism. We do not cast doubt on the objectivity of facts,
organic beings and inorganic things. Yet, if we do not discard epistemology as a valid philosophical enterprise, one may wonder with
Kant and the neo-Kantians, as to how valid or true knowledge of
the surrounding reality and of our own bodies and minds as parts
of this reality, can come about at all. It is a basic and directly understandable fact that we perceive this reality through our senses. We
hear, taste, see, feel reality (organic and inorganic things, and historical events) incessantly, and it is quite obvious that these sensations and perceptions are the raw material of what we usually call
knowledge. It is then quite convincing also that there must be an
instance which organizes this raw material into a structured and
systematic material, using categories like time, space, quality,
quantity and causality as organizing instruments. This instance
is not the I, or the mind or the psyche of empirical psychology,
because they are still predicative objects of the knowing subject,
which is itself obviously not part of this reality. It is not real or
empirical, but a priori and transcendental.
When we are prepared to engage in epistemology, Rickert asks
us to shed our everyday life, often nave realism or empirism. Scientists,
who want to reflect upon epistemological issues, are also invited to
bracket their legitimate belief in the objectivity of the facts which
are being investigated within the boundaries of their specific disciplines. That reminds one, of course, of Husserls epoch. In fact,
Husserl is next to Rickert one of the few philosophers who elaborated on Kants transcendentalism. There are, however, basic dierences
between Rickerts neo-Kantianism and Husserls phenomenology. In
particular Husserls Wesensschau as the phenomenological technique
that allegedly could bridge immanence and transcendence is alien
to Rickerts epistemology and philosophy of values.94 Reduced to its
94
This is not the place to enter into a detailed, comparative analysis of the similarities and dierences of Rickerts and Husserls transcendental epistemologies.
That would be an interesting exercise though.

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essence Rickerts epistemology claims that in knowledge the subject

consists of a formal, empty, absolute consciousness (Bewusstsein berhaupt, Bewusstheit), which is a transcendental and pure (non-empirical) Ego, juxtaposed to objects which consist of theoretical (logical)
values as empty, timeless and abstract forms. They assist the necessity to judge (Urteilsnotwendigkeit), which is also an empty form. In logically necessary, binary judgments (true/false, real/unreal) theoretical
knowledge is supposed to occur or happen.
Meanwhile, this phrasing is, in terms of Rickerts transcendentalism, all wrong because verbs like to consist of , to juxtapose, to
assist, to occur, or to happen suggest transcendence and content,
not immanence and forms. However, the problem is that there are
no appropriate words available. There is no useful transcendental
language and script like that of mathematics by which all of this can
be explained. So Rickert roams around linguistically in the abstract
abodes of transcendentalism hoping to make himself clear. He leads
us into domains of thoughta sort of chimerical, surrealistic world
of empty formsin which indeed normal language can no longer
function. Much of what he thinks and wants to say is, as he says
himself regularly, unsagbar, i.e. inexpressible. Indeed, words do not
only objectify things but provide them also with substance. Rickert
believes that the concepts of his transcendental philosophy ought to
remain empty forms which allegedly mold chaotic and irrational contents (the transcendent and immanent realities) into a rationally understandable cosmos. But in the end, we are left with conceptual emptiness
only, for which there is no appropriate language. Maybe Rickert
should have taken to heart Ludwig Wittgensteins advise to remain
silent, when things cannot be said. But he goes on talking and often
gets lost in an abstract thicket of empty concepts and meaningless
words. Reading the last pages of his book, where he roams around
in a conceptual haze, one is reminded of the mystics who define
their God in terms of Emptiness and consequently withdraw into
silencemuein, the Greek verb for being silent, which is the virtue
of the mystics.95 Rickerts epistemological Godhis Gegenstand der
Erkenntnisis a trinity (subject, object and value-related judgment)

95
As I related earlier, several Japanese philosophy students came to Heidelberg
in the 1920s in order to learn the intricacies of neo-Kantian transcendentalism.
This is not amazing, since in the Zen-Buddhist and Shintost traditions emptiness

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135

which is as empty as the Christian trinity of the mystics. Yet, he

decides not to withdraw into mystical or Wittgensteinean silence.
A distinct departure from Rickerts neo-Kantian transcendentalism is presented by two philosophical currents which take their departure from language, but elaborate on that in dierent ways. There is
the Anglo-Saxon linguistic philosophy which was once labeled the
linguistic turn, initiated by Ludwig Wittgenstein.96 There is next the
French school of thinking about language in which particularly Michel
Foucault and Jacques Derrida played leading roles.97 The notion of
deconstruction comes, of course, to mind here. Rickert would in all
probability have sympathized with it, but next ask the question what
then after this deconstruction reliable, valid, if not true knowledge,
is all about. This is not the place to enter into a comparative analysis. It suces to remark that the phenomenon of language which
has plagued Rickert so much because of its alleged insuciency to
verbally catch the abstract unrealities of transcendentalism, became
the central philosophical issue, drawing philosophy away from transcendental epistemology.
As to the Anglo-Saxon linguistic turn and the French deconstructionists Rickert would in all probability remark that in the end both

and empty forms play a predominant role. Once, during a stay in Japan as a visiting professor, I participated in a tea ceremony held in one of the many Japanese
temples. Afterwards I asked the Japanese colleague who accompanied me, what the
meaning of the ceremony actually was. He smiled and said that this was a typically Western question: the ceremony had to have a meaningful content. He explained
to me that it has no meaning, no substance, no content. It is an empty form which
puts one at rest, which in a way empties the mind and the soul. It does so by simple forms such as the very sparse furniture ( just a wooden table and a few tatamis),
the simple shape of the bowl from which one drinks the tea (with the imperative
that the bowl is to be held by both stretched hands), and also the gestures of the
hostess who pours the tea and of the guests who drink it. Rickert, who incidentally
was an avid tea drinker, would certainly have sympathized with this Japanese ceremony and its inherent formalism. But then, he would also realize that this formalism was primarily aesthetic and maybe even hedonistic, but not theoretical and
epistemological. It may bring about a kind of mystical, phenomenological Wesensschau,
but it will not render any rational, value related, theoretically sound knowledge of
reality.
96
Richard M. Rorty (ed.), The Linguistic Turn. Essays in Philosophical Method, 1967,
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992). The classic, although disputed
text is Alfred J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic, 1936, (New York: Dover Publications,
n.d.).
97
E. Berns, S. IJsseling, P. Moyaert (eds.), Denken in Parijs. Taal en Lacan, Foucault,
Althusser, Derrida, (Thinking in Paris. Language and Lacan, Foucault, Althusser,
Derrida), (Alphen a.d. Rijn, Brussel: Samson Uitgeverij, 1981), p. 23.

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of them reduced epistemology to the empirical (mainly sociological,

psychological and historical) study of language. That may, he would
argue, easily result in unconscious forms of psychologistic, sociologistic
and historicist metaphysics. A telling example is John R. Searles The
Construction of Social Reality which comes close to Kants epistemology,
but deviates from its transcendentalism because of his stern defence
of (typically Anglo-Saxon) realism. His focus on institutions and institutional facts results in fact in an ontology which in the end is more
part of the sociology of knowledge than transcendental-philosophical
epistemology.98
The French philosophers in particular easily end up in grave logical
anomalies. Foucault and Derrida, for instance, may deconstruct the
subject and the author of written or spoken texts, claiming the primacy of the discourse and the intertextuality of the printed or spoken texts. But then there remains still the simple fact that it is
Foucault and Derrida who as authors and subjects invented, expressed
and published the very notions of discourse and intertextuality,
and impose these categories as forms on the sense impressions of
their readers and audiences. No one else did, I am confident, Rickert
would remark wryly. Next the question suggests itself, how the subject in them went about, what, in other words, the nature is of the
epistemological process at work in them. Rickerts subjectand both
Foucault and Derrida would probably sympathize with him on this
pointis not the empirical author of the texts, butand this they
would find hard to fathomthe transcendental pure Ego as the sheer
possibility of subjectivity and of knowledge.
Finally, there is a structural weakness in Rickerts epistemology
which renders it to my mind illogical. Right at the beginning of his
epistemological journey he claims that the object of knowledge
(Gegenstand der Erkenntnis) is also its criterion (Massstab) of objectivity,
truth, or reality. But object and criterion are theoretically and logically two dierent things. An object is, in the final analysis, a passive thing, an unstructured content, an ob-jectum, which in Rickerts
own theory must have been shaped, structured or molded by conceptual forms in order to be an object at all. Criterion, on the other

98
John R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality, (New York: The Free Press,
1995; Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1995). We return to Searles
constructionism within an institutional context in the Conclusion.

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hand, is an instrument for action, i.e. for judgmenta sort of measuring rod which is used by the subject, when it makes judgments.
Now, at the end of his epistemological chain of arguments, Rickert
introduces necessity (Sollen) as the essence of judgments, and judgments as the essence of knowledge. He next argues that the necessity of judgment is the main criterion for its theoretical truth or
falsehood. So far so good, but he then proclaims this criterion
(Massstab) as the object (Gegenstand ) of knowledge. Well, it may be a
criterion but it is very hard to fathom how necessity (Sollen) as a
characteristic of the evaluating judgment could be an object (Gegenstand )
of knowledge. If object and criterion are mixed up theoretically, one
ends up in theoretical confusions which no language could ever put
into words, let alone clear them up.
In the concluding pages of his epistemological treatise he engages
in finely tuned analyses of the values which in fact are a prelude to
his general and systemic philosophy of values. That leads us beyond
his epistemology. It is time now to leave the epistemological considerations, and focus our attention on his philosophy of values. It
will be the main subject of the next chapter. After that, we turn to
his ideas about natural-scientific and cultural-scientific concept formations, for which the road was paved by his epistemology and his
theory of values.

CHAPTER FOUR

FACTS, VALUES AND MEANINGFUL ACTS

Wenn es Wirklichkeitssinn gibt, muss es auch Mglichkeitssinn geben.
Robert Musil1

THE TOTAL AND BIFOCAL REALITY

When he speaks of the various sciences, as we saw in the former
chapter, Rickert emphasizes two characteristics. First, most scientists
have a rather nave notion of the objectivity of reality. It is a kind
of common-sense positivism which leads them to believe that reality is only real because it exists independently of subjects, who live
in it, and act upon it. They believe, in other words, in the solid
objectivity of facts and are not plagued by epistemological doubts
about a possible epistemological rift between immanence and transcendence, between values and facts, norms and acts. This nave positivism is, according to Rickert, legitimate, especially, as we shall see
in the next chapter, if it occurs in the realm of the generalizing,
ahistorical natural sciences. When engaged in empirical research, the
scientist should not bother to reflect upon these epistemological issues
and problems. Philosophical considerations remain important for
them, but they are methodological by nature and pertain to the logic
of the specific fields of research. If scientists venture upon general
philosophical issues, they easily end up in unscientific metaphysics,
such as vitalistic biologism, psychologism, historicism, sociologism or
economic materialism. Yet, it stands to reason that within the framework of general philosophy the epistemological issues and problems
cry for a theoretical analysis and for a solution to boot.
Second, the various scientific disciplines are, as Rickert often phrases
it, Spezialwissenschaften (special and specialized sciences) which focus
1
When there is a sense of reality, there must be also a sense of possibility.
Robert Musil, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, (The Man without Qualities), 1952,
(Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag), p. 16.

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only upon mutually isolated parts of reality. The specialists of physics,

chemistry, and astronomy, or, for that matter, those of psychology,
sociology, history, or economics approach reality in a specialized
manner. In a sense, each discipline cuts out of reality its specialized
part, and subjects it to its specific brand of research. Even if they
aspire to so-called interdisciplinary studies, they still merely combine specializations and do not approach reality in its totality. It also
entails in the end an unavoidable compartmentalization of reality.
Rickert wants to save an autonomous place for philosophy, next
to these specialized sciences. If in philosophy one sticks to naive positivism, and if one also accepts the inherent compartmentalization
of reality as an unavoidable fate, philosophy would be limited to
logic and compartmentalized methodology of the sciences. Or, even
worse, philosophy would be upgraded into some sort of encompassing metaphysics floating in abstract air high above the fields of
the various scientific disciplines, dictating the sciences how to behave.
Vitalism, as we saw, presented according to Rickert a telling and
fateful example. He rejects both options. The former is too modest,
the latter too pretentious. Philosophy is scientifically unsustainable,
if it does not entertain clear and peaceful relationships with the specialized, empirical sciences. He coins a witty metaphor in which he
dresses philosophy in a royal coat: Also the queen of the sciences
may only reign in harmony with the parliament of the single scientific
parties. The times of her absolute monarchy are over.2
As to the scientific compartmentalization of reality, Rickert tries
to develop a scientific brand of philosophyand by scientific he
means focused upon reality and logically sound. It is a philosophy of values which supersedes the various scientific disciplines, but
does not present a brand of overarching metaphysics emerging from
one or other scientific discipline. It has its own autonomous place
alongside, and in addition to, the various specialized sciences. He
defines the reality which philosophy should theoretically analyze and
conceptually grasp, as a totality of which the compartmentalized fields
of the scientific disciplines are the parts. However, this totality is
more than and dierent from the sum of its parts: The totality of
2
Auch die Knigin der Wissenschaften darf nur in Harmonie mit dem Parlament
der einzelwissenschaftlichen Parteien regieren. Die Zeiten ihrer absoluten Monarchie
sind vorbei. Heinrich Rickert, Allgemeine Grundlegung der Philosophie I, (Tbingen:
Mohr-Siebeck, 1921), p. 94.

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141

the world is something else than the aggregate of its parts. Moreover,
if someone has understood all the parts, he has not yet grasped the
totality scientifically. (. . .) The totality is nothing but the name for
the form which holds all the parts together.3 It is an autonomous
reality with its own constitution and characteristics. We cannot put
it together by placing, as it were, the various scientific disciplines in
a row and adding them up into one gigantic whole. This is a misconceived sort of holism which Rickert rejects. There would be, in
all probability, no end to this row. It would yield an endless reality (unendliche Wirklichkeit), representing a semi-empirical, and rather
metaphysical kind of whole. Indeed, specialists of the various sciences have come up with such metaphysical speculations as is testified
by biologism, psychologism, historicism, etc. In all these cases one
can observe the typically holistic pars pro toto reasoning.
Next to holism as a metaphysical system based on biology, which was explicated first by Jan Christiaan Smuts in 1926, Wolfgang Khlers Gestalt psychology and Kurt Lewins Field Theory come to mind here. J. C. Smuts
(18701950), South-African General and Prime Minister who was a student
in literature and science at Stellenbosch University and studied law at
Cambridge University, saw holism as a tendency in the organic world
which incessantly forge parts into wholes that acquire autonomy vis--vis
the parts: Both matter and life consist of unit structures whose ordered
grouping produces natural wholes which we call bodies or organisms. The
character of wholeness meets us everywhere and points to something
fundamental in the universe.4 He saw six progressive phases in the holistic
evolution of the world: (1) The sheer synthesis of parts in the inorganic
world which lack mutual internal activities as in a chemical compound. (2)
The synthesis of parts with mutual activities in order to maintain the body
as in plants. (3) The co-operative activities are centrally controlled, yet
implicit and unconscious as in animals. (4) The central control is conscious
and culminates in a single personality, or collectively in societal groups. (5)
In human associations this control is superseded by the state and similar
group organizations. (6) Finally, there emerge the ideal wholes, or Holistic
Ideals, or Absolute Values, disengaged and set free from human personality,
operating as creative factors on their own account in the upbuilding of a
spiritual world. Such are the Ideals of Truth, Beauty and Goodness, which

. . . das Ganze der Welt ist etwas anderes als das Aggregat ihrer Teile, und
auch wer alle Teile begrien had, hat daher noch nicht das Ganze wissenschaftlich
erfasst. (. . .) Das Ganze ist nichts als der Name fr die Form, die alle Teile zusammenhlt. Heinrich Rickert, o.c., p. 16f.
4
Jan C. Smuts, Holism and Evolution, 1926, (New York: The Viking Press, 1961),
p. 86.
3

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lay the foundations of a new order in the universe.5 Phase 6 is very similar,
as we shall see, to Rickerts notion of the realm of values. Yet, Smuts
social philosophy and metaphysics are very dierent, because to Rickert
absolute values are not empirical emergences from lower systems but
unreal, transcendent forms. Rickert would, of course, also reject the metaphysical idea of holism as an ubiquitous process in the universe. It results
in a mere adding-up of so-called unit structures without any systematic
order. The result is limitless and thus unknowable.
Khlers well-known psychological notion of a Gestalt, i.e. a structured
whole, seems likewise to be similar to Rickerts concept of totality, but is
also essentially dierent. Rickert would sympathize with Khler (18871967),
yet remark that the concept of Gestalt belongs to the specialized discipline
of psychology, not to general philosophy. Therefore it cannot contribute to
a general-philosophical and transcendental notion of the cosmos as a totality.
The following quote corroborates this: Phenomenally the world is neither
an indierent mosaic nor an indierent continuum. It exhibits definite segregated units or contexts in all degrees of complexity, articulation and clearness.
Secondly such units show properties belonging to them as contexts or
systems.6 That might be psychologically correct, philosophically this notion
is useless.
Smuts combined his idea of wholes with that of fields. As there are, he
argued, fields of energy in physics, there are fields or zones of energy around
concepts and theories, as well as around things and objects.7 This resembles the well-known Field Theory of Kurt Lewin (18901947) which was
forged and applied by him as a method of studying group dynamics. It is
essential according to Lewin to observe the individual within his or her situation and to view that situation as a whole, as a field: What is important in field theory is the way the analysis proceeds. Instead of picking out
one or another isolated element within a situation, the importance of which
cannot be judged without consideration of the situation as a whole, field
theory finds it advantageous, as a rule, to start with a characterization of
the situation as a whole. After this first approximation, the various aspects
and parts of the situation undergo a more and more specific and detailed
analysis.8 Rickert would again sympathize with this notion of a field as a
whole of facts constituting the situation of the individual, but he would
once more point out that it remains restricted to the specialized field of
empirical psychology. He would probably object though to Lewins use of
the concept theory, since it apparently is not a theory but rather a method
or research technique.
Smuts, o.c., p. 106f. The quotation is on p. 107.
Wolfgang Khler, The Place of Value in a World of Facts, 1938, (New York,
London: A Mentor Book, 1966), p. 75.
7
Smuts, o.c., pp. 17f., 112114.
8
Kurt Lewin, Field Theory and Learning, 1942, in: Kurt Lewin, Field Theory
in Social Science. Selected Theoretical Papers, 1951, (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1964),
p. 63.
5
6

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143

Holism, Gestalt, Fieldthese concepts and their related theories are

not useful in Rickerts conception of philosophy as an autonomous,
general and totalizing science.9 As we saw in the former chapter,
Rickert rather searches for a dierent kind of totality. He calls it
the world totality (das Weltall ) and views it not as an endless (unendlich)
reality, but as a full-filled (voll-endlich) reality. That sounds like a game
of words, but, as we shall see, it is not.
From the start, Rickert divides the world conceptually into two
mutually influential (heterological) components. There is first the reality of the subject-object (immanent-transcendent) dichotomy as discussed in the former chapter. It is the subjective-objective real reality
which we all know through our senses: we hear, touch, smell and
see it. It is the reality of things and objects to which also our bodies and brains belong, but which we can only reach indirectly
through our sense-experiences. As we saw in the former chapter, it
is a transcendent reality, the sensual impressions of which are molded
by our concepts into an immanent reality, the proper substance of
our knowledge. But this real (transcendent/immanent) reality is, as
we saw at the end of Chapter Three, linked to another realitythe
reality of theoretical and non-theoretical values which gives direction to our cognitive activity of judging, as well as to our emotional
(non-theoretical) experiences of beauty, moral goodness, justice, faith
and lust. That is, it structures our thinking and behavior. It is, however, a non-empirical, and in that sense unreal, yet not metaphysical reality. After all, we cannot see, hear, touch, taste, or smell
theoretical and non-theoretical values like truth, reality, justice, the
moral good, beauty. We can also not quantify them. In Rickerts
own words, the unreal reality of values is something beyond the
subject and object (. . .), it is a realm which is actually close to all
of us yet misunderstood by many in its idiosyncrasy, because it seems
to be (. . .) neither I nor non-I, neither world nor non-world, neither

Needless to note that Poppers well-known critique and rejection of holism is

very dierent from Rickerts. According to Popper, holism in the social sciences is
an utopian social engineering aiming at the improvement of society as a whole, as
in socialism or Marxism. He favors the piecemeal engineering in which singular
institutions are either designed or, when they exist, improved in order to realize a
piecemeal improvement in society. Institutions are in his view not aims in themselves, but only means towards aims. Cf. Karl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism,
1957, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), pp. 6471: Piecemeal versus Utopian
Engineering.
9

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subject nor object, thus nothing. Maybe this country is the homeland of philosophy?10 This is an exaggeration. It is obvious that the
homeland of Rickerts philosophy consists of two heterologically linked
parts: the immanent/transcendent reality of objects and facts, and
the unreal reality of values.
Before we explore this further, we must emphasize at this point
once again that Rickerts reality-in-toto (Weltall ) is initially a non-metaphysical and non-scientific concept. He views it, as we have seen,
definitely as a theoretical concept of philosophy-as-science, which is
a general, not specialized science. Neither is this reality-in-toto the
metaphysical result of the adding-up of the dierent compartmentalized realities of the specialized sciences into some sort of massive
and endless whole, as happens in holism. It is also not a neo-Platonic,
encompassing and idealistic totality from which all realities metaphysically emanate. Weltall is a formal and autonomous reality, yet
it is not real in the empirical sense of the word. In fact, he sees this
reality-in-toto rather as a postulate which the philosopher needs in
order to grasp the world of facts and the world of values in a noncompartmentalized and non-specialized manner. Or rather, realityin-toto is more of a formal Mglichkeit (possibility) than a material
Wirklichkeit (reality).11 Indeed, coping with Rickerts philosophy needs
a good deal of Robert Musils Mglichkeitssinn, a sense of possibility,
rather than, as we are used to in the various scientific disciplines,
Wirklichkeitssinn, a sense of reality.
With this concept of the Weltall, which is admittedly at first sight
hard to grasp, Rickert searches for a concept which distinguishes
and simultaneously links the world of transcendent/immanent things
on the one hand, and that of values on the other hand, without
destroying their respective autonomies as happens in the dialectics
of thesis and antithesis merging into a synthesis. In fact, he distinguishes within this total reality three interlinked realisms. There is
the First Realm of transcendent/immanent facts and objects, which
10
. . . etwas jenseits vom Subjekt und Objekt, (. . .) ein Reich, das zwar allen
naheliegt, das aber viele in seiner Eigenart verkennen, weil es (. . .) weder Ich noch
Nicht-Ich, weder Welt noch Nicht-Welt, weder Subjekt noch Objekt, also Nichts
zu sein scheint. Vielleicht ist dies Land die eigentliche Heimat der Philosophie.
Rickert, o.c., p. 72.
11
In order to understand Rickerts concept of the Weltall one needs to divest
oneself of what Musil called the sense of reality (Wirklichkeitssinn), and exchange it
for the sense of possibility (Mglichkeitssinn). Robert Musil, o.c., p. 16.

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is heterologically linked to the Second Realm of values and meanings. Reality-in-toto is in this sense bifocal. But that would still not
be a really total, encompassing reality. There is therefore a Third
Realm of meaning bestowing acts which is not metaphysical but in
fact very empirical, yet not real in the empiricist or positivist sense
of the word. This is remarkable, because the bifocal reality in this
conception of Rickert is integrated and unified by means of an act
the act by which the meaning of the Second Realm is bestowed on
the transcendent/immanent facts and objects of the First Realm.
However, these three realms do not yet constitute reality-in-toto since
they are after all still three autonomous realms. We shall see later
that he posits an encompassing (and quite surrealistic) Fourth Realm
which is the metaphysical Weltall. It cannot be grasped cognitively
by means of scientific concepts, but reveals itself by means of symbols, similes and allegories. But before we enter into this phantasmagoric
world we must first continue the analysis of values and meanings.
FACTS AND VALUES
The first and most basic idea of Rickerts theory of values is his distinction between two realms which exist autonomously, yet are linked
to each other: The unreal values are an independent realm. They
are juxtaposed to the real objects which also constitute an independent realm.12 This sounds like Platonism, but that is not what it is.
The Platonic world of ideas is the first and utmost (essential) reality
from which all realities emanate metaphysically. Rickerts realm of
values, on the contrary, is heterologically linked with the empirical
realm of facts and objects. Both realms are transcendent vis--vis the
immanence of consciousness. They are autonomous and in that sense
independent, yet they are heterologically linked to each other: the
one is nothing without the other. There is yet a distinct dierence
between the two realms. The real (transcendent) objects are not of
anybodys interest, they just exist, they are just factual. They are as
such irrelevant, they do not touch us, we can imagine them but consider them as just being there. It is a mere existing (blosses Existieren).
Take a block of granite somewhere in nature as an example. It is
12
Die irrealen Werte stehen als ein Reich fr sich allen wirklichen Gegenstnden
gegenber, die ebenfalls ein Reich fr sich bilden. Heinrich Rickert, o.c., p. 114.

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just there. However, a value like (theoretical) truth or (aesthetic)

beauty, of which we are conscious, moves and interests us, touches us
positively or negatively. We take position vis--vis values, and subject
them to evaluating (approving or disapproving) judgments (Werturteile).
The block of granite under the hands of a sculptor is no longer factually there, does no longer just exist. It has changed into a valuable
object and is transformed by the sculptor into a piece of art which
embodies an aesthetic value. Facts and factual objects can be explained
(erklren), values and valuable objects must be understood (verstehen).
Rickert admits that it is hard to define the concept of value,
because it is one of those concepts which are very hard to reconstruct,
much like the concepts of Being, Existing, or Reality. However, the
concept of value can be made more explicit, if one contrasts it heterologically with that of existence, i.e. merely being there, and then
subject both, the value and the mere existence, to denial. Negation
is, according to Rickert, a criterion for the dierence between mere
existence and value. One can, for example, deny the existence of
the unicorn. What is meant is not that there is a non-unicorn, but
that the thing unicorn does not exist at all. Existence denied, i.e.
a non-existence, is nothingness. Not-coldness is not yet heat, notheight is not automatically the same as lowness, not-right is not yet
left. In fact, it does not exist. It is simply nonsense to say the notcoldness was suocating. However, the negation of a value is itself
an evaluation and yields not nothingness but a contrary value. Notsense is nonsense (a negative value), not-beautiful is ugly (a negative
value), not-true is false (a negative value as in a lie). As Max Weber
once remarked, in the realm of values there is a continuous war of
the gods which cannot be solved rationally and scientifically. Each
god is always opposed by a contesting god or devil.13 If one
wishes to get to know something which is merely existing, merely
being there, one ought to refrain from judgments about possible values adhered to it. One observes the thing, the object, without any
involvement or interest, as something that is simply and merely
therea value-free Dasein, so to say. This happens in everyday life
all the time: we simply want to know, irrespective of its value(s), if
something is a fact or not, if it simply exists or not. This Wertungsfreiheit,

13
Max Weber, Wissenschaft als Beruf (Science as a Vocation), 1919, in: Max
Weber, Gesammelte Aufstze zur Wissenschaftslehre, (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1968), p. 604.

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147

i.e. this abstaining from making value-judgments, is the essence of

the scientific attitude towards reality.14
Inspired by Heideggers exposition of das Nichts in the inaugural address of
1929,15 Rickert devotes the last section of his book on predicative logic and
ontology to the same issue.16 Not surprisingly he discusses it primarily in
the epistemological and logical terms of concept formation, adding that it
has occupied metaphysicians in the past, such as Plato, the mystics and
Hegel.17 The concept of non-being, or nothingness (Nichts) is on first sight
nonsensical because it says that something is not, does not exist, yet it apparently is, exists. Rickert points out that there is a double meaning of being
at play here: first as form of thought (Denkform), second as form of knowledge (Erkenntnisform). He gives a simple example: we can think, or imagine
a four cornered circle, i.e. as a form of thought, or as an image such a
thing exists, yet it can never be a real object of knowledge. We know that
a four cornered circle cannot be, does not exist. In this sense we can think
of nothingness as the opposite of being, but it can never be a predicate of
our knowledge. Or, as Rickert re-formulates it, nothingness is the something which in fact is thought of as being, but which does not exist in the
world. The mythological unicorn, I may add, is as a form of thought,
but it does not exist in the world as an object of knowledge. We must,
Rickert argues, have thought about the four cornered circle, otherwise we
could never say something about it which is true, e.g. that it does not exist
in the world of mathematics.18
Rickert continues his concept formation by distinguishing an absolute
and a relative nothingness. Absolute nothingness is something which can
in no way be thought of. It is the complete denial of any predicative being.
It simply denies each something. But the concept is usually not applied in

14
In Chapter Six I shall discuss Simmels important critique of this theorem of
Rickert, which he calls the negation problem (Negationsfrage).
15
Martin Heidegger, Was ist Metaphysik?, (Frankfurt a.M.: Vittorio Klostermann,
1975; 11th ed.).
16
Heinrich Rickert, Die Logik des Prdikats und das Problem der Ontologie, (The Logic
of the Predicate and the Problem of Ontology), (Heidelberg: Carl Winters
Universittsbuchhandlung, 1930), pp. 198236.
17
Rickert discusses the concept of nothingness in Platos Sophistes, the negative theology of the mystic Angelus Silesius, Goethes Faust (the radical nihilism of
Mephistopheles), and Hegels dialectical logic comparatively: ibid., pp. 210226. Quite
remarkably Rickert overlooks the theory of being and nothingness by his neoKantian predecessor Hermann Lotze (18171881) who claimed that the being of
things is experienced in their relations and interactions with other things. He then
defines nothingness as pure being without relations and interactions. It is not a
metaphysical but a logical concept, Lotze claimed. Cf. Hermann Lotze, Der Zusammenhang der Dinge, (The Coherence of Things), (Berlin: Deutsche Bibliothek, 1864),
pp. 719.
18
This conceptual distinction reminds one of Gottlob Freges distinction of sense
(meaning) and significance (Bedeutung) which will be discussed presently.

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this radical manner. When we use the word nothing it carries mostly the
meaning that it can be actually thought of, but that it does not in fact
exist in the world. It is the relative nothingness, i.e. nothingness in relation
to the actual existing in the world. Again, the three cornered circle or the
unicorn are examples of relative nothingness. Rickert does not provide us
with an example of absolute nothingness. That, of course, is impossible
because there is no way to imagine it, thus there are no words for it. The
mystic would have an answer: in mysticism God is the absolute, unimaginable Nothingness which can only be experienced without thoughts and
without words.19
Rickert then concludes his discussion of the concepts of being and nothingness by addressing himself to Heideggers inaugural address. Heidegger,
he argues, rejects logic and epistemology in favor of metaphysical ontology. As to nothingness, das Nichts, he rejects the idea that logic, epistemology, reason are able to grasp and reveal its very nature. However,
Rickert points out, Heidegger has to use words in order to explain his
ideas, words which must be understood by means of reason. The word
nothingness is such a word, a concept that must be clarified. The epistemological and logical question then emerges what Heidegger means by
nothingness and what its relation is to the theory of nothingness as a
logical predicate, i.e. not just as a form of thought, but as a form of knowledge. In Heideggers metaphysics, Rickert summarizes nothingness is the
something of which nothing positive can be said, yet which is not a simple negation but a non-something in view of its predication. Actually,
Heideggers nothingness is heterologically the other side of predicative
being (das Andere der erkennbaren Welt). It is even the source and origin of
each no and each denial, not the other way around. He goes even one
step further, Rickert continues, when he describes the world in which we
live, the world of predicative and immanent being, as a finite world, whereas
the other dimension of this world is the infinite world of transcendent nothingness. Being reveals itself in our Dasein when it is confronted with this
transcendent nothingness. Rickert wants to elaborate this metaphysical notion
in an epistemological and logical direction: we need nothingness as the
other dimension of the world, in order to catch comprehensively that
which is, i.e. that which is for us, or the world, i.e. our world. And he adds

19
In his discussion of Silesius he brands this mystic as a representative of the
relative notion of nothingness. Silesius did indeed put his negative theology into
words defining God by negating everything that is usually said, felt, written about
him: What God is, we do not know: he is not light, not spirit, not truth, unity,
oneness, not what one calls divinity, not wisdom, not reason, not love, not will, not
goodness, no thing, no non-thing (Unding), etc. Rickert, o.c., p. 212. Yet, it seems
to me that even this attempt to formulate the being of God in terms of various
negations is not really relative, as it strips God of all positively existing features.
What rests is total emptiness, total kenosis, i.e. total nothingness. The true mystic
remains silent, abstains from speech and written words. The Greek verb muein from
which the word mystic is derived, means to remain silent.

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with some pride: Heidegger thus thinks not just logically, but even heterologically, i.e. he knows that one understands the one only then completely logically, when one distinguishes it simultaneously from the other.20
Rickert finishes with the observation that all the philosophers whom we
call great focused primarily not on the metaphysical Beyond of Nothingness,
but on the world which can be known and understood, i.e. real world
which can be predicated positively. Heideggers expositions about nothingness
may be confronted, Rickert concludes, by these words of Goethe: Remain
happy in Being.21

Science usually starts with non-evaluative indierence to the objects

to be investigated. The scientist wants to know first of allsine ira
ac studioif something that he wants to investigate, does exist, is at
all the case. This, in fact, is the very essence of scientific objectivity. In other words, the form Reality is adjudicated to the objects
under investigation: the objects of research are really there. One
wants to know next, if the knowledge one has acquired about the
existing objects, laid down, as it were, in theories, is true. Does the
theory really pertain to the observed objects? Thus, a value (truth)
and a value-judgment (verification) come into play. Truth is, of course,
a (theoretical) value and it is a value that interests and moves us!
Rickert phrases it as follows: The question if an object exists, and the
statement that it exists, interest us. These configurations do not leave
us indierent. Truth is not simply merely there, but it interests us,
and as theoretically involved human beings we cannot disregard this
interest. Truth is thus not just imagined by us, but it involves us, it
moves and grasps us, and we take up a position in regard to it.22
The second basic idea in Rickerts theory of values is the distinction
between theoretical and atheoretical values. Truth and, narrowly related
with it, Reality as forms imposed on contents, are theoretical values.
That can be simply illustrated by the sentence: this statement is true.
20
wir brauchen das Nichts als das Andere der Welt, um das Seiende, d.h. unser
Seiendes, oder die Welt, d.h. unsere Welt, im Ganzen zu begreifen. Heidegger
denkt hiernach nicht nur logisch, sondern sogar heterologisch, d.h. er weiss, dass
man das Eine nur dann logisch vollstndig erfasst, wenn man es zugleich vom
anderen unterscheidet. Ibid., p. 231.
21
Am Sein erhalte Dich beglckt. Ibid., p. 235.
22
Die Frage, ob ein Gegenstand existiert, und der Satz, dass er existiert, geht
uns etwas an. Diese Gebilde lassen uns nicht gleichgltig. Wahrheit ist nicht einfach bloss da, sondern sie interessiert uns, und wir knnen als theoretische Menschen
von diesem Interesse nicht absehen. Wahrheit also stellen wir nicht nur vor, sondern an ihr sind wir beteiligt, sie ergreift und fesselt uns, zu ihr nehmen wir Stellung.
Ibid., p. 115.

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That is to say, what is being said about reality makes sense, has
meaning. The meaning of the sentence is, more precisely, that this
statement applies the value Reality to the content of the statement.
Or in Kantian terms, the content the statement is about, is brought
under the form Reality. This statement is true means this statement covers reality. It is the essence of science to arrive at meaningful and true statements about realitywhatever that reality may
be. The essence of such scientific, theoretical statements is their value
which is in this case truth (Wahrheit). That is, of course, closely connected with reality (Wirklichkeit). As scientists and philosophers we are
involved with Truth and Reality, they grasp us, and we take up
positions in regard to them. Rickert is in his theory of values primarily interested in these theoretical values. They are, in fact, the
measuring rods for the other (atheoretical) values.
Atheoretical values are either aesthetic (beauty-ugliness), hedonistic
(pleasure-pain), ethical (goodness-badness), or religious (faith-unbelief ).23
They are non-scientific and cannot be criticized sensibly by rational
logic. Rationalists like to believe that these non-theoretical values can
be criticized logically, but they disregard the essential dierence between scientific and non-scientific rationalities.24 Scientific rationality,
Rickert argues, is dominated and even steered by the value of truth.
However, it cannot employ legitimately the values of the other atheoretical domains (e.g. beauty, goodness, or faith), nor can it reach
the atheoretical domains by means of its value of truth. The theoretical
statement this is true cannot be criticized or rejected in terms of

One may, of course, raise the question whether this series of values is exhaustive.
What about the economic value of economic goods? What about socio-political
values such as powerpowerlessness, order/systemchaos/anarchy, or the legal
values ( justice-injustice)?. He did refer to the monetary value, as we shall see instantly,
but this did not result in a special category of Economic Value, comparable to
Truth, Beauty, etc. At the end of his life, Rickert did try to construct a social philosophy in which socio-political values, such as community and people (Volksgemeinschaft ),
occupied a prominent role. Regretfully, he then came close to a fascist worldview, evaluating power, order, system positively and their heterological counterparts
negatively.
24
Here Rickert diers, of course, radically from the Vienna School. See the manifesto of this school written by R. Carnap, H. Hahn, O. Neurath, Wissenschaftliche
Weltauassung: der Wiener Kreis, (The Scientific Worldview of the Vienna Circle)
(Vienna: Wolf, 1929). Also R. Carnap, Der logische Aufbau der Welt, (The Logical
Construction of the World), (Berlin: Weltkreis Verlag, 1928). For an introduction
and collection of relevant texts see A. J. Ayer (ed.), Logical Positivism, (Glencoe, Illinois:
The Free Press, 1959).
23

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151

aesthetic beauty or ethical goodness, just as it is dicult to fathom

how a statement like this painting is beautiful could be rejected
in terms of theoretical truth, as it is impossible to prove empirically
that the painting is in actual fact beautiful, or for that matter ugly.
Atheoretical values depend on belief, not on proof.25 Again, in the
realm of values there is a continuous war of the gods.
The theoretical and atheoretical values belong to an unreal, virtual reality, yet they become concrete and can then be investigated
empirically (for instance, sociologically or psychologically) in the valuejudgments (Werturteile, Wertungen), and in what Rickert called the Gter
(literally, the goods) which are the empirical embodiments of the values. The theoretical value of truth, for example, is rendered concrete and empirical in scientific statements (papers, books, lectures)
and in cultural institutions, like laboratories or universities. Atheoretical
values in their turn are embodied in aesthetic goods, such as objects
of art and institutions like the museum or the symphony orchestra.
Religious or hedonistic values find their objectification in goods
like respectively the church, the temple, the mosque, the brothel,
and the amusement park, etc. Incidentally, instead of Gter Rickert
also uses the concept Sinngebilde which can best be translated as
meaningful configuration. It is equivalent, I find, to the sociological concept institution in which sense it is used by Max Weber. In
any case, here again Rickert distinguishes conceptually the real from
the unreal, keeping the two connected heterologically: Only goods
and value-judgments are real, values as values are never real.26
Rickert takes a painting as a concrete example. As a material composition
of linen and paint it lacks, in the eye of a beholder, meaning or value (sinnfrei und wertindierent). It is a matter of sheer objectivity. Standing in front
of a painting that hangs on the wall of a museum as part of an exposition (two goods, or institutions), the objective dimensions of the painting
will not interest him. It is the painting as a work of art and as a meaningful configuration (Sinngebilde), representing an aesthetic value, which concerns the beholder, draws his attention, exerts his fascination and involvement.

25
As to scientific proof Rickert was somewhat navely positivistic. In the debate
on verification (Carnap) and falsification (Popper) he would probably have chosen
for the former. It is not clear, if he was acquainted with this debate. That could
have been possible, since Karl Poppers Logik der Forschung, translated into The Logic
of Scientific Discovery, 1959, (London: Hutchinson, 1974, 7th ed.) appeared in Vienna
in 1934.
26
Nur Gter und Wertungen sind real, Werte als Werte nie. Rickert, o.c., p. 122.

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Clearly, there is an essential dierence between the real, material object

and the unreal, ideal value. In our daily parlance we are usually not aware
of it, but in philosophy it is essential to be conscious of this conceptual
dierence. Take monetary value as an example: Money in itself is not a
value, just like the work of art as a real object isnt, but there is a value
which is attached to it. When we say that it is a realized value, we mean
to say that a value connects itself with it through which it is transformed
into a good. Also in this case, the value itself is not real. If we look at
money solely as a real object, it is value-free.27
Rickert mentions the atheoretical, hedonistic value of pleasure (Lust) as
another example. As a psychological feeling pleasure is a real good that
can be investigated empirically. But it is at the same time an unreal value
which ought to be distinguished conceptually from the real psychological
pleasure experience. In fact, Lust is a general, unreal value which attaches
itself realistically to scores of hedonistic individuals throughout the ages.
Thus, we should distinguish Lustwirklichkeit (the reality of pleasure) from
Lustwert (pleasure as a value).28
There is, incidentally, an essential dierence between the theoretical value
of truth and the hedonistic value of pleasure. Truth is, according to Rickert,
valid even if there are no individuals to whom it bears validity,29 whereas
pleasure lacks such an independent and eternal validity, as it always needs
historical subjects who will claim validity, when their pleasure is or is not

27
Das Geld selber ist kein Wert, sowenig wie das reale Kunstwerk, sondern es
haftet an ihm Wert, und wenn wir sagen, dass es ein verwirklichter Wert sei, so
meinen wir damit, dass ein Wert sich mit ihm verbindet, der es zum Gut macht.
Der Wert selber ist auch in diesen Fllen nicht real. Betrachten wir Geld ausschliesslich als reales Objekt, so ist es wertfrei. Ibid., p. 119. I changed the plural
in diesen Fllen in the singular in this case, since the main subject of the quoted
sentence is a singular. An interesting case is, of course, the restorers of old paintings. Their interest is not only and not even primarily the aesthetic value of the
painting to be restored, but in particular the material composition of the linen and
the chemical composition of the paints and lacquer which the painter originally
used. Natural science, art history and the skills of craftsmanship thus form a unique
unity within the interest and expertise of the art restorer. See Anne van GrevensteinKruse, Restauratie: Geschiedenis en Vooruitgang, (Restoration: History and Progress),
inaugural address University of Nijmegen, May 26, 2005, (Rotterdam: Nijmegen
University Press, 2005).
28
Rickert rarely referred to Freud but it seems obvious that he would disagree
with his theory of the pleasure principle vis--vis the reality principle. He would
interpret pleasure, as Freud has dealt with it, as a psychological good, and thus as
a an inherent component of reality.
29
Rickert claims that such values, in particular the theoretical value of truth, are
eternally and absolutely valid. But there are, of course, occasional statements such
as it rains now and this is red. Rickert would probably counter that, if it has
been proven empirically that the rain falls and the color is red indeed, the validity of these truths will be eternal and absolute because it is no longer dependent
on now and this.

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gratified here and now.30 Here Rickert disagrees obviously once more with
Nietzsche, whose Zarathustra sang: All pleasure wants eternity, wants deep,
deep eternity.31 Pleasure, Rickert would probably sneer, does not want eternity, it wants immediate gratification. Yet, values, including Truth, do not
float about but are always connected to the interest and the will of empirically real, evaluating subjects: There can be no values without a will that
acknowledges or demands them. The will, however, is always part of reality.32

Naturally this Wollen (will) is closely tied to the Sollen (ought to): most
Sollen depends on Wollen in whose name something ought to be and
thus is demanded. However, we should realize that a demanding
value is never identical with the demanding will as it occurs in reality, because there is this dierence between the real reality of the
objects and the senses, and the unreal, ideal reality of the values
and norms. Nevertheless, it is obvious that the value which expresses
a demand would disappear, if there were no people who wanted it,
and who practically and actually demanded it. Take the normative
rule thou shall not kill. It could be seen as the demand of a divine
will. Since in that case God wants it (a divine Wollen), many of us
consider this norm to be valid for us. But if one no longer believes
in God, one will either no longer acknowledge the norms validity,
since the real divine will disappeared, or one will in its stead posit
a human will, and next claim that this human will validates the
norm. Killing is then no longer viewed as sin, i.e. as an oence
against the norm thou shall not kill, but as an inhumane injustice, or a crime punishable by a secular state law. If, however, there
were no people who rejected killing, it would no longer be an injustice, and the norm would no longer be valid.33
Incidentally, this goes to show that values and norms are actually
not that tidily knit together as is often believed. The norm thou
shall not kill was connected first, as part of the Ten Commandments,

Ibid., p. 124.
Doch alle Lust will Ewigkeit, will tiefe, tiefe Ewigkeit. Friedrich Nietzsche,
Also sprach Zarathustra, (Thus Spoke Zarathustra), part three, in: Friedrich Nietzsche,
Werke in Drei Bnden (Worls in Three Volumes), volume two, (Mnchen: Carl Hanser
Verlag, 1955), p. 473.
32
Ohne einen Willen, der sie anerkannt oder fordert, gibt es auch keine Werte,
die gelten, und der Wille gehrt stets zum Wirklichen. Ibid., p. 128. This stands
in contrast to Rickerts observation that the theoretical value of truth is eternal and
absolute, not related to individuals, including their will we may assume.
33
Ibid., p. 128.
30
31

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with a divine will and thus with an allegedly divine value. But the
very same norm may disengage itself from this religious value, and
next be tied unaltered to a very dierent, more humanist kind of
value, namely that of humane justice. Nowadays we fill the norm in
with the notion of human rights.
All this demonstrates once again that values do not exist, but are
or are not valid. Not Sein (being) but Geltung (validity) is the essence
of values! This validity is not something like recognition or acknowledgement on the part of empirical human beings. In that case validity
would be an empirical, rather relativistic fact or datum which it is
not. Validity is not empirically real and contingent like facts, things
or objects. Validity is tied to values and partakes in their unreal,
virtual character. Try to imagine value-free validity! Value-free
validity, Rickert comments playfully, reminds one of non-nicotine
tobacco or decaeinated coee. Maybe many love it only, because
they are philosophically too nervous to endure the world problems scientifically.34
Only values can be valid. Something that just exists and in fact
does not interest us, cannot be valid. So facts as such are never valid
or invalid, but value-judgments about facts are valid or invalid in so
far as the values involved are valid or invalid. The existence of a
piece of paper is neither valid nor invalid, but the statement this
paper is white is either true or false, since the form and value
Reality is or is not applicable: it is or is not really white. After all,
the value couple of truth/reality-falsehood/nonreality is involved here.
These are theoretical values, but the atheoretical values too are characterized not by their existence but by their validity. A banknote is
valid or invalid. However, not the real object, i.e. the banknote as
a piece of paper, but its embodied unreal monetary value is valid
or invalid.35

34
Wertfreies Gelten erinnert an nikotinfreien Tabak oder koeinfreien Kaee.
Manche lieben es vielleicht nur deshalb, weil sie philosophisch zu nervs sind,
um die Weltprobleme wissenschaftlich zu vertragen. Ibid., p. 126.
35
In daily parlance we, of course, say this banknote is counterfeited and thus
invalid. Yet, if we go to the bank for reimbursement, we will be told that the counterfeited banknote is null and void because it does not carry any monetary value.
Or, in other words, that this banknote is indeed just a piece of paper like any other
valueless piece of paper. Values are carried by goods, but Rickert emphasized
time and again that one should distinguish between unreal values and real goods
which are the carriers or embodiments of the values.

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FROM RELATIVISM TO RELATIONISM

Rickert points out that there is a time dimension involved in this
conceptual distinction between the real reality of objects and the
ideal reality of values. The former is always historical, temporal
and in that sense relative, the latter is ahistorical, timeless and in
that sense absolute. It is of great importance, he continues, to avoid
two mutually opposed pitfalls: relativism which denies the ideal
world and absolutism which rejects the real world. The latter, the
rather radical rejection of the real world, can be found in Schopenhauers worldview in which he flirted with Buddhism and the notion
that reality is but a phantasmagoric illusion.
Rickert finds relativism far more interesting than Schopenhauers
illusionism, because it had in his days much more impactand, as
we will see presently, probably also because he himself came in some
respects rather close to a relativistic position. He speaks of the contemporary tendency to focus all philosophical attention on the here
and now, and to be wary of philosophical ideas about a timeless
and absolute, unreal, ideal reality. An easy going relativism is,
Rickert claims, most clearly visible in the various currents of vitalism, discussed in Chapter Two. He himself is always trying to find
a heterological balance between the real and the ideal which, he
believes, can be found in the idea of a total reality (Weltall ) which
is neither relative nor absolute. But he is also aware of the fact that
this attempt is out of step with the modern, strongly relativistic tendencies of vitalism.
In a small and in my view fascinating little book on the logic of the concept of numerals,36 Rickert juxtaposes a similar heterological opposition of
two visions on the nature of numerals: empiricism and rationalism. There
are logicians who claim a necessary connection between numerals and the
empirical, psycho-physical reality of the senses. This is the empiricist position as, for example, phrased by John Stuart Mill who allegedly had said
that we cannot at all be certain, if 2 + 2 could not be 5 on another planet.
It is, of course, a relativistic position. Rickert quotes Frege who labeled it

36
Heinrich Rickert, Das Eine, die Einheit und die Eins. Bemerkungen zur Logik des
Zahlbegris, (The One [as Opposite of the Other], the Unity, and the First [as in
Number One]. Comments on the Logic of the Concept of the Numeral), (Tbingen:
Mohr-Siebeck, 1924).

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ginger biscuits and pebble mathematics.37 But it is interesting to learn that

Rickert, despite his strong Kantian leanings, also rejects the opposite, rationalist position which believes that numerals belong to an autonomous, ideal
realm. In this ideal reality there are allegedly rules which do not necessarily fit real, empirical circumstances. Arithmetic knowledge is in this rationalist vision an a priori knowledge which is valid without any connection to
time, space, and the world of our senses. Numerals, it is concluded, are
purely logical phenomena. Rickert is in agreement with this rationalist position in so far as numerals are indeed and of course not sensually real
(sinnlich real ). But he rejects this position at the point where mathematics is
identified with formal logic. As abstract, pure, ideal and non-sensual as
numerals are, they are nevertheless the substantial, quantitative objects of
mathematics. After all numerals do exist. Logic on the other hand deals
with qualitative forms, not with substances. Validity, not existing, is what
characterizes logic. Logical validity is a theoretical value as in the case of
the truth of a theoretical (scientific or mathematical) statement. The sentence 1 + 1 = 2 does as such, substantially, not belong to logic, but to
mathematics as a science. Logic presupposes that the sentence is true. That
is, it assigns the form and value of truth to this sentence. Or phrased
dierently, logic investigates which form the objects of the sentence, the
numerals 1 and 2, possess.
In this essay Rickert analyses in detail the dierent forms of the numeral
1 and their mutual relationships. The numeral One can be (i.e. can assume
the form of ) the dierentiated opposite, i.e. the Other, as is the case of 1
as distinct from 2 within the sentence 1 + 1 = 2. Or, we may add, as in
the expression the one and only. The symbol + is a pluriform object also.
It can be just a copula, a connection, as in 1 + 1 +1 +1, but it can in
cooperation with the symbol = also be a multiplier as in 1 + 1 = 2. The
numeral 1 can, however, also be the first in a row: 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. Thus,
logic always focuses abstractly on the forms of numerals (or other objects),

37
Pfeerkuchen- und Kieselsteinarithmetik, Rickert, ibid., p. 6. Mill did not
argue in such a simplistic manner. In his logic of the sciences he defended a radically inductive method, applying it even to what he called the science of number. All numbers must be numbers of something; there are no such things as
numbers in the abstract. Ten must mean ten bodies, or ten sounds, or ten beatings
of the pulse. But such induction will eventually lead to the notion numbers of
anything and thus give cause to the idea that numbers are abstract things not tied
to concrete experiences. The proposition 1=1 is not as certain as we want to believe
because both units are not necessarily equal: for one actual pound weight is not
exactly equal to another, nor one measured miles length to another; a nicer balance or more accurate measuring instruments would always detect some dierence.
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, 1843; abridged version: Ernest Nagel (ed.), John
Stuart Mills Philosophy of Scientific Methods, 1950, (New York: Hafner Press; Collier
Macmillan Publishers, 1974), 161170; quotations on pp. 163, 167, 168. For Nagels
critique on Mills inductive theory of number see his (informative) Introduction, o.c.,
p. XLVI f.

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157

not, as in arithmetic, on substances like the numerals. The numerals of

arithmetic do exist like other substantive objects we encounter in life, albeit
that their existing is non-sensual, thus ideal. The forms of logic are also
ideal, but they do not exist like the sensually real objects and the non-sensually ideal objects (e.g. numerals) of mathematics. They are instead valid
or invalid. They constitute vis--vis the reality of the sensually real objects
(First Realm) and the reality of the non-sensually ideal objects (Second
Realm) a Third Realm which does not as in an Hegelian synthesis transcend the first and the second realm, but connects them logically. It judges
that the sentence 1 + 1 = 2 is true under all circumstances, also in the
sensual reality of everyday life. If one wants to give this position a name,
it could be called, Rickert suggests, transcendental empirism.38

His philosophy of values may be alien to vitalistic notions and

tendencies, yet he is convinced that this is only the case on a first
and superficial view. In a sense, he argues, Nietzsche set the tone,
when his Zarathustra prophesized a radical re-evaluation of all values (Umwertung aller Werte). Rickert commended Nietzsche for this
idea, because it at least opened the minds of his readers to the relevance of value problems. However, Nietzsches brand of philosophy is, according to Rickert, more concerned with value-judgments,
i.e. with evaluations and re-evaluations, than with values as such. If
one really wants to understand what life is all about, one should
focus ones philosophical attention on values. Without them, Rickert
claims, all of life is reduced to a meaningless shoving and pushing.39 What is denied by vitalists like Nietzsche, yet systematically
emphasized by transcendental philosophy, is the fact that mans evaluations and value-judgments are historical and temporal, and in
themselves merely unstructured substances which come and go. On
the other hand, values like truth, justice, beauty, lust, etc. are timeless and eternal, and function as the forms which structure these in
and of themselves chaotic substances. Value-judgments are relative,
Rickert, ibid., p. 8. The concept transzendentaler Empirismus was coined,
Rickert says, by the philosopher Sergius Hessen in his book Individuelle Kausalitt.
Studien zum transzendentalen Empirismus, (Individual Causality. Studies on Transcendental
Empirism), (Berlin: Reuther & Reichard, 1909). Rickert, o.c., p. 84. It is incidentally important to realize that Rickerts conception of logic is not the traditional
one which we usually associate with Aristotelian syllogisms or, as Rickert phrased
ironically, with Byzantine embellishments (byzantinische Verschnrkelungen). He admittedly restricts logic to what words mean when they are members of a meaningful, true statement. (. . . . was Worte bedeuten, wenn sie Glieder eines sinnvollen,
wahren Satzes sind.) Ibid., p. 76.
39
Ohne sie wird alles Leben zum sinnlosen Geschiebe und Getriebe. Ibid., p. 48.
38

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values are absolute. There is, therefore, in transcendentalism no room

for either relativism or absolutism.
Once again, Rickert wants to subject relativism to a critical analysis since it has infected, often covertly though, modern philosophical thought and reasoning. He distinguishes two kinds of relativism:
an absolute, radical relativism on the one hand, and a relative, conservative one on the other hand. He is brief about absolute relativism, because it is obviously an absurdity, as it posits itself as being
something absolute and thus not relative. It is the absurdity of the
Cretan who claims that all Cretans are liars. He focuses on the nonradical relativists and in fact shows some sympathy with them, yet
rejecting their position as philosophically unsustainable. Relativists
always claim, Rickert asserts, that the theoretical (scientific) man
should not argue in terms of an absolute truth, because all he can
search for and he should want to find is historically relative truth.
But in that case, there is nothing stable and clear in the temporal
float of events. This is the opposite of the philosophical belief in the
absolute contrast of true and false ideas, and in the possibility to
advance from falsehood to truth.40 Relativism would indeed be the
euthanasia of philosophy as an autonomous, theoretical (scientific)
enterprise.41
Relativists usually point at the temporal and thus permanently
changing nature of all thoughts and ideas, but do not realize that
this then applies to their own relativistic thoughts and ideas as well.
In that case, the relativistic thoughts and ideas are constantly discharged and dissolved in time. What they desperately need is a concept of temporality which as a concept is free from the brute force of
time. Without such a concept the notion of relativity is itself relative and thus self-destructive. Moreover, if one believes that everything is always in motion, one can claim that everything is true, but
also that everything is false. That ends up in a theoretical limbo
with the obvious result that relativism is itself dissolved in scientific
nothingness and nihilism.42
What is actually the meaning of the words relative and relativity? Relative, Rickert argues, is everything that does not rest in
itself, but stands in a relationship to something or someone else, on

40
41
42

Ibid., p. 40.
Die Euthanasie der Philosophie als Wissenschaft. Ibid., p. 16.
Ibid., p. 41.

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which it conceivably somehow depends. Relative truth, for instance,

does not stand on its own, but is only valid with respect to a subject that believes it to be true. To dierent subjects dierent things
can seemingly be true.43 This is the very old, epistemological position of skepticism.44 Protagoras expressed it, when he claimed that
man is the measure of all things. Does this then necessarily end up
in epistemological relativism, or skepticist Pyrrhonism, as the concept relative truth seems to suggest? One should realize, Rickert
reminds us, that the essence of the concept relative is the concept
relationship (Beziehung), and simultaneously the concept something
or someone else (der/das Andere) to which one relates. Relative then
means that something is related to something else which is not relative but absolute. Here Rickert argues once again heterologically:
whoever thinks something relative, thinks necessarily something
absolute, with regard to which he relates the relative.45 Because, if
one missed the absolute as the non-relative, stable point to relate to,
one would relate parts of reality to other parts of reality and that
can be repeated endlessly. In fact, one would be busy, as in an endless regression, relating parts to parts indefinitely. This then would
43
Relativ ist alles, was nicht in sich ruht, sondern in Beziehung zu einem Andern
steht, von dem es in irgendeiner Weise abhngig gedacht wird. Relative Wahrheit
z.B. hat keinen eigenen Bestand, sondern gilt lediglich mit Rcksicht auf ein Subjekt, das sie fr wahr hlt, und verschiedenen Subjekten kann Verschiedenes wahr
scheinen. Idem. Is not relative truth, to use Rickerts own metaphor, comparable
to caeinefree coee, or nicotine free cigarettes? Relative truth is, of course, a
remarkably relativistic concept which Rickert immediately corrects by the heterological argument given in the text above. However, as we shall see shortly, Rickert
avoids such relativism also by defining truth as a formal, transcendental (eternal
and thus absolute) value, while human evaluations as judgments are circumstantially and historically relative.
44
Cf. Richard H. Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes, (Assen:
Van Gorcum & Comp.; Prakke, 1964). In particular chapter two: The Revival of
Greek Scepticism in the 16th Century, pp. 1744. The skeptic and relativist position is known in the history of philosophy as Pyrrhonism. Pyrrho of Elis (360270
BC), who joined Alexander the Great during his expedition to the East, was allegedly
influenced by Indian, ascetic philosophy and taught that it was impossible to have
knowledge of the world as it is in itself. For that reason men should abstain from
any judgment about it, and live without any preferences. Cf. Popkin, o.c., p. X:
The stories about Pyrrho that are reported indicate that he was not a theoretician,
but rather a living example of the complete doubter, the man who would not commit himself to any judgment that went beyond what seemed to be the case. Rickert,
of course, was far removed from this kind of non-theoretical Pyrrhonism.
45
wer Relatives denkt, denkt notwendig Absolutes, mit Rcksicht auf welches er
das Relative relativ setzt. Ibid., p. 44. This reminds me uncomfortably of the firm
believer who claims that atheism is impossible, because before one can deny the

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lead to the notion of an endless total reality as the sum of all the
mutually relative parts. Rickert admits that this logically faulty concept of an endless Weltall is at least able to function as the stable,
non-relative point to which single parts of reality can be related
meaningfully. But that is, of course, no longer relativism. In fact, it
is the only correct use of the concept of relativity, i.e. as something
relating to something else which is not relative. As we shall see
presently, he does not embrace the relativistic notion of an endless
totality as the result of an endless regression, but is in agreement
with the allegation that it at least can function as a relatively stable
point to which the compartmentalized parts of reality can be related.
He prefers to call it relationism instead of relativism,46 and searches
next for a more adequate concept of the non-relative Weltall (totality).
Rickert then sums all this up in his custormary heterological manner: Everything is never just the one which is related to something
else, but everything is always the one and the other to which the
one is related. In the one and the other linked together we then
encounter the absolute, within which something relative is at all possible.47 It is remarkable that the notion of relativity is not rejected,

existence of God there must be somethingGodthat is being denied. It may be

a satisfactory argumentation theologically, but logically it is just a circular argument
and a petitio principii to boot. Rickert would defend his argumentation about the relative and the absolute as an example of heterology.
46
The philosopher and sociologist of knowledge Karl Mannheim also uses this
distinction. Yet, his brand of relationism is in Rickerts terminology a form of
absolute relativism, since he rejects the notion of a non-relative, transcendental and
absolute realm of values and meanings. One finds the endless relating of parts to
parts in Mannheims theory: Relationism signifies merely that all of the elements
of meaning in a given situation have reference to one another and derive their
significance from this reciprocal interrelationship in a given frame of thought. Such
a system of meanings is possible and valid only in a given type of historical existence, to which, for a time, it furnishes appropriate expression. Karl Mannheim,
Ideology and Utopia. An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, translated from the
German by Louis Wirth and Edward Shils, 1936, (New York: A Harvest Book.
Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., n.d.), p. 86. Later on he defines relationism in
terms of relating ideas and thoughts to the surrounding social structures, but the
latter are still conceived of as historical and culturally relative phenomena. Ibid.,
p. 282f. Rickert would probably argue that Mannheims arguments may well be
valid within the context of the specialized science of sociology, but is null and void
within the context of general philosophy.
47
Alles ist niemals bloss das Eine, das auf ein Anderes bezogen wird, sondern
alles ist immer das Eine und das Andere, auf welches man das Eine bezieht. In
dem Einen und dem Andern zusammen haben wir dann aber das Absolute, innerhalb

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161

but placed in the context of the transcendentally absolutethe formal

reality-in-toto. It is this a priori, unreal, formal absolute which enables
the relative to exist at all. However, as far as the non-theoretical
(religious, ethical, aesthetic, hedonistic) values are concerned, Rickert
seems to be a relative relativist himselfa position, incidentally,
which he compares with agnosticism. The absolute, radical relativist
is an atheist who radically rejects the notion of the absolute. But the
relative relativist is an agnostic who will not categorically deny that
there is an absolute, but who is unable to acquire a firm knowledge
of it and therefore settles for the relative.48
BEING, EXISTING AND VALID MEANINGS
As we know by now, Rickert defines the realm of values in terms
of an unreal reality, a rather paradoxical formulation which needs
further explanation. The problem is, according to Rickert, that it is
dicult to distinguish between being and meaning (Sein und Sinn),
existence and significance (Existenz und Bedeutung), reality and value
(Wirklichkeit und Wert), the real and the unreal or irreal (Reales und
Irreales).49 It is particularly hard to realize that the unreality of values is not necessarily the negation of reality, but rather a kind of
non-reality which is heterologically linked to reality.
Rickert, we have seen earlier, does not distinguish as sharply between Sinn
(meaning, or sense) and Bedeutung (significance), as Frege did. The meaning
of a sentence is, according to Frege, expressed by the thought it contains,
whereas the significance of this meaning consists of its truth value, i.e.
whether it is true or false. Significance is usually attributed (or, for that
matter, denied) to the meaning of a sentence by scientific research. Sentences
can be meaningful without being significant in the sense of true or false.
For example, the sentence Ulysses was put to land in Ithaca while soundly
asleep is meaningful, yet lacks any significance. The same holds true, Frege
says, for an epic, or we may add, for novels, mythologies and religious
dogmas. They are meaningful but in Freges definition of significance,
insignificant. Judgments (Urteile) are the results of advancing from thought

dessen ein relatives berhaupt erst mglich wird. Allgemeine Grundlegung der Philosophie,
o.c., p. 42f. This heterological section of his book on General Philosophy is repeated
verbatim in his previously quoted essay Das Eine, die Einheit und die Eins, pp. 916.
48
Cf. Allgemeine Grundlegung, p. 43.
49
I shall consistently translate the concept Sinn by meaning or sense, and the concept Bedeutung by significance.

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(meaning) to truth value (significance), and may often oend our aesthetic
or religious sensitivities: With the quest for truth we would leave the enjoyment of art and turn towards a scientific observation. For that reason we
do not care, whether for instance the name Ulysses contained any significance, as long as we adopt the poem (i.e. Homers Odyssey, ACZ) as
a work of art. It thus is the pursuit of truth, which inspires us everywhere
to push from meaning to significance.50
Rickerts conceptual distinction of Sinn (meaning, sense) and Bedeutung
(significance) is not as clear as Freges. However, the weak spot in Freges
theory is the (sociological!) notion that we are being driven from meaning
to significance everywhere and thus always. This is, of course, extremely questionable. In everyday life, and also outside Western culture, people are
more often than not quite satisfied with meaning-without-significance. In
fact, it can be argued that unlike science, particularly religion and art are
grounded upon meaning-without-significance. Truth and its pursuit have a
very dierent meaning in religion and art than in science and logic.

Let us start, Rickert the teacher proposes, all over again.51 The most
comprehensive concept which covers all conceivable objects is that
of Being (Sein). Being can indeed mean everything that we are able
to think of. If we say this paper is white, we state that this particular sheet of paper belongs to being, carrying predicatively an
additional feature, namely that it is white. Next, we can also say
the world is. We then mean to say that everything that belongs to
the world exists, including what possibly could be thought of as being
unreal. After all, something is unreal means to say that the unreal

50
Mit der Frage nach der Wahrheit wrden wir den Kunstgenuss verlassen und
uns einer wissenschaftlichen Betrachtung zuwenden. Daher ist es uns auch gleichgltig, ob der Name Odysseus z.B. eine Bedeutung habe, solange wir das
Gedicht als Kunstwerk aufnehmen. Das Streben nach Wahrheit also ist es, was uns
berall vom Sinne zur Bedeutung vorzudringen treibt. Gottlob Frege, ber Sinn
und Bedeutung, 1892, in: Gottlob Frege, Kleine Schriften (Small Papers), 1967,
(Hildesheim, Zrich, New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1990, 2nd ed.), pp. 143162.
Quotation, p. 149. In this context the quest for the historical Jesus is an interesting case. The four gospels in the New Testament provide stories, it is claimed
by most theologians, which are not historical but kerygmatic; i.e. they belong to
and originate in the preaching and teaching of early Christianity. Some New
Testament scholars have tried to destill from the recorded sayings of Jesus a picture of who he historically, i.e. prior to the preaching and teaching of the early
Christian community, really was. In Freges terms, the gospels have meaning (in
particular for Christian believers), but they have no significance (in particular for
historians). Cf. H. Ristow, K. Matthiae (eds.), Der historische Jesus und der kerygmatische
Christus (The Historical Jesus and the Kerygmatic Christ), (Berlin: Evangelische
Verlagsanstalt, 1960).
51
Cf. Rickert, o.c., pp. 101.

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is thought to exist. Otherwise it would be nothing in the sense of

non-existent. That would be a nonsensical statement: The sentence
that something is non-being, sounds indeed like something falls nonfalling, or burns non-burning, and thus seems to express nonsense.52
We encounter here the double meaning of the concept of being.
There is, first of all, the grammatical, analytic copula-meaning. The
verb is merely connects an arbitrary subject with an arbitrary predicate as in this paper is white. Nothing is being said about the
being or non-being of the subject or of the predicate. The statement
is merely analytical and descriptive. Subject and predicate are just
linked by the copula is. The second meaning of the concept of
being is synthetic, if it expresses a statement about the being or the
non-being of something. In this second meaning the sentence something is non-being (etwas ist nicht-seiend ) can make sense! After all,
the non-being is conceivable. The reason why we find it generally
hard to conceive of it, is the simple fact that we, as in a nave
empirism, usually identify being with the empirical and physical reality which we can observe through our sensesi.e. the spatial and
temporal reality of the sense-data (die rumlich-zeitliche Sinnenwelt) in
which we live.53 This reality of the senses is then usually distinguished
in an objective, physical reality which is spatial, temporal, and identical for all persons on the one hand, and the subjective, psychological reality which is temporal but not spatial and belongs exclusively
to single individuals. But, as we saw, there is still another kind of
reality, the unreal, non-sensual reality of the values. Truth or beauty
cannot be seen, touched or smelled, neither can the meaning of a
sentence. In that sense they are non-sensual (unsinnlich), and in that
sense not real. They are also spaceless and timeless. In short, they
constitute a non-empirical, unreal reality.54

52
Der Satz, etwas ist nicht-seiend, klingt in der Tat wie: etwas fllt nicht fallend, oder brennt nicht brennend, und scheint also Unsinn zu enthalten. Rickert,
o.c., p. 103.
53
I have adopted the useful concept of sense-data from Bertrand Russell. Cf.
Bertrand Russell, The Relation of Sense-Data to Physics, in: A. Danto, S. Morgenbesser (eds.), Philosophy of Science, 1960, (New York: New American Library/Meridian
Books, 1974), pp. 3355, in particular p. 36.
54
One may object that lust can definitely be felt and experienced physically.
However, Rickert would remind us to distinguish between the lust experience and
the lust value, as we usually know to distinguish beauty as value and the experience of it in daily life.

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If we find it dicult to think of a reality which is non-empirical,

unreal because it is (a) neither physically objective nor psychologically
subjective, (b) neither spatial nor temporal and (c) neither collective
nor individual, Rickert invites us to think of the objects of mathematics, e.g. the numerals, since they present a reality which lacks
these three characteristics of sensually experienced reality. Mathematical
numerals do exist, as we all know, but it is an unreal reality compared to the world of the senses. Rickert could have quoted Frege
whom, incidentally he had read, yet rarely mentions or quotes: The
theorems of mathematics are never about signs, but about the objects
which are designated by them. These objects are admittedly neither
tangible nor visible and not even real. . . . The numerals do not
change, because the theorems of mathematics contain eternal truths.55
The world of values is a non-empirical, unreal reality in the double sense of unsinnlich (i.e. not carried by the senses) and unwirklich
(i.e. neither subjective-objective, nor time and space bound, nor collective and individual). The fanatics of reality (Wirklichkeitsfanatiker)56
often decry all this as Platonism which in a sense is correct, since
Plato was the first to understand that reality is more than what lies
between subject and object, space and time, collectivity and individuality. It is incorrect because Rickerts theory of the non-empirical
values is not metaphysically essentialist, as Platos theory of the ideas
was. Moreover, Platonic Idealism drifted o into the massive metaphysics of neo-Platonism (cf. Plotinus) and its emanation theory. This
is epistemologically, of course, unacceptable because it is in eect an
ontology that degenerated into metaphysics.
In order to avoid this kind of epistemological derailment, Rickert,
who, as we have seen repeatedly, defends the primacy of epistemology over ontology, proposes to substitute the concept of existing
(Existieren) for that of being (Sein).57 Existing is in Rickerts system a
55
Die Theoreme der Arithmetik handeln also niemals von den Zeichen, sondern von den durch sie dargestellten Gegenstnden. Diese Objekte sind freilich
weder greifbar noch sichtbar und nicht einmal wirklich. . . . Die Zahlen ndern sich
nicht; denn die Theoreme der Arithmetik enthalten ewige Wahrheiten. Frege, Le
nombre entier, German translation by M. and K. Held in: o.c., p. 212. Rickert
mentions Frege approvingly a few times in his essay Das Eine, die Einheit und die
Eins, without however giving any references. The two philosophers had much in
common, particularly, as we saw before, with regard to the unremitting rejection
of founding logic on psychology.
56
Allgemeine Grundlegung, p. 107.
57
He is regretfully not very consistent in this, because the concept of being
returns in his expositions recurrently. That is, apparently, unavoidable.

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purely technical term and thus not at all related to any kind of metaphysical existentialism. It is introduced in order to cover the two
dimensions of reality: existing is first the subjective-objective (immanent-transcendent) reality of the senses (sinnlich Reales) and second the
ideal reality beyond, or prior to the senses (unsinnlich Ideales),58 as in
the case of values. These are two epistemological domains, two realms.
However, there is still a kind of reality which is something, yet does
not exist in the double sense mentioned. It constitutes a third domain,
a third realm. It is neither sinnlich real, nor unsinnlich ideal. For example, if we understand that a statement is true, we call that which
is being understood the meaning of the sentence. There is, in other
words, this understandable meaning of the true sentence, yet this
meaning is unreal, i.e. it does not exist as either an empirical and
sensual reality (meaning cannot be smelled, touched, heard, etc.), or
as a non-sensually ideal reality (meaning is not comparable to a
mathematical statement or a value). It is an ideal (transcendent) reality but without existing in the dual sense of the word. In short,
meaning does not exist, but is valid. Being valid and validity ( gelten,
Geltung) characterize meanings.59 Or, as Rickert phrases it, the word
existing (Existieren) contains everything that is not valid. Validity then
can be viewed as a special kind of being, but is not existing.60

Ibid., p. 108.
Rickert applies this also to the rules of formal logic which are, unlike the rules
of mathematics that belong to the non-sensual, ideal reality, components of a third
realm that is not and that does not exist, but that is or is not valid. This validity, as we shall see, is part and parcel of the value of Truth.
60
Rickert, Das Eine, die Einheit und die Eins, o.c., p. 83. This is, on first sight, confusing, since we saw before that validity is also what dierentiates values from the being
of the immanent-transcendent reality of experiences and impressions. In the Preface
to his Die Logik des Prdikats und das Problem der Ontologie, (The Logic of the Predicate
and the Problem of Ontology), (Heidelberg: Carl Winters Universittsbuchhandlung,
1930), p. 8, Rickert announces an essential change of the use of language. The
concept Being is now no longer used in opposition to the unreal Validity, i.e. to
values, meanings and Sollen. Validity, value and meaning, are, he argues, after all,
inherent components of the world-in-toto which without them would be incomplete.
He refers to the Preface of the 4th and 5th edition of Gegenstand der Erkenntnis,
(Object of Knowledge), 1892, (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1921), p. XII, where he
also re-defined Being as no longer the opposite of unreal validity and meaning,
but as the encompassing concept for everything that can be thought of at all (alles
Denkbare berhaupt). Regretfully, he did not incorporate this re-definition in this
epistemological opus magnum and neglected the useful distinction of Existieren and
Sein. Consequently, this re-definition does not contribute to the necessary perspicuity
of his ontological and epistemological concept formation.
58
59

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Scientific activity is not possible without understandable, true meanings.61 But, once more, the meaning of a true sentence is unreal in
the sense of non-existent. The psychological act of understanding the
meaning of the true sentence (Verstehen) is real, and thus does exist,
yet the meaning that is to be understood, is but does not exist.
Here we encounter once more the diculty of expressing all this in
everyday life language which is inaccurate, when it comes to a priori phenomena. Meaning, it was said, is neither sensually real, nor
non-sensually ideal, and thus is non-existent. Yet, it is not nothingness in which case we would not have to talk about it at all.
This is hard to conceive: meaning is not and does not exist, yet
the word nothingness does not apply to it. It is in a sense a third
realm which connects the first realm of sensual objects and the second realm of ideal objects in a heterological manner. He views these
three realms as the Weltall, the reality-in-toto, he searched for. It covers the real and the unreal, i.e. it covers (1) what exists sensually
real (sinnlich real ), that is, the sense-data. Rickert calls it the First Realm.
It covers also (2) what exists unsensually ideal (unsinnlich ideal ), that
is, the values and the mathematical statements. He calls it the Second
Realm. But it covers in addition (3) what is non-existent ideal (ideal
nicht-existierend ), that is, the meaning of a true statement or, Rickert
adds, the rules of logic. This is the Third Realm. These are three
realms, of which the third one reconciles the other two that are
heterologically dierentiated. That resembles Hegels Aufheben, because
the first and the second realm are not annulled but, as it were, lifted
up into a third realm.62 We will see, however, that this is not what
Rickert meant.

61
Naturally Frege would use the concept of significance (Bedeutung) here instead
of the concept of meaning (Sinn).
62
This is not the place to discuss the similarities and in particular the dierences
of Hegels dialectics and Rickerts heterology. Rickert admired Hegels logic which
he studied intensively, yet placed his own heterological logic in the tradition of
Kant. Cf. Heinrich Rickert, Die Heidelberger Tradition und Kants Kritizismus.
Systematische Selbstdarstellung (The Heidelberg Tradition and Kants Criticism.
Systematic Self-Presentation), 1934, in: Heinrich Rickert, Philosophische Aufstze,
(Philosophical Papers), R. A. Bast, ed., (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1999), pp. 347412.
In his preface to Das Eine, die Einheit und die Eins, he calls Hegel the greatest philosopher Heidelberg has had. O.c., p. III.

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167

The expression the meaning of a true statement needs a further

explanation. Here Rickert introduces a logical dierence between
meaning, that belongs to the Third Realm, and value, that belongs to
the Second Realm. It is obvious that the Truth of a true statement
is in fact a value. It actually is, as we saw before, the predominant
value of all theoretical (scientific) statements. Yet, by assigning in an
act of judgment this (formal, transcendent) value Truth of the Second
Realm to statements, which belong to the First realm, we render
them meaningful. The meaning that can be understood, does not
belong to the First Realm of sensual reality, nor to the Second Realm
of non-sensual unreality, but is a component of the Third Realm of
validity. The theoretical value of truth, in other words, partakes through
judgments in the unreal, non-existent, ideal Third World of validity. Moreover, the atheoretical (hedonistic, ethical, religious and aesthetic) values and their correlated meanings share this basic feature
of the theoretical value of truth. The crucial factor in all of this is
the act of judging and assigning. As a result of this a curious element of activism enters into Rickerts epistemology and theory of
values and validity. This needs a further analysis. But before, we
must understand Rickerts ideas about values and meanings. They
are in the first instance logically dierent, in that the former belong
to the Second Realm, which is non-sensual (unsinnlich) and unreal
(ideal ), and the latter to the Third Realm, which is also unreal (ideal )
but in addition non-existent (nicht-existierend ). After all, the beauty of
a painting can be beheld (is in the eye of the beholder), but the
meaning of a word or a sentence can merely be understood, not
sensually felt or grasped. However, there is more to meanings than
that. By means of a value-judgment, i.e. the active assignment of
Truth, or Beauty, or any other value to statements or objects of art
or any other sense-data in the First Realm, values of the Second
Realm are linked to the sense-data of the First Realm. Moreover,
the values thus are rendered meaningful and partake in the Third
Realm which is in eect the reconciliation of the heterologically
dierent First and Second Realm, and constitutes what we have been
searching for: reality-in-toto.
To sum up, we must further analyze the logical nature of meanings, values and the act of judging which is, as we shall see shortly,
a meaning bestowing act (Sinnakt). The crucial concept in all this is
not being but validity.

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STAGES OF BEING AND VALIDITY

But before we discuss Rickerts theory of values, validity and meaning bestowing acts, we must still investigate first another aspect of
real being and valid values, namely the fact that they occur in three,
or perhaps four stages. Rickert enumerates first the three, or four,
stages of being.
Firstly, we begin with the stage of real being which Rickert heterologically links to appearance (Schein). Being and appearance (Sein
und Schein) are, of course, strictly separated in scientific research. Also
in common-sense the two are usually kept apart. The dierence
between being and appearance depends on the subject-object relationship. After all, each appearance presupposes a subject that holds
for real something that is not real, whereas real being exists objectively
independent of any subject. Yet, quite often appearance is a form
of real being as well, as is the case with the hallucinations of an
individual. They are, strictly taken, appearances, but they are not
nothing, in fact they are quite real to the individual involved. (Or
in Freges terminology, hallucinations are subjectively, i.e. to the person involved, meaningful but have objectively, in terms of empirical
science, no significance.) The hallucinating person sees something
apparently real which others do not behold. It is easy to think of
other examples of such individual and subjective, phantasmagoric
appearances. This then is the first stage of real being. It is an individual-subjective stage of being, which is the heterological counterpart of appearance. Whenever we want to determine what is real,
we must avoid this primary form of appearance.
Secondly, there are forms of collectively subjective appearances
which do exist, yet are unreal. For example, we all see a straight
sta as if it were broken in the water, or in the summer the cellar
feels cool, while it feels warm in the winter. These are not individual and particular, but collective and general experiences. They are
real, yet they are nonetheless only subjective appearances.
Thirdly, the former two stages of appearance were (individually
and collectively) subjective. The third stage is very dierent, as it
concerns an objective, independent being which is the objectively
testable reality of the empirical sciencesthe proper and real reality, devoid of any appearance (Schein). Neo-positivists believe it to be
the one and only true reality, outside of which everything is but
appearance.

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Rickert would agree with the following argument of Rudolf Carnap. In section 10 of his Scheinprobleme in der Philosophie, (Fictitious Problems in Philosophy),
1928, he presents by means of illustration the following philosophical case.
Two geographers, the one a philosophical realist, the other a philosophical idealist, are sent to Africa to find out, whether a legendary mountain
really exist or not. As scientists the two geographers are in possession of
certain criteria by which the question can be answered, independently of
idealist and realist philosophical positions and propositions. After some diligent research the two geographers will arrive at a consensus as to the existence (or non-existence) of this mountain. And if it exists, they will also
come up with concurrent facts about its height, location, Gestalt, etc. There
will be consensus on all such empirical questions. The option for one or
the other philosophical standpoint has no substantial bearing on their
scientific investigations.
However, disagreement will arise the moment these scientists change into
philosophers and begin to interpret the data of their empirical research.
The realist will then say that this mountain does not only carry geographical
characteristics, but is also real; or, he will conclude in a phenomenalist
version of realism that there is something real, though unknowable, in the
essence of this mountain. The idealist will disagree and claim that this
mountain is not real, but it is our observations and other conscious processes
that are real. Now these two theses, Carnap concludes, lie beyond our
empirical experiences and are therefore nicht sachhaltig, not relevant. Neither
of them proposes to verify his thesis by a joint, conclusive experiment, nor
does either of them oer the suggestion of an experience which could give
a foundation for his thesis.63
Rickert would agree with this conclusion, but add that Carnap should
have said scientifically not relevant. Geography is one of the specialized
sciences which focuses its attention on but one compartment of total reality, and in doing so is completely justified in disregarding philosophical
questions and sticking to a (philosophically nave) positivism or empiricism.
However, the moment one does ask realist or idealist questions as to the
constitution of reality and consciousness, one engages logically in a metabasis
eis allo genos, i.e. a transition to a completely dierent worlda generalphilosophical world in which the debate between realism and idealism is
meaningful. In fact, Carnap himself testifies blatantly to the fact that he
has chosen for a radically realist position. Moreover, after this logical transition from specialized science to general philosophy and epistemology it
does make sense to conclude that both geographers are as scientists also
driven or guided by values, the value of Truth to begin with. These values

63
Rudolf Carnap, Scheinprobleme in der Philosophie. Das Fremdpsychische und der Realismusstreit, (Fictitious Problems in Philosophy. The Non-I and the Realism Conflict),
(Berlin: Im Weltkreis-Verlag, 1928), pp. 35f. The concept Fremdpsychisches is very
hard to translate. It means the psyche or consciousness of other people apart from
myself. I decided to translate it as Non-I.

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cannot be grasped or understood, if one sticks to the nave positivist focus

on objective facts. In fact, these values are facts as well, but they are facts
of a completely dierent composition and status.

Fourthly, many philosophers go one step further still. They are in

search of a metaphysical reality which transcends the subjective and
objective reality and constitutes the essence of being. In their view,
even the objective reality of the sciences is but appearance (Schein),
or phenomenon (Erscheinung) hiding the real and true being. Schopenhauers view of the world as just a phantasmagoric illusion, and of
the spaceless and timeless Will as the true being and moving force,
is a telling example of such a metaphysical philosophy. In such
metaphysics being or reality is radically separated from each kind of
subject, and next posited as something absolute and trans-objective.
ScientificallyRickerts transcendental philosophy, one should not
forget, wants to remain scientificthis sort of metaphysics is completely
problematic.64
Each stage considers the previous stage as being too subjective
and thus as appearance instead of being. As to the subjective side,
there are, Rickert teaches, three heterologically linked types of subject:
(a) the single and individual subject, (b) the collective and general
subjective and (c) the scientific and everyday life subject. In the
fourth, metaphysical stage the subject is, as we have just seen, actually
annihilated, causing a total evaporation of subjectivity and objectivity.
That is, of course, a complete domination of appearance.
Rickert then distinguishes three parallel stages of values, in which
again each stage considers the previous stage as an apparently unreal
and thus invalid value. However, one should keep in mind that
Rickert discusses here not so much the formal values, but rather their
concretizations as evaluations and valued practices, as value judgments and goods in the First Realm. Formal, transcendent values
after all do not exist and can thus not be discussed. Value judgments and valued practices, however, are empirical data, sense-data,
and can be subjected to research and to discussion. Firstly then,
there are the individually and particularly subjective values which
are only valid for the individuals adhering to them. These are personal
preferences or hobbies, the validity of which depends generally on

64

Rickert, o.c., p. 131.

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the moods of the moment. It is hard to give examples, Rickert

observes, since examples usually refer to more general and collective kinds of values. Nevertheless Rickert comes up with a telling
example: the habit of collecting stamps with a printing error, a curious and rather rare idiosyncrasy. Such idiosyncratic preferences are
comparable to the hallucinations which are not facts, but carry validity only to the individuals involved.
The second stage consists of collectively and generally subjective
values which are valid to all human beings. Rickert mentions the
hedonistic values (Lustwerte) as an example: food, average temperatures, sensual and erotic pleasures, etc. There are, of course, always
ascetically inclined people who will deny the validity of such values,
but they represent the unavoidable exceptions. They are comparable to people who do not partake in the collective illusions and hallucinations of the second stage of being and appearance, although
the hedonistic values are far more binding and coercive. One cannot but see the straight sta in the water as if it were broken, but
one cannot be forced to embrace values which are collectively and
generally subjective. After all, one has the moral liberty to say no
to them. Yet, these are exceptional cases. Without exception food
will be a valid good to hungry people, and we may add, exquisite
food will be a valid and quite coercive good to wealthy and hedonistically inclined people. In short, such goods constitute a reality to
which unreal values are attached that are valid to all hungry or
wealthy and hedonistic persons. Yet, these values still remain subjective.
Thirdly, Rickert asks, if it is actually possible to speak of objective values which function independently of evaluating subjects, just
as there is the scientific objectivity of facts and objects that are independent of subjects. Or, philosophically formulated, can we construct
a concept of objective values? Objective means independently valid
independent of all empirical, sensually real subjects. For Rickert this
is, of course, a rhetorical question. He gives once more the example
of the theoretical value of true sentences, i.e. of Truth. The theoretical
(scientific) value of truth is objective, as was illustrated by Carnaps
geographers who concluded after diligent research that the legendary
mountain in Africa did indeed exist. After their empirical research,
nobody in his right mind would challenge the statement this mountain does indeed exist. It expresses what is really the case, it is selfevident. Its truth is an objective value! In contrast, the value of food
is always (individually or collectively) subjective, never (universally)

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objective. Yet, one may not forget the fact, as rationalists are prone
to do, that the statement this mountain does indeed exist is also a
value-judgment (Werturteil ), because truth or falsehood is involved
here, and truth is after all the prime (theoretical) value.
However, what applies to the theoretical value of truth (i.e. its
objective validity), cannot simply be applied also to the atheoretical
(aesthetic, ethic, hedonistic, religious) values, because if these values
were objectively valid, i.e. true, they would not be atheoretical but
theoretical, i.e. scientific. It would be sheer intellectualism to believe
that the atheoretical values, like beauty or lust, could be proven logically and scientifically to be true and absolutely valid. This, we could
add, would be scientism, i.e. an inadmissible, metaphysical overrating of science through which the world is viewed as a scientific
world.65 Rickert labels it rationalism or intellectualism. Its origin lies,
according to him, in Platos concept of the metaphysical Logos, which
was further elaborated by Hegel in his concept of Geist. Logos or
Geist as the most general concept which covers everything, not just
the real reality of objects and things but the goods, as the incorporations of values, as well.66
The rejection of intellectualism or rationalism, Rickert warns,
should not lead us astray into relativism or skepticism. First of all,
if the atheoretical values cannot be theoretically (i.e. logically and
scientifically) supported, their validity can at the same time not be
theoretically shaken either. All attempts to prove by means of logical arguments that aesthetic, ethic, hedonistic or religious values are
invalid, are as untenable as opposite attempts to prove their objective validity by means of theoretical arguments. It is the main task
of a sound theory of values to understand, not to falsify or prove, the

65
This is, of course, what Rickert separates from the philosophers of the Vienna
Circle. See for instance Rudolf Carnap, Der logische Aufbau der Welt (The logical
Construction of the World), o.c. It is interesting to contrast this book with Alfred
Schutz, Der sinnhafte Aufbau der Welt. Eine Einleitung in die verstehende Soziologie, (The
Meaningful Construction of the Social World. An Introduction to Understanding
Sociology), 1932, (Wien: Springer Verlag, 1960). Alfred Schutz (18991959) was a
professional banker and a lay philosopher, but he saw himself as a student of both
Edmund Husserl and Max Weber. In this PhD dissertation and later publications
he made an attempt to go beyond Webers neo-Kantianism in the direction of a
phenomenologically inspired understanding sociology.
66
Rickert, o.c., p. 150. Needless to add that Carnap would not have been amused
by this argument which labels his positivism as scientism, and scientism as
Platonic or Hegelian Idealism.

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atheoretical values and their possible validity or invalidity. Rickert

launches again one of his paradoxical statements: one just ought to
understand the atheoretical validity in its theoretical groundlessness.67
This, of course, begs the question. The question was and is, if, and
if so, how relativism regarding atheoretical values is to be avoided.
Or, in other words, how we can ascertain that the atheoretical values are not relative but objectively valid without the interference of
the theoretical value of truth? We come back to this question in the
next section but finish first our discussion of the four stages.
Rickert warns against any preferential treatment of the theoretical value of truth or of one of the atheoretical values, as happens
in scientism, aestheticism, hedonism, moralism, etc. Most of theseisms excel in value-prophecy (Wertprophetentum), from which a truly
scientific theory of values should abstain. We should rather try to
understand (Verstehen) values and their validity, and should abstain
from practical, atheoretical evaluations in terms of good and bad,
beautiful and ugly, pleasant and unpleasant, moral and immoral, etc.
It also cannot tell us how to live a blissful life. A scientifically sound
theory of values rather aspires to bring about theoretical clarity about
theoretical and atheoretical values. If the philosopher of values is
driven by pathos at all, it is the pathos of pathoslessness.68

(. . .) man hat gerade das atheoretisch Geltende in seiner theoretischen

Unbegrndbarkeit zu verstehen. Ibid., p. 152. We encounter here, of course, again
Rickerts previously discussed distinction between a normative, metaphysical worldview and a scientific, theoretical analysis of worldviews, i.e. Weltanschauung versus
Weltanschuungslehre.
68
das Pathos der Pathoslosigkeit. Ibid., p. 155. Rickert emphasizes the importance of philosophical pathos but distinguishes three dierent types: (a) the intellectualist pathos as exhibited by Spinoza; (b) the anti-theoretical pathos, as in
Nietzsche, Wilde or Kierkegaard (the main prophets of the Philosophy of Life!) and
(c) the pathos of pathoslessness which distinguishes theoretical, objective values from
atheoretical, subjective values and rejects the primacy of either one of these two
groups of values. He gives Kant as an example but adds that he relapsed often
into (a). Naturally, he meant to say that he himself is the best example of the third
pathos. Cf. ibid., p. 154. Max Weber fulminated against lectern prophets at the
university in similar terms. In his swan-song Science as a Profession, 1920, he
claimed that the prophet and the demagogue do not belong on the lectern of the
university classroom. Max Weber, Wissenschaft als Beruf , in: Gesammelte Aufstze
zur Wissenschaftslehre, o.c., p. 602. See also Theodor Geiger, Demokratie ohne Dogma.
Die Gesellschaft zwischen Pathos und Nchternheit, (Democracy without Dogma. Society
between Pathos and Soberness), 1950, (Mnchen: Szczesny Verlag, 1964). See also
my The Abstract Society. A Cultural Analysis of Our Time, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday,
1970), chapter 7: The Need for Intellectual Asceticism, pp. 168190.
67

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Finally, is there a fourth stage of values and validity? Is there a

metaphysical validity of values which generally denegrates even the
third, objective stage as a collection of allegedly fictitious values with
an allegedly fictitious validity? This is hard to fathom, since it seems
that objective values and validity (the third stage) present the highest stage possible. One could imagine some sort of trans-individual,
divine, absolute Will to which everything is arbitrarily absolute, or
for that matter relative. But that would not render validity more
valid. The objective validity which is independent of all subjectivities, is the apex of transcendental, a priori validity. No value can
do more than be objectively valid. When a value is objectively valid,
it is already detached or absolute, if it does exist at all.69
THE MEANING BESTOWING ACT70
Rickert is in search of a concept which covers reality-in-toto. Up till
now he has distinguished two heterologically connected realities.
There is the world of objects and facts which is a temporal, spatial
and causally determined worldthe observable real reality. He calls
it the First Realm (das erste Reich). It is juxtaposed to the Second
Realm (das zweite Reich) which consists of the spaceless, timeless and
non-causal world of valuesthe understandable unreal reality which
cannot be reached by the senses (unsinnlich). But this then yields a
divided reality which is not the Weltall, the reality-in-toto, the sur-realit,
he is searching for. There must be a Third Realm (das dritte Reich)
which connects the First and the Second Realm without destroying
their independent existence, their autonomy. This Third Realm, we
have just seen, is not a kind of Hegelian synthesis resulting from a
coalescence of a thesis and its antithesis, both elevated into (aufheben)
and merged in an alleged synthesis. Nor is it a kind of metaphysical,
Platonic aboriginal reality which incorporates or colonizes the First
Realm and the Second Realm. It is rather a heterological connection
of the autonomous First Realm and the autonomous Second Realm,
69
Mehr als objektiv gelten kann kein Wert. Gilt er objektiv, so ist er schon losgelst oder absolut, falls es ihn berhaupt gibt. Ibid., p. 136.
70
The concept the Third Realm completes Rickerts conceptualization of the
reality-in-toto (Weltall ). The following discussion of it is based on a pivotal section in
his Allgemeine Grundlegung der Philosophie, o.c., pp. 254265. However, as we shall see,
Rickert postulates a Fourth Realm which is in fact a metaphysical super-reality
which represents a true Weltall.

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a conceptual bridge between facts and values, being and validity

a mediating and bifocal reality. Rickert views this third, connecting
realm as an act, i.e. a meaning bestowing act, namely the judgment
(Urteil ) that plays, as we saw in Chapter Three, such a crucial role
in his epistemology. This needs further analysis.
Ordinary language, we have repeatedly seen before, is deficient
in Rickerts eyes, if one tries to conceptualize the unreal reality of
the values. It is even more so, if one tries to construct rational concepts for the Third Realm which establishes a total reality by bridging the juxtaposed worlds of the empirical, objective, temporal, spatial,
causal reality of things and objects (the First Realm) and the nonempirical, subjective, non-temporal, non-spatial and non-causal reality of values (the Second Realm). In his system the conceptual bridging
of these two realms is of crucial importance. For most of us, who,
like Rickerts contemporaries, are used to thinking positivistically,
exclusively in terms of the First Realm, his thoughts on the Third
Realm are hard to grasp.
In order to help us, Rickert starts with a common-sense expression:
what do we mean, when we speak of the meaning of life (Sinn des
Lebens)? We do not simply couple meaning and life, but relate, without actually realizing it, an unreal meaning (Second Realm) to real,
immediately experienced life (First Realm). Intuitionists and vitalists
take the easy road: allegedly we can directly experience (erleben) what
life and its meaning is all about, so why bother to conceptualize it?
As we saw in Chapter Two, Rickert sympathizes to a certain extent
with that position, but finds it insucient, if one has the ambition
to think about the world theoretically and scientifically. Unlike the
vitalist, the theoretical (scientific) philosopher wants to grasp the world
in terms of concepts, just like the empirical and specialized scientist
does. Now, as to the expression the meaning of life, it is hard to
explain it in terms of ordinary language, but after the previous exposition it is not dicult to realize that this expression refers not only
to the heterological duality of meaning (Second Realm) and life (First
Realm), but also to the act of connecting them. This act is the Third
Realm. It may sound as if the Third Realm would refer to a metaphysical beyond but that is not at all what Rickert means. As a
metaphysical beyond the Third Realm would destroy the autonomy
of the First and the Second Realm as in an Hegelian synthesis.
Rickert wants to maintain their autonomy and postulates the Third
Realm as their practical connection.

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Once again, the Third Realm consists of the act of connecting the
First and the Second Realm, the world of objects and facts on the
one hand and that of values on the other. This is, of course, an
evaluating act (Akt des Wertens), because the meaning of life is not
meant as an objective fact, but constitutes a subjective, evaluative
judgment (Werturteil ), namely that life has meaning, is inherently
meaningful.71 Or, in other words, we evaluate life as being more than
just a biological fact. It is a biological fact which carries an inherent meaning. The fact is thus related to a value, and that is an act.
How one fills in this more, this inherent meaning, depends on ones
set of values. To a believer life may be a gift of God, to the unbeliever a gift of Nature, to some a miracle, to others a painful burden.72 Yet, they all have in common that they experience and express
a connection between facts and values, that they actively connect the
First Realm of real facts with the Second Realm of unreal values.
For this act Rickert coins the concept Aktsinn, i.e. meaning bestowing
act.73 He views it as the Third Realm that stands between the First
and the Second Realm, connecting them heterologically (as it were
bifocally), without annihilating their autonomy. Life still remains a
biological aair, its value still remains a non-sensual, non-real reality. By connecting values of the Second Realm with facts, events
and objects in the First Realm, human beings render the latter meaningful. In this sense the Aktsinn is a meaning bestowing act. This is
remarkable, because the Third Realm then consists of an activity
comparable to the epistemological evaluating judgment. The values
in the Second Realm may be subjective and thus relative, the act
of linking the two realms is universal, objective and thus non-relative.
Everywhere and in all times, human beings have been busy bestowing meanings on the objects and events they ran and run into. In
conjunction the three realms constitute the world-in-toto.

71
Naturally, the judgment about life can be, and often is, also negative: life is
meaningless. Each value, we have seen before, has its counter-value which is not
its denial but an opposite value. For the sake of clarity Rickert restricts the present discussion to the positive value.
72
Schopenhauer was, of course, the philosopher who pre-eminently defined life
as a painful burden. For a modern version of this vision see E. M. Cioran, De linconvnient dtre n, (On the Inconvenience of Being Born), (Paris: ditions Gallimard,
1973).
73
Aktsinn (literally: Actmeaning) is an awkward neologism. In the present context
I prefer to translate Aktsinn as meaning bestowing act.

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Rickerts three realms may remind the contemporary reader of Poppers

First, Second and Third World, or as he preferred to phrase it, world 1
(the physical world or the world of physical things or states), world 2 (the
mental world or the world of mental states), and world 3 (the world of
intelligibles, or of ideas in the objective sense; it is the world of possible objects
of thought: the world of theories in themselves and their logical relations;
of arguments in themselves; and of problem situations in themselves.) World
2 is pivotal, since it can interact with the other two worlds and links them.
World 1 and world 3 cannot interact without the help of world 2. For
instance, the mind (world 2) can literally, i.e. by means of the eyes, behold
physical objects in world 1, but is also capable of seeing or grasping
objects in world 3, such as a number, or a geometrical figure. World 3
can work upon world 1 as in the case of technological interventions which
apply certain consequences of the mathematical or scientific theories. But
this is only possible via world 2, the mind. Actually, these theories might
have been invented by persons who were not aware of their practical possibilities, and have remained hidden until they were discovered by other
people who have tried to grasp, to understand them and apply them in
world 1. This testifies to the fact that also world 3 is an objective reality.74
Rickert would remark that world 1 and world 2 are the Cartesian res
extensae and res cogitans, a dualism which Popper does not solve but which
Rickert solves by juxtaposing them heterologically as transcendence and
immanence within the First Realm. Poppers world 3 is then similar to
Rickerts Second Realm. Despite Poppers often repeated claim that he is
a realist, he falls back, Rickert would certainly remark, into idealism when he
inhabits world 3 admittedly with Platos Ideas, although he defines them not
as metaphysical realities but as human products, more precisely as products
of language. But that is also problematic. He even applies this idea to numbers: I believe (. . .) that even the natural numbers are the work of men,
the product of human language and of human thought. Yet, there is an infinity of such numbers, more than will ever be pronounced by men, or used by
computers.75 Pronouncing numbers is counting (adding, subtracting, multiplying), Rickert would certainly say, but counting is not the same as numbers in themselves, just as words in themselves are not speaking or writing,
or thoughts in themselves are not thinking. It remains odd to state that
the third world (i.e. the abstract world of mathematics, logic, true statements, etc. ACZ) originates as a product of human activity.76 That, of course,
reminds one of Mills rather fallacious inductivism, which in view of Poppers
devotion to deductivism is quite curious. Rickerts Third Realm, on the contrary, is a true activitya meaning bestowing actwhich connects the transcendent/immanent First Realm with the ideal Second Realm of values.
74
Karl R. Popper, On the Theory of the Objective Mind, 1968, in: Karl R.
Popper, Objective Knowledge. An Evolutionary Approach, 1972, (Oxford: At the Clarendon
Press, 1974), pp. 153190. Quote on p. 154.
75
Ibid., p. 160.
76
Ibid., p. 159.

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In everyday life, Rickert argues, we engage constantly in meaning

bestowing actions, relating values to realities. In fact, we evaluate
constantly, i.e. connect with values what we encounter, see, hear,
feel and smell. Naturally, common sense does not distinguish an
objective world of real facts from a subjective world of unreal values, let alone a Third Realm of meaning bestowing acts. In our
experience the first two realms are blurred, and we are not at all
consciously aware of our meaning bestowing acts. There is nothing
wrong with that, but in the theoretical and scientific attitude, we are
obliged to distinguish these realms conceptually. In science we ought
to be critical and criticism is in essence nothing else than drawing
analytical lines of distinction and dierence. Then the problem arises,
how the two realms can be connected without destroying their heterological independence. But we need to connect them, lest we remain
burdened theoretically with a fragmented, dualistic reality concept.
In order to further elucidate his idea of a Third Realm which
connects the First and the Second Realm, Rickert gives two examples. First, in science a true statement is a theoretical good (theoretisches Gut) which as such belongs to the First Realm, because we
can hear and read it, subject it to investigation or debate, and thereby
objectify it. It also belongs to the institution science which again is
part of the institution university. In other words, a true statement is
solidly embedded in the First Realm. But there is always the duality of the person who expresses and intends the statement (e.g. a
teacher), and the person who hears and does or does not understand it (e.g. a student). This duality of intending and understanding is made possible by thoughts, or rather by judgments. Now, the
judgment this statement is true involves both the First Realm ( judgments can be investigated objectively, for instance by psychology)
and the Second Realm (the judgment belongs to the theoretical value
of truth). But there is a third dimension involved here. Due to the
acts of intending and understanding, on which all theoretical communication between people depends, the unreal value of truth is
as it were bestowed upon the real statement. Intending and understanding connects the statement with the value of truth, rendering
the statement meaningful. It is a theoretical meaning (theoretischer Sinn),
carried by the acts of intending and understanding. It is in that sense
again an Aktsinn, a meaning bestowing act.77
77

H. Rickert, o.c., p. 263f.

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Rickerts second example is in the area of atheoretical values. A

work of art, say a painting, is an objective reality (linen, paint, lacquer, etc.) to which an aesthetic value (e.g. beauty or its opposite)
is attached. If one focuses only on the objective reality, one will not
understand the meaning of the painting, nor its aesthetic value. The
painting acquires meaning the moment the beholder begins to evaluate it aesthetically, i.e. by calling it beautiful or not beautiful.
That is a meaning bestowing act relating the object involved (First
Realm) to the world of aesthetic values (Second Realm), thereby providing the object with an aesthetic meaning. Naturally, this has nothing to do with reason and logic, as in the case of the theoretical
judgment. The aesthetic meaning depends on the atheoretical aesthetic values (Second Realm) which is actively brought into the world
of the work of art (First Realm) by the beholder of it. If we disregard this meaning bestowing act of the beholder, the reality of the
painting and the unreal aesthetic values would, of course, still exist,
but they would remain juxtaposed as two separated realities, not
linked into a total reality. It is by the meaningful aesthetic act of
the beholder (Third Realm) that the First and the Second Realm
are connected and joined into the total reality.78
Finally, Rickert does not only distinguish three realms but also three
dierent methods of approaching them theoretically. The First Realm
of objective reality is investigated in an explanatory manner (Erklren),
the Second Realm of values is investigated in an understanding manner
(Verstehen). The Third Realm of the meaning bestowing act, linking the
two realms, is investigated in an interpretive manner (Deuten). These conceptual distinctions seem to be quite arbitrary, yet they are meant to
maintain the conceptual dierentiation of reality (Wirklichkeit), value
(Wert) and meaning (Sinn). This can be summarized in a simple scheme:
1. Reality

Explanation (Erklren)

the in itself meaningless

and value-free world of
objects
2. Value
Understanding (Verstehen) the normative world of
values
3. Meaning Interpretation (Deuten)
the act of relating values
to realities
78
Ibid., p. 264f. One can, of course, also bestow theoretical (scientific) meaning
on a piece of art, as in the case of the restorer or renovator, who in fact will combine theoretical (chemical, physical, art-historical) and atheoretical (aesthetic) values
and relate them to the painting or the historical building that must be restored or
renovated. Cf. footnote 27.

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CHAPTER FOUR
NEITHER PSYCHOLOGISM NOR METAPHYSICS

The previous section may give rise to the opinion that the Third
Realm is in essence a psychological world, since the Aktsinn is performed by the subject. Others may conclude that Rickerts conceptualization of the Third Realm in terms of the meaning bestowing
act which connects the real world of objects and the unreal world
of values is, despite his arguments to the contrary, actually rather
metaphysical. He spends considerable time in denouncing these two
opinions which in his view gravely distort his theoretical intentions.79
In Rickerts view, we repeatedly saw, psychology is an empirical,
specialized discipline whose object of research lies in the First Realm.
The object of psychology is circumscribed by him alternatively as
empirical psychic life (empirisches Seelenleben) and as real psychic being
(real psychisches Sein). Today, he would probably rather speak of individual behavior or psychological functions. In any case, as an empirical science psychology should stick to the description and explanation
(Beschreibung und Erklrung) of facts. Its proper field of operation is,
according to Rickert, the empirical world of objective things and
processes, not the unreal reality of values and meanings. He is,
therefore, certainly not an adversary of psychology as a scientific discipline. On the contrary, he holds for instance experimental psychology in high esteem as long as it abstains from philosophical
considerations and metaphysical ruminations. His criticism is, in other
words, directed against metaphysical transgressions of the disciplinary boundaries of the psychological discipline into the domains of
philosophy, i.e. he fought and rejected psychologism.80 In his view
Cf. ibid., pp. 277297.
In a letter to the experimental psychologist Alexius Meinong (18531920),
founder of the first laboratory for experimental psychology in Graz, Austria, Rickert
allegedly had written that he knew not one central issue in philosophy to which
psychology could contribute positively. Meinong responds to this remark in a letter
dated December 22, 1912, in which he turns the argument around: I know of no
problem which would be so central, that one would not have addressed it, as far
as one is acquainted with it, by means of psychological techniques, and that, while
doing so, one would not need, given the circumstances, to stay in close contact
with a possibly advanced stage of psychological knowledge. (Ich weiss kein Problem,
das so zentral wre, dass man an dasselbe, sofern man es kannte, nicht schon mit
psychologischen Bearbeitungsmitteln herangetreten wre und bei dem man nicht
unter Umstnden eine recht enge Fhlung mit einem mglichst vorgeschrittenen
Stande psychologischen Wissens bedrfte. (Letter from the personal archive of Mrs.
Marianne Rickert Verburg.) With such a petitio principii a further discussion between
Rickert and Meinong was, of course, impossible.
79

80

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181

psychologism leads in philosophy to all sorts of confusions. He mentions

in particular Dilthey, Wundt and Litt as philosophers-psychologists
who confuse facts, values and practical evaluations. Despite various
mutual dierences they share the belief that the human being who
interprets meanings in terms of values (Sinndeutung auf Grund von Werten)
should be analyzed in terms of these meanings and values. They
thereby confuse facts and values, real being and unreal meaning,
description and interpretation. It is a psychology soaked in normative
value-judgments, and thus neither scientifically nor philosophically
acceptable. Rickert emphasizes time and again that a psychology of
science, morality, art, love or religion is logically completely legitimate,
but it diers logically greatly from the normative interpretation of
the intrinsic meanings of these phenomena in terms of their values
(truth, the good, beauty, eros, desire, faith). Psychology should stick
to the First realm and restrict itself to the description and (causal)
explanation of the factual events that occur, when people make theoretical judgments, behold works of art, act morally, are bound with
others through ties of love, belief in God, etc.
Of course, values do play a role in such descriptions and explanations, certainly in the case of cultural psychology which focuses
upon cultural, i.e. value related phenomena. Yet, also in that case
the values and their related meanings remain objects of investigation,
constitute value-judgments and goods (institutions), i.e. they belong
to the First Realm, never change, within the boundaries of the scientific explanation, into constitutive components of meaningful interpretation (Sinndeutung). The task of cultural psychology is indeed the
explanation and description of values and evaluations as objects
(goods) in the First Realm, not the meaningful interpretation of values as components of the Second Realm. This is clearly illustrated
in the case of a theoretical judgment which depends on logic and
its central value of truth, as was the case, we may add, with Carnaps
geographers who upon closer scientific scrutiny came to the consensual conclusion that the legendary mountain did indeed exist. But
they must stick to that and not transgress the borders of science into
the nature of Truth as a non-sensual and unreal value. Naturally,
mans psyche is involved, when he engages in logical and scientific
arguments, yet the intrinsic meaning of logic and scienceits truth
contentis not psychological. It is essential to distinguish between
psychological being (psychisches Sein) and its description and explanation on the one hand, and logical meaning (logischer Sinn) and its
interpretation on the other.

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The agent who interprets the meaning of a theoretical judgment

or a work of art in terms of the values truth or beauty, is the subject of the ensuing statement. It is but a small step to view this subject as a super individual spirit (Geist) which subsequently is posited
as the solution to the problem of the total reality. The Third Realm
of the immanent Aktsinn is to the philosophical taste of many too
abstract and too unreal. What holds everything together should be
something real, should be that which is actually and absolutely
real. This metaphysic of the spirit is the psychology of the metaindividual Ian absolutely valuable, trans-sensual Geist or Logos which
evaluates only valid values. Religiously speaking, this meta-individual
I is a god who incorporates all realities and all values. From this
metaphysical point of view, Rickert continues, the values and their
validity, as well as the meanings and their interpretations become
quite thin, ghostly, liquid. According to the metaphysicians philosophy ought to go beyond this and penetrate into the depth, the
essence, the background of reality. This would mean, Rickert says
on purpose rather grandiloquently and ironically, that it (i.e. philosophy) ought to base the valid values upon an absolute, metaphysical reality of a world subject in order to understand the meaning
which inhabits our individual evaluations, as a reflection of the global
acts of the true global reality of the spirit.81
Another drawback of this metaphysical approach is the fact that
the absolute spirit assumes a unifying position in which the essential
autonomy of the three realms is lifted, or better: annihilated. The
result is a multiplication table of witches which is equally mysterious

. . . sie hat die gltigen Werte auf eine absolute, metaphysische Realitt des
Weltsubjektes zu sttzen, um dann den Sinn, der unsern individuellen Wertungen
innewohnt, als Wiederspiegelung oder Abglanz von Welttaten der wahren Wertwirklichkeit des Geistes zu verstehen. Ibid., p. 291f. This is obviously an ironical
reference to Hegels philosophy. He adds that this sort of metaphysics works with
words and names that resonate strongly in the chest of many people and obviously
satisfy more than just theoretical needs. The word Geist alone has a magical
influence on many which by far transcends that of a scientific theory. (Schon
das Wort Geist bt auf Manche einen Zauber, der weit ber den einer wissenschaftlichen Theorie hinausgeht.) Ibid., p. 292. The same holds true, of course,
of the Platonic Logos, and it is not far-fetched to apply it also to the Marxist notion
of the Proletariat as the agent which eventually causes the End of History in the
world revolution. Cf. Georg Lukcs, Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein, (History and
Class Consciousness), 1923, (Neuwied, Berlin: Hermann Luchterhand, 1971).
81

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183

to wise men as to fools: and three make equal, so you are rich! To
the scientific man the three parts will always remain unequal.82 Science
always moves from the fuzzy and indistinct mass of experiences to
the clear plurality of concepts. It is the only way to make people
conscious of the wealth of the world. Yes, one will skeptically examine the content of the word spirit, when man searches more for
clarifying concepts than for uplifting or intoxicating sounds.83
Rickert agrees with Nietzsche: we should shy away from this metaphysical back world (Hinterwelt).84 Since he loves to play with words,
he states that his own theory of the logically predominant role of
the Third Realm of meaning interpretation (Sinndeutung) and meaning bestowing activity is not a meta-physical back world, but rather
a pro-physical front world (Vorderwelt): it is the logical predecessor
of reality and values, and of our knowledge of them.85 This front
world is not an abstract, far away reality, but it is part of our everyday world, since we constantly, though usually unconsciously, interpret the meaning of what we and the others do and say in terms
of values. Or, in more modern terms, we are essentially meaning
bestowing, that is communicating beings. It is the task of philosophy to conceptualize this activity. That is precisely what the not
meta-physical but pro-physical theory of the three independent, yet
heterologically connected realms does. In the night of the back world
everything is, to quote Hegel, black. In the day of the front world
the one stands out clearly from the other. He who wants to know,
cannot doubt in which direction he ought to look.86

82
. . . ein Hexeneinmaleins, geheimnisvoll fr Weise wie fr Toren: Und Drei
mach gleich, so bist du reich! Fr den wissenschaftlichen Menschen werden die drei
Teile immer ungleich bleiben. Ibid., p. 293.
83
Ja das Wort Geistwird man besonders misstrauisch auf seinen Gehalt prfen,
falls man mehr nach klrenden Begrien als nach erbaulichen oder berauschenden
Klngen sucht. Idem. This is one of the main reasons why Rickert, as we shall see
in Chapter Five, replaces the concept Geisteswissenschaft by Kulturwissenschaft.
84
Ibid., p. 295f.
85
In view of this concept of pro-physics the title of Christian Krijnens voluminous study is remarkable: Nachmetaphysischer Sinn, i.e. post-metaphysical meaning.
Krijnen, o.c.
86
In der Nacht der Hinterwelt wird, um mit Hegel zu reden, alles schwarz.
Im Tage der Vorderwelt hebt sich das Eine von dem Andern deutlich ab. Wer
erkennen will, kann nicht zweifeln, wohin er zu blicken hat. Ibid., p. 297.

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CHAPTER FOUR
THE PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE IN OUTLINE

We must now ask how it could be possible to acquire philosophical

knowledge of values. This is, of course, a tricky question, in particular since Rickert rejects the metaphysical approach. In answer to
this question he argues that to begin with values can only be known
through their deposit, or objectification in value-judgments and cultural goods (from scientific theories and objects of art to institutions).
These, of course, belong to the First Realm. The values of the Second
Realm are, as we saw before, forms which are in the meaning bestowing acts imposed on the contents of the First Realm. As empty
forms values cannot be experienced and known. Truth, beauty, justice,
moral goodness, etc. cannot be seen, smelled, heard, or touched.
They are in this basic sense not real as the transcendent objects are
which through the senses become immanent phenomena, enter our
minds as impressions after they have been caught by the senses.
However, values are, as it were, deposited in our value-judgments
and in our cultural goods which are objective components of the
First Realm. It is there that we can acquire knowledge about them.
This is remarkable because the philosophy of values now seems
to coincide with the cultural sciences, the historical discipline in the
first place. Indeed, Rickert seems to come close to the notion of a
cultural and historical philosophy derived from various culturalhistorical disciplines. But that is, of course, a notion which he has
rejected earlier, when he stated that the total reality, as the objective of systematic philosophy, is more than the sum of the realities
under investigation by the specialized sciences. It is precisely at this
point that the Third Realm is so strategically important. The empirical cultural sciences (history, as we will see in the next chapter, in
the first place) describe, analyze and explain the objective sedimentations of values in goods and value-judgments, without leaving or
transcending the First Realm. The philosophy of values, on the contrary, having its proper abode in the Third Realm, performs the
Aktsinn, the meaning bestowing act, by linking the Second Realm of
unreal values to the First Realm of real objects. By doing so the
meaning and nature of values are rendered understandable (verstehbar). Thus, the philosopher does not distill objectively valid values
from the (individually or collectively) subjective value-judgments and
the cultural goods, as investigated by the cultural-historical disciplines. He rather instills them with meaning and clarifies why it is

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that for example institutions are true Sinngebilde, meaningful configurations. Such interpretations could eventually even produce knowledge,
Rickert claims, about what life is all about, i.e. about the grand issue
of the meaning of life. In the end his philosophy or theory of values, which can also be called a philosophy of culture, could thus produce a philosophical Lebensanschauung. This is, of course, a large order,
certainly if one takes into account that such a philosophy may not
result in a metaphysical Weltanschauung.
At this point of his argument he again warns and argues against
psychologism. We should not focus on individual and personal acts
of value-judgments, since that would not yield any systematic knowledge and insight. One would get lost in the chaotic thicket of subjective emotions and opinions. Individuals, for instance, usually
experience and evaluate the aesthetic value of a work of art in vastly
dierent manners. And when individuals are described and analyzed
psychologically in a uniform manner, as in the case of a true scientific
statement, it is generally not asked, whether their judgment is true
or false, because it is psychologically irrelevant whether someone
thinks and argues correctly or falsely. Telling lies is psychologically
interesting in terms of the mental and psychic processes involved in
the lying. The nature of a lie in terms of truth and falsehood as values is of no concern to the scientifically operating psychologist, nor
are for that matter the normative, moralistic value-judgments about
lying. Those are philosophical issues. Psychology as an empirical science should stick to the explanation of real psychological processes
and is as such not of any significance to the philosophical theory of
values.
This argument can be illustrated additionally in the case of religion. The
scientific study of religion, as in the case of comparative religion, or sociology of religion, or psychology of religion, is interested in the empirical
expressions of religious values in the First Realm. It subjects these values
which are dear to the true believers, to objective analysis and research,
without leaving the First Realm, e.g. without asking what the intrinsic values and meanings of the religious expressions under investigation essentially are. An atheist can be a perfect scientific student of religion, just as
a musicologist does not have to excel in musicality. In Rickerts Aktsinn,
however, the philosopher will focus on the immanent meaning of the religious values in the Second Realm and bestow them on the empirical religious expressions in the First Realm. Without necessarily being a believer,
he will try to determine what it exactly is that renders these expressions
religious. In this sense he will search for the essence of religion, but without

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any normative religious intentions. This brings him close to the phenomenology of religion, as formulated in an exemplary manner by Gerard van
der Leeuw who would be fully acceptable for Rickert because he did not
take refuge in psychologism as most phenomenologists of religion have been
prone to do, nor did he alter his comparative study of religious phenomena into a normative theology.87 It is necessary to distinguish the philosophy of religion as a scientific enterprise from systematic theology as a
normative, dogmatic discipline. In Rickerts terms theology would certainly
not belong to the Third Realm, but rather be part of metaphysics which
is beyond the three realms. The history of systematic theology, however,
would again be part of the First Realm, as a scientific study of religion.88

Rickert then draws the conclusion that not individual value-judgments

which lack objective validity, but collective goods which carry an
intersubjective validity, constitute the proper material of the philosophy
of values. They are objective realitiesthe institutions of historical
cultureto which the values adhere. To a philosophical theory of
values history as a scientific discipline is of far greater importance
than psychology and the natural sciences. In the next chapter we
shall encounter Rickerts idea of historical or cultural science (Kulturwissenschaft) as a distinct approach of reality, heterologically distinguished
from the natural-scientific approach (Naturwissenschaft). We shall then
also discuss his ideas about a specific philosophy of history.
Following Kant, he singles out four areas which he deems to be the
heart of cultural reality constituting the four basic, but mutually distinguishable domains of a philosophy of values, or cultural philosophy

87
Gerard van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation. A Study in Phenomenology,
2 volumes, 1933, transl. From the German by J. E. Turner, (New York, Evanston:
Harper & Row Publishers, 1963). See also Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane.
The Nature of Religion, 1957, transl. From the French by W. R. Trask, (New York:
A Harvest Book; Harcourt, Brace & World, 1959). A classic in this tradition is
Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy. An Inquiry into the Non-rational Factor in the Idea of
the Divine and its Relation to the Rational, 1917, transl by J. W. Harvey, 1923, (Oxford,
New York: Oxford University Press, 1969). This book is drenched in romantic psychologism though, as it defines the Sacred as the human feeling of being nothing,
and thus dependent on the awe inspiring sacred as a mysterium tremendum (tremendous mystery).
88
As an example of such a normative, dogmatic theology see the brief introduction in orthodox-Calvinist, systematic theology of Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology,
1963, (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books; Doubleday, 1964). For a liberalLutheran introduction see Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith, 1957, (New York: Harper
Torchbooks, 1958). A classic history of Christian doctrines is Adolf Harnack,
Dogmengeschichte, 1889, (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1905). Examples from other world
religions can, of course, be added.

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(Kulturphilosophie): (a) mores and morality; (b) the arts and beauty;
(c) the religions and the divine; (d) the sciences and truth. It is interesting to note though that the domain of pleasure and erotic lust
which Rickert discusses also, is absent from this Kantian catalogue,
as is the domain of justice which Rickert too neglects.89 In any case,
Rickert repeats once more that the cultural-historical, special sciences
subject the institutions (cultural goods) within these domains to investigation. They thereby remain in the First Realm of objective facts.
They oer the material for the philosophy of values which distills
from these investigations information about the values of the Second
Realm. By an interpretation of the intrinsic meaning (Sinn) of these
four cultural areas, relating it to their respective values, Rickert tries
to construct an autonomous philosophy of values. Let us briefly follow his arguments.
Mores and morality.90 Human beings grow up and lead their lives in an
environment of mores which are part of a collective, social culture.
These ways of doing things are, of course, related to values and
the philosophical observer naturally wants to know what the validity of these values are. He will observe that these value laden mores
provide people with the experience of meaning (Sinn). It is, for example, impossible to interpret the meaning of life without reference
to these mores and their inherent values.
Now, what does actually the concept of morality mean? In order
to be called moral, Rickert argues, human actions must be driven
by a conscious and purposeful will which intends to do what is considered to be right. There must be an intrinsic sense of duty (Pflicht,
Sollen), yet this should not be seen as some sort of slave morality
(Sklavenmoral ) which blindly follows alien orders. On the contrary, the
sense of duty should be an autonomous self-control which is based
upon the conviction that it is intrinsically right to do what one has
89
For a philosophy of law which is inspired by neo-Kantianism see Gustav
Radbruch, Rechtsphilosophie, 1914, (Stuttgart: J. F. Koehler Verlag, 1950; 4th ed.), in
particular chapter one: Wirklichkeit und Wert (Reality and Value), pp. 9197,
and various references to Kant, Windelband and Rickert.
90
Cf. the section Die Sitten und die Sittlichkeit, ibid., pp. 324333. The German
concept Sitten can be translated as folkways which in itself is again a rather pluriform concept, covering usages, manners, customs, mores and morals. Cf.
William Graham Sumner, Folkways. A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages,
Manners, Customs, Mores and Morals, 1906, (New York: A Mentor Book; The New
American Library, 1960) I shall use mores for Sitten and morality for Sittlichkeit.

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to do.91 This is not blind obedience but voluntary compliance. In

morality, the free will is essential. This free will is not arbitrary and
autocratic, but based upon autonomy in the original sense of this
word, i.e. self (autos)-imposed rule (nomos). The autonomous person is
bound by his conscience which consists of the conviction that there
are moral values which are objectively, albeit abstractly, valid. In
certain historical circumstances, such as a war, it may be necessary
to kill people, but the value of life is an objective one and internalized throughout history as the conscientious duty to defend it,
whenever and wherever necessary and possible. Just as the sentence
with a true meaning constitutes the core of logic, and the work of
art with its beauty the core of aesthetics, so the autonomous personality constitutes the core of ethics.92
Rickert adds the idea that human autonomy as the essential moral
value is not a private and individual autonomy but a social one.
Human beings grow up and live within a social community and a
traditional, collective culture which they internalize, whereby their
conscience develops into a social conscience. But again, they are not
the puppets of their society and culture. As moral individuals they
are autonomous persons who choose or reject voluntarily the moral
values of their surroundings: It is in this manner that an individual
develops into a moral human being, which freely absorbs the mores
of his community into his will or refuses to absorb them.93 In any
case, an individual is a moral personality, when he accepts and enacts
the mores of his community, not because everyone is doing so, and
one is supposed to do so, but because he finds them objectively
valid, and therefore morally binding. It is remarkable, of course, that
Rickert puts so much emphasis on the fact that the objectivity of
the validity of the values is the result of the definition of it by the
91
Rickert comes close here to the well-known distinction of Selbstzwang and
Fremdzwang as developed by Norbert Elias in his historical-sociological study ber
den Prozess der Zivilisation. Soziogenetische und Psychogenetische Untersuchungen, (On the
Process of Civilisation. Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations), two volumes,
1936, (Bern, Mnchen: Francke Verlag, 1969, 2nd ed.), in particular vol. 2, pp.
312454.
92
Rickert, o.c., p. 362.
93
So erst wird er zum sittlichen Menschen, der mit Freiheit die Sitten seiner
Gemeinschaft in seinen Willen aufnimmt oder nicht aufnimmt. Ibid., p. 329. It is
in view of Rickerts emphasis upon the importance of the free will of the individual as a moral personality strange that he embraced at the end of his life the social
philosophy of the national-socialists.

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autonomous, moral person. This comes close to the rather relativistic, sociological theorem of the self-fulfilling prophecy which was initiated by William Isaac Thomas which runs as follows: If men define
situations as real, they are real in their consequences.94 It seems as
if Rickert at this point remains stuck in the First Realm of valuejudgments and cultural goods, and is unable to get hold conceptually and theoretically of the ahistorical, unempirical (ideal, formal)
values in the Second Realm. He would, however, probably argue
that he as philosopher bestows meaning on the values of the Second
Realm linking them to their moral enactment by human beings
(moral personalities) in the First Realm.
He follows the same route of arguing, when he defines cultural
goods in terms of institutions such as marriage, family, law, state,
etc. which harbor the social values of a social morality. These institutions, he argues, are the proper object (Gegenstand ) of social sciences, like psychology, sociology and anthropology. When philosophy
tries to formulate its autonomous theory of moral values in the format of social ethics, it must stay in close contacts with these disciplines, because they explain how the mores and the institutions
function. Yet, it ought to transcend these empirical sciences and try
to understand the intrinsic meaning (Sinndeutung) of the institutions
as meaningful configurations (Sinngebilde) which are related to objective
values and their objective validity. In this respect there is this special
place of philosophy next to the special sciences: a moral theory in
the format of a social ethics which does not oer normative directives
but rather interprets moral values as the immanent moral meaning
of the social institutions. It, in other words, reveals the moral nature
of the institutions which empirical disciplines like sociology or anthropology could never do without leaving their specific field of expertise.
To sum up, the concept of freedom or autonomy, linked to the
internalized sense of duty, is what demarcates mores and morality
as the special subject and focus of moral philosophy. This branch
of cultural philosophy is in fact social ethics which, as we have seen
above, views morality as being social, personal, and active. This is in contrast to the other branch of cultural philosophy which is predominantly non-social, factual (sachlich), and contemplative.
94
Cf. Willliam Isaac Thomas, The Unadjusted Girl, 1928, (New York: Harper and
Row, 1967), p. 42f. Also Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure, 1944,
(New York: Macmillan, 1964), pp. 421438.

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The arts and beauty.95 Works of art are cultural goods and therefore
bearers of a value which we can loosely describe as beauty (or its
heterological counterpart). This artistic value is not attached to individual human beings or social units, but to buildings, sculptures, paintings, poems, plays and musical compositions.96 Even if the artist is
seen as a creative subject, driven by the aesthetic value of beauty,
he or she is actually not viewed as a person, but rather as the bearer
of an aesthetic value, and thus as an aesthetic object (Sache). In that
respect the domain of aesthetic values is, unlike the moral domain,
sachlich, factual or matter-of-fact like. There is and has been a
rather romantic worldview of aesthetic beings (Weltanschauung des
Aesthetentums) which tries to superimpose the aesthetic values on personal, social, or political values, as was exemplified by Oscar Wilde
whom Rickert mentions here specifically. But that is not of much
interest to the philosophical theory of art and beauty. In this theory the focus is rather upon the intrinsic value of art (Eigenwert der
Kunst) and not upon aestheticist ideologies.
Beauty is the basic value here. However, Rickert is aware of the
fact that this word is quite old-fashioned and misleading. Yet that
is, according to him, but a matter of terminology. What is meant essentially, is the fact that special values adhere to art and these values
are lumped together in the concepts beauty and beautiful (and
their heterologically related opposites). How can we theoretically substantiate these admittedly vague concepts? Rickert argues as follows.
We behold an object of art and dwell with it for its own intrinsic
worth. It stands apart from the rest of the world, and it constitutes,
with all its often quite dierent, yet mutually related parts, a complete, well-nigh closed configuration. A framed painting demands its
own place on a wall, a sculpture fills its very own space in the exhibition hall. Furthermore, such works of art do not need any reference to other realities. It is in that sense, unlike mores and morality,
impersonal and non-social. In fact, we are ready to call beautiful
each part of reality which constitutes a harmonious, independent
whole, which seems to rest in itself. Our primary reaction towards

Die Knste und die Schnheit. Rickert, o.c., pp. 333338.

Rickert speaks specifically of works of art. There is, of course, the beauty of
persons (beautiful women or children or men), of animals (beautiful horses or dogs
or cats), or the beauty of nature (mountains, sunset at sea), but he restricts himself
here to the world of the arts.
95
96

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it is not one of activity, as in mores and morality, but of contemplation.97

Our personal will remains silent, the urge to act dwindles. We just
behold, listen. This is the intrinsic meaning of our evaluation of a
work of art. It is an inner taking up of position without reference
to any outward behavior.
At the same time, feeling (Gefhl ) is not a relevant component of
the aesthetic experience, as is often mistakenly believed. To begin
with, aesthetic values adhere to things, to objects, and are in that
sense rather factual and emotionally neutral. Moreover, aesthetic creation and observation (seeing, hearing, reading) of works of art are
primarily matters of contemplation and looking, more than of emotional feeling. Contemplation and observation constitute the proper
meaningful act (Aktsinn) which does justice to the harmony, equilibrium, and autonomy of the beautiful object or work of art. They
are comparable to the autonomous will which expresses the moral
freedom in the area of social ethics. But whereas the moral individual is pressed to participate actively in social life, the value of
beauty suppresses each urge to act. It detaches the beholder or listener from the humdrum of social life for the sake of a calm tranquility and impersonal surrender to the beholden object.98
Arguing in terms of the Aktsinn in the Third Realm Rickert asks
what kind of valid values make art possible: What is it that makes
a work of art into a work of art, i.e. a cultural good which pretends
to be evaluated by everybody without factually being evaluated by
everybody? Which value should attach itself to a piece of reality in
order for us to treat it as a work of art?99 These are the basic questions, he continues, for the philosophical discipline called aesthetics.
Aesthetic philosophy takes as its proper object the arts in all their
97
This emphasis upon contemplation conflicts in my opinion with Rickerts crucial concept of Aktsinn as the meaning bestowing act of subjects on objects. This
will be discussed presently.
98
This is, of course, an anti-romantic, almost functionalist view of art. Piet
Mondrian or Arnold Schnberg would probably agree with it. But it is a rather
narrow view. Rickert should at least have added the heterological observation that
a work of art may have an opposite eect and produce a sense of chaos instead
of a sense of harmony. Expressionism certainly had this eect, and I wonder how
Rickert would fit a performance of Igor Strawinskis Le sacre du printemps in his
description of aesthetic harmony and tranquility.
99
Was ist es, wodurch ein Kunstwerk zum Kunstwerk wird, d.h. zum Gut, das
den Anspruch erhebt, von allen gewertet zu werden, ohne faktisch von allen gewertet zu sein? Welcher Wert muss an einer Wirklichkleit haften, damit wir sie zur
Kunst zhlen? Ibid., p. 335.

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diversity, i.e. the works of architecture, painting, design, poetry, music,

dance, etc. However, the philosophical science of aesthetic meaning
and value does not ask how art has actually and factually developed,
what it does and does not do, because that is what the empirical
disciplines, like art history, or the sociology, psychology and economics
of art, should do. The results of these disciplines are put to use by
aesthetics as material, as the empirical sedimentations of aesthetic
values in the First Realm. But its proper objective is to ask what
the factors are on which the aesthetic values are dependent. That
is, it asks on which factors the beauty, the loftiness, the humor, or
the tragedy of a piece of music, a painting, a play, a poem, etc.
depend. That question cannot be answered by the specialized, empirical
sciences. It is a quest for the immanent meaning of a work of art.
Objects in nature can, of course, be bearers of aesthetic values
also. In fact, it is quite feasible, Rickert surmises, that natural beauty
is the very origin of all things beautiful. Maybe art is just an elaboration
or imitation of what nature has to oer in terms of beauty? Or,
maybe it is the other way around, maybe the paradoxical phrase is
correct that the beauty of nature is an imitation of the beauty of
art, which means, of course, that it is works of art that teach us to
behold nature as something beautiful, i.e. artistic?100 In any case, this
demonstrates once more that through the meaning bestowing act
(Aktsinn) the non-empirical value of beauty attaches itself to the realities of the First Realm and thereby determines what is and what is
not art.
Thus, in contrast with mores and morality art and beauty constitute
a domain which in essence is non-social, factual (sachlich) and contemplative.
Its inherent meaning (Sinn) is the harmonious synchrony of parts and
components which often dier vastly, yet come together in a closed
reality which stands apart in social life and compels the beholder to
stop his activities and enjoy the beauty of it in a contemplative mood.

Rickert does not mention Oscar Wilde by name here, but it is obvious that
he refers to Wildes well-known essay in the form of a dialogue The Decay of
Lying. An Observation, 1891, in: Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, ed. by Vyvyan
Holland, 1948, (London, Glasgow: Collins), pp. 970992. The conclusion of the
essay is that life follows art: The third doctrine is that Life imitates Art far more
than Art imitates Life. Ibid., p. 992. Rickert loved paradoxes since they are, of
course, essentially heterological. And although he rejected his aestheticism and vitalism he had a distinct preference for Oscar Wildes writing, probably also for heterological reasons.
100

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Religions and the divine.101 Whether one is a religious believer or not,

Rickert argues, one has to admit that there are religions allover the
world, albeit in vastly dierent historical and sociological settings.
And there are people who believe in religious values and try to enact
them in their lives. Apparently, these values are objectively valid
to them. In fact, These religious values determine what the meaning of their lives is or could be. One can try to demonstrate that
these believers are wrong, i.e. that their truth is false, but in that
case one argues in terms of theoretical valuestruth and falsehoodwhich belong to another domain, namely that of the sciences. It is in other words a conflict of dierent and diering value
domains which can not be solved in terms of one of the domains.
One can call religious belief unaesthetic or unscientific, but that
is as unconvincing as the religious believer who decries art or science as godless and therefore objectionable. Max Weber spoke of
the combat of the gods (Kampf der Gtter) which necessarily reigns
in the realm of values and their respective validities: Fate rules over
these gods and in their combat, but certainly not any science.102
In the theoretical domain of the sciences a statement can be proven
to be true or false, but in the atheoretical domains of the arts or of
the religious convictions one cannot prove scientifically that a piece
of art, or a religious conviction is true or false.
An interesting case is the quarrel between creationism and evolutionism.
Fundamentalist Christians maintain that the cosmos was created by God
in seven days as Genesis 1 tells us. History is then a matter of Providence.
Evolutionists claim that this is nonsense, since it has been scientifically
proven ever since Darwins theory of evolution and the cosmological theory of the Big Bang that the world began ex nihilo and then slowly developed according to the laws of natural selection without any meaningful
(divine) plan behind it. Evolution is ruled by chance. In Rickerts terms,
both fundamentalist creationism as well as scientific evolutionism transport
Genesis 1 from the atheoretical religious abodes of mythology (the realm
of faith) to that of the theoretical abode of science (the realm of empirical
evidence). In a sense, the fundamentalists argue as scientistically as the evolutionary biologists do. In logic this is called a metabasis eis allo genos, a transition to a totally dierent genus of thought. The debate between the two
is senseless and fruitless.
Die Religionen und das Gttliche. Rickert, o.c., pp. 338344.
Und ber diesen Gttern und in ihrem Kampf waltet das Schicksal, aber
ganz gewiss keine Wissenschaft. Max Weber, Wissenschaft als Beruf , 1920, in:
Gesammelte Aufstze zur Wissenschaftslehre, (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1968), p. 604.
101
102

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With the help of Freges distinction of meaning (Sinn) and significance

(Bedeutung) an additional conclusion is possible: Genesis 1 has no (scientific)
significance, yet it does have (religious) meaning. The evolutionists will agree
with the first conclusion, but cannot possibly prove scientifically that the
second conclusion is nonsensical. Likewise, Homers Odyssee carries (poetic)
meaning, but has, of course, no (scientific) significance.

Rickert then asks the question what it is that allows us to call a

value and its believed validity religious. What is the meaningful act
(Aktsinn) by which a value and its validity is rendered religious?
Human beings, Rickert argues, experience their imperfection and
incompleteness continuously. In particular human institutions (menschliche Gter) suer from this lack of perfection and completeness. It
then stands to reason that people search for and believe in values
which are perfect and complete, incorporated in a super-human
being. This being is defined either in terms of a super-human person (e.g. God), or of a super-human but impersonal force (e.g. the
Sacred, or the Divine). In fact, one could, as a believer, heterologically argue the other way about: the experience of imperfection
and incompleteness has emerged because human beings compare
themselves and their institutions with this super-human, perfect and
complete divinity. But one should heed Rickerts reminder: it is
unimportant, whether we are religious believers or not.103 And now
that we are at it, he repeats also once more that he wants to abstain
from metaphysics as a doctrine which argues in terms of metaphysically religious values. Not an alleged immanent or transcendent existence of these values is the issue, but their validity which carries the
meaning (Sinn) of the believers life.
The domain of religious values occupies an interesting place between
the ethic and aesthetic domains. As we saw, morality is predominantly social, personal and active, whereas art is a non-social, factual (sachlich) and contemplative. In religion we find both sets of
characteristics mixed. There are expressedly contemplative religions
which profess a total merger of the personality and the divinity, and
abstain from activities in the social world. In this case, religious life
if we still can call it life, Rickert interjects104has a contemplative,

103
Ob wir selbst religis sind oder nicht, ist dabei gleichgltig. Rickert, o.c.,
p. 341.
104
Idem.

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impersonal (sachlich), and non-social meaning. In mysticism, for example, one merely wants to observe (schauen) God passively and be
absorbed by contemplation. It is believed to be the only way to get
rid of human imperfection as one merges, as it were, with divine
perfection. In the end, even the personality may disappear, being
totally absorbed by the deity. Such a non-social, impersonal and contemplative religious life resembles art and artistic life. However, in
religion the human being can also be oriented to his fellow human
beings and be active in the world. This activity is often interpreted
as a task imposed by the divinity. Religious life resembles in that
case the moral activities, and is likewise social, personal and active.
In fact, God is viewed as a social, personal and active force which
gives society, when it identifies with this religious view, an active,
personal and social character.
So we have two opposite types of religion here. On the one hand,
there is withdrawal from the world and depersonalization, on the
other hand there is working in and upon the world and the formation of a personal individuality. Rickert could have referred here
to Max Webers ideal typical distinction of an outer-worldly asceticism (ausserweltliche Askese) and an inner-worldly asceticism (innerweltliche Askese). The most telling example of the latter type is in
Webers view the protestant (in particular puritanical) ethics.105 It
exemplifies the coalescence of Rickerts concepts of mores/morality
and active religion/deity, and demonstrates the very similar Aktsinn
which Weber would call the subjectively intended meaning.106
Rickert finally points at an important feature of religion. It is
inclined, he argues, to refuse to accept a co-coordinative position
with the other sectors of life. It rather attempts to superimpose its
values on other parts of culture, in particular when a specific religious conviction is absent and the ethical and aesthetic values acquire
a vaguely religious color. In that case, religious values often exhibit

105
Max Weber, Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus, 1904, in:
Gesammelte Aufstze zurReligionssoziologie, vol. one, (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1963), pp.
84163.
106
Hannah Arendts discussion of the Ancient Greek and medieval ideas concerning the vita contemplativa vis--vis the vita activa (bios theoretikos vis-vis bios politikos in Aristotle) and the traditional primacy of contemplation over activity, which
in modernity is just the other way around, comes to mind here. See Hannah Arendt,
The Human Condition, 1958, (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1959),
in particular pp. 918.

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a tendency to spread over all of human existence as what the sociologist of religion Peter L. Berger called a sacred canopy. Thomas
Luckmann caught the force of this embracing kind of religion by
his notion of the invisible religion which, in a secularized society,
penetrates into such sectors as politics, the arts and sometimes even
the sciences.107
Sciences and truth.108 From the standpoint of cultural philosophy the
true statements (wahre Stze) of science, to which theoretical values
(e.g. truth, reality) are attached, are empirical cultural goods that
exist in the First Realm. As we have seen before, Truth is just like
Beauty or Morality a value concept (Wertbegrif ). True sentences can
be understood in all their pluriformity with regard to the validity of
their theoretical values. We can next interpret the acts of the theoretical subject (i.e. the scientific researcher) and explain them in terms
of their immanent meaning. This then results in what is called theory of science (Wissenschaftslehre) which should be understood as part
of the general cultural philosophy, alongside ethics, aesthetics, and
philosophy of religion. Its main task is to acknowledge impartially
all attempts by which people seek truth for the sake of truth. Indeed,
it should do so impartially, because just as aesthetics should not
speak up for a special artistic direction or taste, or religious philosophy for one specific religion or conviction, the philosopher of sciences
should avoid any scientific partisanship. As we shall see in more detail in the next chapter, representatives of cultural science (Kulturwissenschaft ) are related to the values of their environment, yet should abstain
from normative value-judgments for the duration of their scientific
activities. It is the fine, yet important dierence between valuerelatedness (Wertverbundenheit) and abstaining from value-judgments
(Wertungsfreiheit).
Partisanship with its unavoidable value-judgments is quite common among philosophers of science, Rickert warns. He refers to
those who claim that natural science (Naturwissenschaft) or mathematics

Cf. Thomas Luckmann, The Invisible Religion. The Transformation of Symbols in

Industrial Society, (New York, London: Macmillan, 1967). Peter L. Berger, The Sacred
Canopy, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1967).
108
Cf. Rickert, o.c., pp. 344347. This is a brief section as its main theme is
dealt with extensively in Rickerts Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begrisbildung
which we will discuss in the next chapter.
107

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present the true and only scientific science.109 Of course, he adds,

the philosopher is inclined to favor those sciences that in their formal structure are closest to his own endeavors and, he adds, without doubt philosophy is in terms of logic closer to the natural sciences
and mathematics than to the historical cultural sciences.110 But that
is one more reason to be very careful, if it comes to a philosophical understanding of the inner meaning of scientific life and work.
The philosopher is a theoretical person111 who is inclined to prefer
the theoretical values (truth, reality) above the non-theoretical values (beauty, deity, erotic lust, etc.). Yet, such a preference is and
remains theoretically incorrect. The philosopher would restrict his
philosophical horizons irresponsibly, if he only focused on those
scientific enterprises that come closest to his own theoretical conceptualizations and evaluative preferences. He will, however, only
avoid such partialities, when he stays in touch with the full breadth
of historical cultural life.112 Rickert, in other words, criticizes the
scientific specialist who can only view the world in terms of his narrowly demarcated field of expertise.
Finally, Rickert argues that the philosopher of science should at
all times keep in mind that there are truths outside the theoretical
In the social sciences this partisanship is usually labeled neo-positivism. It
was in the 1960s and 1970s opposed by a neo-Marxist partisanship which has led
to not very fruitful debates. Cf. Theodor W. Adorno c.s. (eds.), Der Positivismusstreit
in der deutschen Soziologie, (The Positivist Conflict in German Sociology), 1969,
(Neuwied, Berlin: Luchterhand, 1979). In accordance with his heterology Rickert
could have mentioned the fact that many cultural philosophers too are rather inclined
to put the humanities (Kulturwissenschaften) on a pedestal and applaud them as the
essence of science and scientific culture (Bildung). This was argued critically by
C. P. Snow in his well known essay The Two Cultures, 1959, (Cambridge, UK: At
the University Press, 1978). He added in 1963 A Second Look in which he mentioned
the rise of a third culture which is mainly represented by the social sciences. Ibid.,
pp. 53100.
110
. . . zweifellos steht die Philosophie in logischer Hinsicht den Naturwissenschaften
und der Mathematik nher als den historischen Kulturwissenschaften. Rickert, o.c.,
p. 345.
111
Needless to say once more that Rickert means by theoretical scientific and
logical. It stands heterologically over against atheoretical which refers to ethics,
religion, the arts, sexuality. Truth and reality are theoretical values, morality, divinity, beauty, erotic lust are atheoretical values. We saw before that Rickert viewed
philosophy as a scientific discipline, which however, unlike the various (naturalscientific and cultural-scientific) disciplines which operate in the First Realm, operates in and from the Third Realm, connecting by meaning bestowing acts the First
Realm of real facts and objects with the Second Realm of unreal values.
112
Vermeiden aber wird er solche Einseitigkeiten mit Sicherheit nur wo er
Fhlung mit der ganzen Breite des geschichtlichen Kulturlebens sucht. Idem.
109

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world of the sciences. They are in a sense pre-scientific, and although

Rickert does not use this concept, we could call it common sense.
The philosopher of science should realize that people outside the
world of science constantly relate their experiences to theoretical
forms, albeit in primitive appearances. The substance of these experiences is being formed, put into shape, structured by theoretical
forms such as truth and reality, as is testified by the abundant use
of phrases like this is true/false and this is real/unreal. In view
of his critique of vitalism and phenomenology, this conclusion is, of
course, quite remarkable.113
THE SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES
Until now, we have discussed values, value-judgments and cultural
goods at random. We must now place them in a systematic framework. But a warning is in order here. The search for a philosophical system, Rickert warns,114 is often driven by the desire to end
philosophy once and for all. Hegel, and certainly many Hegelians,
for example, believed that the Hegelian system meant the conclusion of all philosophical endeavors. After Hegel there was supposedly no need anymore for a systematic philosophy because his
philosophy incorporated the definitive System. From then on it was
only the history of philosophy that could be legitimately studied.
Moreover, since it was believed that Hegels dialectical system caught
and represented the dialectics of history, it was also believed that
with his philosophical system history itself had come to its conclusion.115 Rickert finds all this a vast exaggeration and reiterates his
conviction that history and culture can never be concluded and
113
If Rickert had continued this thought he would have come close to the phenomenological methodology of Alfred Schutz. See my essay The Problem of
Adequacy. Reflections on Alfred Schutzs Contribution to the Methodology of the
Social Sciences, in: Archives Europennes de la Sociologie, 13:1 (1972), pp. 176190.
114
This section is based on the first section of the first chapter and on the concluding, seventh chapter of Rickerts Allgemeine Grundlegung der Philosophie, pp. 114;
348412. These sections go back to an earlier essay of Rickert, Vom System der
Werte, (On the System of Values), 1913, in: Heinrich Rickert, Philosophische Aufstze,
R. A. Bast, ed., (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1999), pp. 73106.
115
A recent, popularized version of this Hegelian notion is Francis Fukuyama,
The End of History and the Last Man, (New York: The Free Press, 1992). A Marxist
specimen of this idea was formulated by the Hungarian philosopher Georg Lukcs,
Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein, 1923, o.c.

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closed, but will always remain open to change and development. He

points out also that the closely related idea that the future can be
spelled out by means of laws of development, is equally false. The
laws of nature can be discovered but there are no laws of history
and culture which enable us to fix future developments and changes.
Without mentioning the name of its author he castigates the bestseller of his days, The Decline of the West, in which Spengler claims
to be able to predict the future by means of a morphology of world
history. He calls it a book borne by the mood of an old man.116
But in his days there was, of course, a more serious opponent to
systematic philosophy: vitalism (Lebensphilosophie). It adheres strongly,
as we saw, to the evolutionist idea that nature and culture are in
perpetual change and development. Particularly life in all its manifestations should, according to this philosophical current, not be kept
hostage in allegedly rigid systematic frames of reference. Philosophical
systems, vitalists believe, are by definition closed systems which do
not allow for change and development. According to this vitalistic
belief ideas in systems resemble fossils stuck in ancient rock-formations. As we saw before, Rickert rejects this idea. Philosophy, from
his point of view, is systematic or is nothing, which is not to say
that a philosophical system need be closed and rigid. He is proponent of an open system in which the past is viewed as being unfinished
and the future as being open. Yet, he realizes at the same time that
the very idea of a system cannot be radically open, since it needs
some degree of identity in the sense of demarcation (Begrenztheit) and
rounding o (Abrundung). In a system the component parts are functionally related to each other, and do so in some sort of hierarchical structure. In this respect, as I have said earlier, Rickert adheres
to a functionalist point of view.
He escapes this dilemma of a system which is nevertheless open
and flexible by distinguishing once more between form and substance. He does so, however, in an argument which must strike one
on first sight as being rather odd. Of course, he argues, culture is

116
ein von greisenhafter Stimmung getragenes Buch ber den Untergang des
Abendlandes, Rickert, o.c., p. 349. Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes,
2 vols., 1922, (Mnchen: Oskar Beck Verlag, 1923, 44th ed.). As to Rickerts rejection of historicism, the contemporary reader is, of course, reminded of Karl R.
Popper, The Poverty of Historicism, 1957, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969)
with the main argument of which Rickert would have agreed.

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perennially subjected to substantial changes and developments. In

this respect he can adopt the idea of evolution and its endemic
change without hesitation. Yet, everything may be subjected to development, except development itself. It is senseless to say that development-as-form did once upon a time not exist, and then, gradually,
i.e. developmentally, emerged and then evolved into what it apparently is today. Everything and everyone develops, except development itself. Historical substances perennially change according to a
development as form, but development itself as form to which substances comply, remains fixed, unchanged, stable, and rather lifeless. We acknowledge, he concludes, substantial evolutionism
unconditionally. The evolutionism of form is rejected by us equally
decidedly.117
It stands to reason that his system of values will also be formal,
not substantial. Substantially, values as they find expression (are
objectified) in human value-judgments and in cultural goods like
institutions, are non-systematic, always changing and developing and
thus rather chaotic. In this respect vitalism is correct. However, there
are meta-historical forms or structures according to which these cultural substances are molded, put into shape. These formal (transcendent) value-structures are systematic, and Rickert sets out to
reconstruct these systematic structures. They present a kind of ahistorical, systematic matrix which puts the non-systematic, historical,
chaotic values in a formal order. True to his heterological method
he formulates this systematic structure in terms of three pairs of conceptual alternatives: (a) objects (Sachen) and persons, (b) activity and
contemplation, (c) sociality and a sociality. However, as we shall see
instantly, this is still not systematic enough since an overarching concept which puts these forms in a hierarchy and enables us to classify the values, value-judgments and cultural goods, is still missing.
This concept, according to Rickert, is the idea of full-fillment (VollEndung). It is the concept which encompasses the three realms discussed above, as well as the formal conceptual alternatives (a), (b)
and (c). As we shall see, we have then finally left the theoretical
world of scientific philosophy and entered the super-real, yes sur-real,
world of metaphysics. All this, of course, needs further explanation.

117
Den inhaltlichen Evolutionismus erkennen wir unbedingt an. Den Evolutionismus
der Form lehnen wir ebenso entschieden ab. Ibid., p. 352.

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THE FORMAL MATRIX OF VALUE DEVELOPMENT

Irrespective of its historical substance each geographically and historically determined culture,118 which emerged once upon a time and
eventually will perish again, consists of three elements: (1) non-empirical, unreal values which are or are not valid; (2) empirical, real
goods in which these unreal values are tangibly embodied; (3) living
subjects (human beings) who actively evaluate in value-judgments the
goods and the values. The juxtaposition of (3) vis--vis (1) and (2),
i.e. the evaluating subject vis--vis the evaluated object, is a pivotal
form in all cultures, irrespective of their substance and substantial
evolution. Historical cultures change and dier among themselves,
yet there will always be subjects who evaluate objective goods and
values. In this relationship between subjects, objects and values,
Rickert then distinguishes three alternatives which together represent
a formal and systematic matrix: (a) objects (Sachen) and persons; (b)
contemplation and activity; (c) the social and the non-social. We
must briefly discuss them since they are the very nucleus of his philosophical system.
(a) Objects and persons
Rickert then discusses first the complex relationship between an evaluating subject and the evaluated objects. He starts by saying that
the relationship between a subject and scientific or aesthetic objects
diers logically from the relationship between a personality and an
ethical object. In the latter case, as we shall see, there actually is
no object.
He proposes to start with the relationship of the subject who makes
a theoretical statement, or better: a theoretical judgment (Urteil ). The
crucial value is truth, or, for that matter, reality: is the statement
true, does it cover reality adequately? In other words, a statement

118
Rickert uses the concept of culture in this section in a dual manner. In this
sentence culture is similar to civilization. Cf. the idea of civilizations that come and
go in world history. But culture is also used in terms of the totality of values and
meanings in a given period of time. In the next chapter in which we discuss his
idea of a Kulturwissenschaft (cultural science) vis--vis Naturwissenschaft (natural science)
culture (Kultur) is employed as a non-psychological alternative for mind (Geist as in
Geisteswissenschaft). Incidentally, the idea expressed by Rickert that civilizations will
eventually perish comes close to the historicism of Spengler which he had just
rejected. However, it does not play a pivotal role in his theory of value systems.

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made in the First Realm is a theoretical and objective, empirical

good, if it carries the value of truth/reality. But more important still,
the act of the subjectthe judgment he makesis only true or theoretically valuable, if he has the intention to make (or to understand)
a true statement. But this should not be interpreted psychologically.
That is, the objective good (the statement made) radiates its theoretical (scientific) value, i.e. truth/reality, into the subject. The logical center, Rickert argues, lies in all circumstances in the statement
as an objective good which in view of the subject contains a transcendent logical value, and constitutes a transcendent value-structure
(Wertgebilde). It does not reside in the subject from where it would
presumably radiate to the object. Although he does not say so expressedly, Rickert obviously rejects here Brentanos psychological focus
on the intentionality of human behavior.119
Things are rather similar in the world of atheoretical, aesthetic
goods, values and value-judgments. There is, on the one hand, the
work of art, an aesthetic good which carries as its form an aesthetic,
unreal value, comparable to the true sentence with its transcendent,
formal, logical value. But there is, on the other hand, the evaluating behavior of the subject with his immanent aesthetic sense of
beauty which, however, as in the case of the theoretical, logical judgment, is determined by the transcendent meaning of the object of
art. Thus, in the worlds of science and the arts the objects are crucial as contents to which the values (truth, beauty) are attached as
their forms. True sentences and beautiful pieces of art, i.e. scientific
and aesthetic goods, are objects which carry their values (truth,
beauty) as their forms, irrespective of the subjective experiences of
the subjects. In fact, the truth of a sentence or the beauty of a work
of art exists even if there were no persons to understand the sentence or behold the art object. They are indeed objects, things, Sachen
which carry their transcendent meaning, while the subjects receive
their immanent meaning from these objects.
This is, of course, a remarkable objectivism on the part of Rickert. He
would now reject the well-known clich that beauty is in the eye of the
beholder, as an unacceptable relativism, comparable to the statement that
truth is dependent on the mind and the moods of the individual who hears
or reads the scientific statement. After all, the objective goods (true statements,

119
This is remarkable because we saw earlier that he adopted Brentanos
intentionality.

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beautiful objects of arts) radiate their meaning (truth, beauty) to the subjects concerned. However, it then remains unclear what precisely the role
of these subjects is. It seems obvious that there must be subjects who in
meaning bestowing acts (Aktsinn) in the Third Realm impose these (positive as well as negative) theoretical and aesthetic values of the Second
Realm as forms on the objects in the First Realm as contents, rendering
the latter into true statements and beautiful objects of art. Consequently,
the subjective sense of truth or beauty radiates from these meaning bestowing acts by the subject first, and from the true statement or beautiful art
object next. Beauty may not be initially in the eye of the beholder, but it
is, to begin with, in the act of beholding in terms of the a priori form
beautiful that there is beauty at all. And after this act the good, i.e. the
object of art beheld, may then radiate its beauty to the beholderand we
may add sociologically, to people who follow the taste of this beholder. In
any case, it is the beholder who initially imposes the a priori form beauty
on the content beheld, transforming the latter into a beautiful and then
also beauty-radiating piece of art. Rickerts fallacious objectivism is, it
seems to me, caused by his emphasis on aesthetic contemplation which will
be discussed shortly. There is, in other words, an unsolved tension between
his notion of Aktsinn and his emphasis upon contemplation.

The theoretical and aesthetic values and goods are compared next
with the ethical values. Rickert sees an important dierence here.
To begin with, in ethics subjects ought to be autonomous and active
subjects, i.e. personalities with a free will (free in the Kantian sense)
who unlike the contemplative attitude of the theoretical or aesthetic
subjects, are active. In fact, subjective action is the essence of ethics.
(Once more, action is the essence also of the Aktsinn in the case of
theoretical and aesthetic values!) In the case of a scientific statement
or a piece of art, truth or beauty radiates to the subjects from these
goods. However, the predicate moral or ethical refers at all times
to the actions taken by the actor, and do not radiate from his
actions. The ethical good cannot be separated from the ethically acting subject, in contrast to the theoretical and aesthetic goods which
could be and should be separated from the theoretical or aesthetic
subjects. The will of a person is not called ethical or moral, because
he produces ethical goods, but it is the subjective intention (Gesinnung)
that counts, irrespective of the outcome of the actions taken. This
is, Rickert argues, the opposite of an ethic of results (Erfolgsethik). It
is an ethic of subjective intention (Gesinnungsethik).120 When a person, Rickert claims, tries to save someones life, his action will not

120

Rickert, o.c., p. 361.

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become more moral, when he succeeds, or less moral, when he fails.

Not the result of an action is morally good, but the result willed is.
He quotes Goethes Mephistopheles who calls himself part of the
power that always wants the bad and creates the good.121 He even
formulates the dierence in terms of a general law: Everywhere
the value must be part of a good and must from here radiate into
the behavior of the evaluating subject, or, the other way around, the
value must be found in the behavior of the subject and from there
transfer itself to the object or the good.122
Max Weber has a rather dierent view on both types of ethic which he
labels Gesinnungsethik, usually translated as ethic of ultimate ends, and
Verantwortungsethik, ethic of responsibility. He sees an abysmal contrast
between the two. The German Gesinnung is hard to translate. It is an emotional cast of mind, or fundamental attitude which in the end is rather irrational. Someone who acts in terms of ultimate ends, Weber argues, will
always blame others: the world, the stupidity of other people, or the will
of God who created him such. The person who acts in terms of an ethic
of responsibility will take the average deficiencies of mankind and the world
into account, and assume the full responsibility for the results of his own
actions. The world and the others are not to be blamed when things go
wrong. The only responsibility the Gesinnungsethiker feels is, according to
Weber, to prevent the flame of his pure conviction from going outthe
flame, for instance, Weber adds, of the protest against the injustice of the
social order. It is his ultimate aim to light the flame time and again which
is, if looked at from the perspective of its possible results, quite irrational.
Weber continues with the observation that no ethic can avoid the fact
that for the realization of morally good ends often morally precarious or
dangerous means have to be employed, or the fact that evil side eects
may and often will occur. No ethic can determine, when and to which
degree a morally good end would justify morally hazardous or dangerous
means. Rickert refers here to Gesinnung: when an autonomous person acts
in accordance with his will to perform his duty in life, he acts in a morally
good way, irrespective of the means that are employed. Weber would not
agree. It depends on the situation what the moral balance between ends
and means ought to be. In politics the use of violence is such an ethical
dilemma. In times of war or revolution the use of force or violence is a
morally dierent act than in times of peace and tranquility. Weber observes
incidentally that it often happens that adherents of the ethic of ultimate

Rickert, ibid., p. 359.

berall muss der Wert entweder am Gut haften und von hier aus in das
Verhalten des wertenden Subjekts hineinstrahlen, oder es muss umgekehrt der Wert
im Verhalten des Subjekts zu finden sein und sich von da auf das Objekt oder das
Gut bertragen. Ibid., p. 360.
121
122

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205

ends first propagate their love against violence and next call for violence
as the last violence which will end all violence.123
Rickert who did not discuss the morally crucial distinction between ends
and means, did at one point briefly touch on Webers position. People, he
argues, should of course always tell the truth. The ethical duty of veracity
is an essential personal value. However, it is possible that a conscientious
person may in certain circumstances be morally urged to lie, for instance
when he, in doing so, serves a socio-ethical objective, the realization of
which he feels to be his duty or obligation. A theoretical non-truth is not
the same as a morally objectionable lie. A scientifically proven truth can
never enlarge the value of a moral personality, nor can an untrue sentence
degrade it. There is a distinct dierence between a real theoretical truth
and personal moral veracity.124

What is the hallmark of a moral person? Of what, Rickert asks,

ought the person to be conscious in order to be rightfully called a
moral person? He gives a simple answer which comes close to the
(incidentally often misinterpreted) ethics of duty of Kant: we value
a person as a moral person, when he wills and does what he deems
to be correct, i.e. when he believes that he ought to do what he
does. Ought tothat is in German Sollen, i.e. Pflicht, duty. The
notion of Sollen is thus a precondition for the moral Wollen, the moral
Will. But he adds immediately, as he did before, that this is not
Nietzschean Slave Morality, because the truly moral person is not a
slave. He is autonomous. His will is free. In fact, freedom of the
will is comparable to truth and beauty as formal values. Not the
psychological act of willing which only carries it, but autonomy of
the personality is the true object of ethics and its validity is the central problem of ethics. Thus, in the perennial philosophical dilemma
between determinism and voluntarism Rickert opts for the latter.125
The remarkably subjectivistic conclusion is that it is impossible
to speak of an objective ethical good, existing in the First Realm

123
Max Weber, Politik als Beruf , 1920, in: Max Weber, Gesammelte Politische
Schriften, (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1958), pp. 549554.
124
Rickert, o.c., p. 364.
125
In this he finds Isaiah Berlin on his side. See Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on
Liberty, (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), in particular the
Introduction, pp. IXLXIII. Ernest Nagel criticizes Berlins voluntarism in defense
of a determinism which is based on a natural-scientifically oriented logic: Ernest
Nagel, The Structure of Science. Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation, 1961, (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974, 4th ed.), pp. 599605. Nagel refers here to Berlin,
Historical Inevitability, (London, New York: Oxford University Press, 1954).

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like the true statement or the beautiful work of art. The nature of
ethics is exclusively dependent on the duty conscious will of the free,
autonomous personality. Actually, Rickert continues, a moral person
wills an autonomous, free will. In a sense, the free will itself, or
rather its autonomy, is a moral good. This is a remarkable state of
aairs: We want (wollen) [. . . .] subjectively ethically something that
is objectively ethical; that is, a will, that wants autonomy autonomously,
is moral in a dual manner, i.e. he is morally motivated, he wills
because of duty, and what he wills, is itself morality, namely freedom realized in a duty conscious willing.126
(b) Contemplation and activity
Closely related, yet logically quite dierent, is the next alternative in
the relationship between subjects, objects and values. In contemplation as enacted in the theoretical spheres of science and logic as well
as in the atheoretical, aesthetic spheres of the arts, the subject is distanced from the independent object. Mysticism may present an exception here, since the subject allegedly merges with the object. But
then, Rickert remarks ironically, as the word indicates mysticism is
a mystery and therefore philosophically not of any importance.
Scientific research is a telling example of this distance between subject and object, because after all science renders everything it focuses
on into an object!127 Also in the aesthetic contemplation there is no
room for an identification of the beholder of art and the object of
art. One looks at a painting, or a sculpture, or a play on the stage,
one listens to the performance of a piece of music.128

126
Wir wollen [. . . .] subjektiv ethisch etwas objektiv Ethisches, oder eine Wille,
der autonom die Autonomie will, ist zwiefach sittlich, d.h. einmal sittlich motiviert,
er will aus Pflicht, und das, was er will, ist selbst das Sittliche: die Freiheit verwirklicht im pflichtbewusstsen Wollen. Ibid., p. 361.
127
Rickert does not refer at this point to intuitionist methodologies like Verstehen
as empathy, as a kind of merging with the object of investigation. Phenomenological
Wesensschau too comes close to such an obfuscation of the distance between the subject and the object. As we have seen in Chapter Two Rickert reckons all this to
vitalism (Lebensphilosophie) and rejects it summarily.
128
Here again there have been opposite opinions. The Russian actor and stage
director Konstantin Stanislavski (18631938) who staged several plays of Anton
Chekhov, professed naturalism and realism on the stage which should lead to empathy and even catharsis in the audiences. This was contested radically by the Marxist
playwright Bertolt Brecht (18981956) who called this typically bourgeois. In his
plays he employed various estrangement techniques (like banners above the stage

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207

Things are quite dierent in human activity since it works upon

and aects objects. For instance, if we bestow meaning on objects
we interfere with them, we in a sense draw them into our lives.
That may even go so far that the distance between subject and object
is altogether removed. This is definitely the case with ethical behavior. Before action is ethical, the demand ( das Gebot, or das Sollen)
stands as it were opposite to the will (der Wille, or das Wollen) as
something strange or alien. Rickert does not give the following example, but it may be helpful to understand his theory. Living in a
strange culture one will at first not understand its valid values and
ruling norms. The demands will be alien and strange, cannot be
absorbed into ones own free will. But the moment one begins to
act morally, i.e. the moment one begins to bestow meaning on the
moral values and norms, and the moment one applies them to ones
actions as the autonomous personality one after all always is, the
separation between will and demand is lifted. There is and always
will be a tension between the will and the demand (between Wollen
and Sollen), but the ultimate aim of moral behavior is the victory of
the will over the demand, and next the fusion of the two.
This is, as we have seen, dierent in contemplation where the
object maintains its distance towards the subject, where, in other
words, the object remains a case (Sache), on which the (theoretical
or aesthetic) values and meanings are bestowed. In moral behavior,
on the contrary, the demand is being lifted up into the subject, into
the moral personality.
Rickert adds the logical distinction between form and substance.
Also in this respect there are dierences to be taken into account,
when we construct a systematic theory of values. For example, in
the case of theoretical and aesthetic contemplation there are substances which are, as it were, molded into forms. Rickert formulates
it as follows: the form can only encircle the substance as a vessel.
There exists no work of art with an aesthetic meaning, in which
with provocative texts) in order to force the audience to reflect on what it saw, and
to learn from it. He laid the foundations for the educational theatre of the 1960s
and 1970s. See his manifesto Bertolt Brecht, Kleines Organon fr das Theater, (Small
Organon for the Theatre), 1948, (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1960). Incidentally,
Rickert does not discuss the position of creative artists like painters, sculptors, composers, writers, which is the more remarkable since his wife was a professional sculptor. He would, it seems to me, categorize them in the active sphere where the
subject acts upon the object and imposes forms on it.

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everything is form, and which at the same time possesses autonomous

aesthetic significance. A content shows itself always to be structured
or formed in such a way that it works aesthetically also as a substance.129 In other words, in the case of a painting or sculpture form
and substance are beheld as an unquestionable unity. Of course,
Rickert adds, one can object by saying that in art forms are essential, and that they can or should be discussed and studied independently of substance, but that is a theoretical statement about the
aesthetic meaning of art. It is not an aesthetic beholding of art. Pure,
formal art does exist only as jewelry, not as an autonomous aesthetic phenomenon.130 In logic and science, i.e. in the sphere of theoretical contemplation, form and substance are much more loosely
connected. In the concepts and theories of the sciences there are, of
course, substances which even in the case of mathematics are irrational, but they are encased by rational forms which can be formulated and studied independently of the substance, as is done, for
instance, in formal logic. This has led in mathematics to the opposition of rationalists who think exclusively in terms of the rational
forms, and irrationalists (e.g. the intuitionists) who closely link the
irrational substance to the rational forms.131
The relationship between form and substance is dierent in the
sphere of activity. In moral behavior, for example, it is dicult to
distinguish between the two, since the form is the Sollen, the demand,
on the one hand, and the freedom, or autonomy of the person on
the other hand. The demand ought to merge completely with the
free will of the moral personality. If there is still resistance to this
merger, the will is not yet completely moral, and we may add,
although Rickert did not draw this conclusion, the will is not free
either. As to the latter, if the demand is blindly obeyed as a command,

129
die Form kann den Inhalt nur umschliessen wie ein Gefss. Es gibt kein
Kunstwerk mit sthetischen Sinn, in dem alles Form ist, und das zugleich eine selbststndige sthetische Bedeutung besitzt, sondern stets zeigt sich ein Inhalt so gestaltet oder geformt, dass er auch als Inhalt sthetisch wirkt. Rickert, o.c., p. 366.
130
The remark about jewelry may have been inspired by the education of his
youngest son Franz Rickert at the Munich academy for design. He, of course, could
not have knowledge of so-called conceptual art. He probably would have denied
its aesthetic significance and meaning.
131
Rickert discussed this in more detail in his essay Das Eine, die Einheit und die
Eins, o.c. He probably refers here to the intuitionist mathematics of the Dutch mathematician L. E. J. Brouwer. Cf. the Dutch biography by Dirk van Dalen, L. E. J.
Brouwer, 18811966, (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2002).

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209

as in the dictum Befehl ist Befehl (command is command), it is imposed

on the substance of the moral behavior, but the inner conviction,
the Gesinnung, based on and formed by autonomy, is absent or forcefully silenced.
Rickert then juxtaposes theoretical contemplation and moral activity as follows: the former is the sphere of the theoretical reason (theoretische Vernunft) in which an independent object (Sache ) is molded
by abstract forms; the latter is the sphere of the practical reason
( praktische Vernunft) in which moral demands penetrate the actions
and in which moral substance and moral forms merge within the
autonomous, free personality. In a sense the Persnlichkeit (personality) is the Sache (object) here.
Contemplation and activity dier finally in one more aspect: the
former is monistic, the latter pluralistic. As to contemplation, there
is actually nothing which cannot be observed, and quietly considered. Its material is therefore inexhaustible. That demands unification,
or even simplification. Rickert is somewhat cryptic here, but one
could think of science as an example. The essential characteristic of
science, it has been observed often, is the reduction of complexity,
or as Mach formulated it: economy of thought (Denkkonomie). The
power of mathematics, Mach argued, is the avoidance of all unnecessary thoughts, the frugal use of thought operations. Numerals, he
adds, present a system of beautiful simplicity and frugality.132 Rickert
realizes that the concept monism is, like pluralism, misleading but
he cannot think of a better one. In any case, as to the complexity
of contemplative material he argues that contemplative forms, like
scientific concepts, or mathematical numerals, unify the material and
reduce its complexity. This is quite dierent in activity, as is illustrated by moral behavior. In this case the moral personality is the
center, but as we shall see in the next section, the moral personality is always embedded in a social context of other personalities and
this plurality must be maintained, cannot be unified and reduced.
Moral demands have to be absorbed by many individual personalities the individuality of whom may not be destroyed. Pluralism, in
other words, is an essential hallmark of moral activity.
132
Ernst Mach, Die konomische Natur der physikalischen Forschung, a lecture held in Vienna May 25, 1882. I used a Dutch translation in a volume of
Machs lectures: Natuurkunde, wetenschap en filosofie, (Physics, Science and Philosophy),
(Amsterdam: Boom/Meppel, 1980), pp. 7294.

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(c) The non-social and the social

The subject of ethical behavior is at all times and in all cultures always
a human being which as an I (Ich) is related to a Thou (Du) as in a
necessary, heterological correlation. Just as each subject needs an object
in order to be a subject at all, each individual I needs at least one
Thou in order to be a moral being. As in the case of the other alternatives we have discussed ( contemplation-activity, object-personality,
form-substance, monism-pluralism), the correlation I-Thou is metahistorical, universal, or in Kantian terminology pure (rein). But there
is more than one Thou. There are the others who together with the
I constitute a social community. The concept social (and its heterological
counterpart non-social) is meant in this broad sense. The moral I is
in this respect a social personality, the bearer of social values.
This stands in contrast to the objects or goods of the theoretical
and aesthetic contemplation which in their purity are non-social,
since social connections are, at least with respect to their values and
intrinsic meanings, irrelevant. Art and science do, of course, have
social significance, but what is meant here is the fact that their
respective theoretical and aesthetic significances do not depend on
the social connection of persons. They rather possess their intrinsic
values which in their purity (i.e. not always in reality) can be viewed
as being non-social which is, of course, not the same as anti-social.
In the social relationship between the I and the Thou there is in
fact no subject that stands vis--vis an independent and non-social
object. The other is a subject too and in ethical behavior I do respect
his individuality, yet view him as the other part of a we, of which
I am a constitutive component also. Incidentally, this correlation
between the I and the Thou is not exclusively one of friendship.
Also a foe will come close to me and forge a social bond. In any
case, I do not place the other as in a contemplative mood in front
of me as an object, but we enter into a mutual (friendly or inimical)
social bond. In fact, the moral form of personal autonomy and the
moral form of the demand (Sollen) is implanted into this bond: I shall
respect the other as an autonomous person, as an I, and I compel
myself to meet and treat him as a Thou who is an intrinsic component
of our social bond. If someone else, another I, just remains an object
of contemplation with which I am not at all connected, not even in
animosity, I will treat him with moral indierence, or even negation.133
133
Rickert comes close here to the social psychology of George Herbert Mead
(19631931) who developed a theory of social interaction in which the I and the

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211

We now possess, Rickert claims, a net of metahistorical concepts134

which constitute the searched for system of goods and the values
that are attached to them. He divided them in two groups which
can be summarized as follows:
A. Contemplation
Non-social objects
Forms which envelop
objects
Monism
(Science, art)

B. Activity
Social personalities
Forms which penetrate into
objects
Pluralism
(Ethical behavior)

Rickert believes to have thus caught the universal, metahistorical

scheme for all expressions of human contemplation and activity and
draws the following conclusion: In this way we transit from the relativity of history into the absolute, i.e. into what is valid for every
historical culture.135 The conceptual system which we discussed in
brief outlines above claims to oer an interpretive scheme which
covers theoretically, beyond the dierent, specialized empirical sciences, the idea of reality-in-toto, i.e. the Weltall. Rickert admits that
it is an empty scheme, but that is unavoidable since it consists of
pure concepts, reine Begrie. Only its application to distinct, substantial, empirical problems of historical cultures is able to demonstrate
its fruitfulness and usefulness. In the philosophical science of the
world totality the road leads necessarily from the general and the
formally empty gradually towards the particular and substantially
filled.136
Rickerts philosophy of values professes to be systematic. The alternatives A and B provide an interpretive matrix, but is, of course,
not yet systematic. What is lacking, is a successive order, a hierarchy of the values. The AB matrix is in that respect not systematic
enough. This leads us to the most abstract and dicult part of
Rickerts general philosophy.

Other play mutually reinforcing roles. Cf. my Dutch introductory text De Theorie
van het Symbolisch Interactionisme, (The Theory of Symbolic Interactionism), (Amsterdam:
Boom/Meppel, 1973), pp. 7386. Also Herbert Blumer, Symbolic Interactionism. Perspective
and Method, (Englewood Clis, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969).
134
Rickert, o.c., p. 372.
135
So kommen wir berall aus dem Relativen der Geschichte ins Absolute, d.h.
fr alle geschichtliche Kultur Gltige. Idem.
136
In der philosophischen Wissenschaft vom Weltganzen fhrt der Weg notwendig
vom Allgemeinen und formal Leeren allmhlich zum Besonderen und inhaltlich
Erfllten. Ibid., p. 374.

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THE METAPHYSICAL PRINCIPLE OF FULL-FILLMENT137

Searching for a ranking order of values one runs into the obvious
problem that they are unreal and thus too abstract to be placed
in such a ranking order. However, as we saw before, values become
concrete and empirical in the cultural goods and the evaluations
or value-judgments. Now goods, like scientific theories, works of art,
or cultural institutions, are also hard to classify in a hierarchy, since
they exist in a complex and chaotic multitude of countless particularities. However, it is possible to construct a ranking order in the
evaluations, or value-judgments of the value-relating subjects.
But there is also an additional, though related, problem. Rickerts
systematic philosophy aims at the formation of a theory which enables
us to grasp and understand reality-in-toto. The problem with the three
realms is, of course, that it is an ontology which still compartmentalizes reality into three parts, the First, the Second and the Third
Realm. Such an ontology does obviously not represent an encompassing, totalizing conceptualization! It is at this point that he introduces the concept of full-fillment which is no longer theoretical (scientific)
and ontological, but metaphysical. It also represents the top of the
scale of values. Naturally, this presents him with a formidable problem, because how can one speak of and about a metaphysical reality without theoretical (scientific) concepts? Let us follow Rickerts
argumentation.
Of superior importance to us human beings are those values which
are relevant to the explanation of the meaning of life (Deutung des
Lebenssinnes). It is at this point that the concept of Leben which plays
such a crucial (metaphysical) role in the philosophy of life, so much
criticized by Rickert as we saw in Chapter Two, assumes an important
position in his own philosophy of values. He adds immediately that
the evaluating subject in search of the realization of lively values
137
This section is a brief discussion of a chapter in which Rickert develops his
ideas about a crucial concept in his philosophy, namely Voll-Endung. Cf. Rickert,
Allgemeine Grundlegung der Philosophie I, o.c., pp. 375385. The correct spelling of the
German word is Vollendung, meaning consummation. The hyphen in Rickerts concept underlines the deeper philosophical meaning of the word which literally translated would mean something like bringing to a full or complete end, but that is
of course awkward. I chose for the literal translation full-fillment with the original hyphen. This, I think, comes closest to Voll-Endung. See also his Die Logik des
Prdikats und das Problem der Ontologie, o.c., pp. 185198: Das logische Problem der
Metaphysik, (The logical problem of metaphysics).

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213

(die lebendige Wertverwirklichung) is not the objectified I of psychology

as a specialized, scientific discipline. It is the transcendental and thus
metahistorical ideal I in the Third Realm who in the Aktsinn bestows
meaning on values in the Second Realm, and relates them to goods
and value-judgments in the First Realm. And it should be borne in
mind also that the empirical, historical particularities of values and
evaluations are disregarded here. The focus is on the general nature
of the evaluating behavior that creates goods. Or, in other words,
the focus is on the meaning of all evaluations and processes of goods
creation.
It is a universal, ahistorical, formal fact that the subject who bestows
meaning on values and links values to goods and value-judgments
does not do so at random, but sets himself an aim. In other words,
the Aktsinn is not an aimless activity but it is a goal-oriented ambition (Streben), the goal or end being the realization of the value called
meaningful life. This end, it is the ambition, should be realized
fully, completely, without leaving empty spotsi.e. voll-endlich, fullfilled. After all, one does not want to have a life which is just a little bit meaningful. Yet, this ideal will never be completely realized,
will always remain a tendency or ambition. If it were ever totally
realized, all evaluation and all ambition of consummation would
come to an end. (It would be, we may add, heaven-on-earth.) That
is, of course, dicult to fathom in this world. It must remain an
ideal in the Kantian meaning of the concept, i.e. a pure (transcendental) possibility rather than an empirical reality.
Now it is apparent that Voll-Endung, full-fillment is in itself a theoretical, namely philosophical value according to which the other
values (of group A and of group B) can be ranked. However, in
order to be truly systematic one needs to juxtapose heterologically
voll-endlich, full-filled and un-endlich, endless. There are, after all,
goods which by definition can never reached the full-fillment of a
truly meaningful life. There is the ambition to reach a totality, but
this is but an endless totality, or in other words: a totality which
is never completed. A telling example of such a cultural good is presented by the sciences. They focus on all the components and dimensions of empirical reality, set out to describe and analyze them as
completely as possible, but they never come to rest, never reach the
final goal of a total totality. Likewise, the aim of explaining what
the meaning of life is all about will never be fully reached. It is
doomed to remain an endless totality.

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But there is the heterological counterpart of this endless totality

in the full-filled particularity in which the ambition of full-fillment
focuses upon a finite part of the inexhaustible reality. In a sense, the
full end is realized (e.g. the meaning of life is being experienced and
expressed), yet this fulfillment remains restricted to a part or a component of reality only. As an empirical example of this domain of
cultural goods one could refer to works of art which do represent
full-fillment, i.e. the perfect work of art, yet it is a full-filled particularity.138
The thesis of endless totality and the heterothesis of the fullfilled particularity can be bridged by a third principle: the full-filled
totality. This then is finally the most complete, but radically transcendent, i.e. metaphysical totality. An obvious example is presented
by religion. In most empirical, historical religions one finds the ambition to present values that provide the definitive answer to the quest
for the meaning of life. In mysticism, we may add, it is claimed that
a full-filled totality can be reached in a radical contemplation of
Nothingness which puts an end to all evaluations and all ambitions.
We may add aesthetic or erotic experiences as well, but the problem is that these are atheoretical realms, whereas Rickerts philosophy is in search for a theoretical (scientific) theory of reality-in-toto.
In science we work with logically formal concepts and theories but
they do not appertain to sur-reality of metaphysics. Science and
metaphysics are two logically totally dierent realities and there is
no heterology that could bridge the two.
Rickert then escapes the dilemma by introducing the notion that
in metaphysics we rather think and theorize with symbols and symbolic theories which yield not a scientific but an allegorical knowledge. The meaning of life or the meaning of history belongs to a
reality which lies beyond the three realms discussed. It is what in
German is called das Jenseits, the Beyond which cannot be experienced by the senses and be known by means of rational concepts,
categories and theories. The Beyond can only be suggested and intuitively, i.e. non-rationally, non-theoretically, be understood by means
of symbols, allegories, similes. These metaphysical concepts do yet
138
Fulfillment, it seems to me, is the equivalent of perfection. Perfection can
never be reached in life in toto and in general, but a particular piece of art, or a
particular scientific theory can in our evaluative judgment come close to it. We
then exclaim: Its perfect!.

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215

not float around freely and arbitrarily. Metaphysics is always in need

of an empirical reality which then is elevated symbolically to a Beyond
which cannot be scientifically verified or falsified, but must be
approached in faith or rejected in unbelief. This sur-reality is assumed
as a philosophically (ontologically and epistemologically) unavoidable
postulate.
Finally, Rickert adds, the goods of the endless totality, like the
scientific search for an complete explanation of reality, can never reach
their goal, remain in eternal development and expectation, and can
therefore be labeled future goods (Zukunftsgter). In the case of particularity, however, goods like the temporary realization of aesthetic or
erotic ambitions, may reach their aim for the moment. They are,
as it were, islands of rest in the stream of developments. Rickert calls
them goods of the present (Gegenwartsgter). The relation to time of
the metaphysical full-filled totality, is characterized by eternity while
they can only be thought of as being timeless. Rickert calls them
goods of eternity (Ewigkeitsgter), adds however that this concept is
problematic since nothing can be said theoretically about their real
existence. They can only be intimated by symbols, similes and allegories which do not yield knowledge but are to be embraced in faith,
or rejected in unbelief.
CONCLUSION
This then completes Rickerts theory of the system of values. We
should add to the two groups A and B the matrix of the three tendencies towards a full-filled totality (endless totality; full-filled particularity; full-filled totality), and place them in the time dimensions of
future, present and eternity. It is, Rickert acknowledges, an abstract
and empty schematism which however has the advantage that it
transcends the relativity of historical and empirical values, evaluations and goods, and presents a metahistorical, universal and systematic, admittedly very formal, structure of interpretation. This
empty framework must then, of course, be filled with empirical applications which may derive their material from the scientific disciplines
in the First Realm, yet should autonomously operate from the Third
Realm, constantly molding the substance of the objects and events
in the First Realm by the forms of the values and meanings of the
Second Realm.

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Rickerts theory of values presents a vast panorama with quite

original vistas on general philosophy, on epistemology in particular,
but also on the various ontologies which were popular then and now.
The most remarkable element in this theory is the pivotal role of
the so-called Aktsinn, the meaning bestowing act by which the in
itself chaotic and in that sense irrational objects and events in the
First Realm are being transformed by the means of the formal values in the Second Realm into meaningful sense-data (Russell).
Scientific theories and statements, aesthetic works of art, moral acts
and behavior, religious beliefs and rituals, etc.they all are being
transformed by the Aktsinn into meaningful components of culture,
enabling us to formulate a general cultural philosophy in search of
the contours of reality in toto beyond the compartmentalized realities of the various scientific disciplines.
Two main questions remain open in my mind. As I observed
above, there seems to be a conceptual rift and logical flaw in the
two notions of contemplation and Aktsinn. It is, to begin with, questionable whether contemplation is that crucial in the worlds of science and the arts, as they demand hard work, even labor, on the
part of professional scientists and artists, but certainly also on the
part of the students of scientific research or the amateur beholders
of art (in particular of modern art). But also the very idea of Aktsinn,
of meaning bestowing acts, stands in sharp contrast to the notion of
contemplation. The meaning bestowing act which is as important in
the theoretical and aesthetic worlds, as it is in the worlds of religion, erotic love and politics, is in the end an activity, not a contemplation. Rickert correctly views the Aktsinn as a crucial component
of the sciences and the arts, yet sees contemplation as being crucial
to them simultaneously. It is a remarkable contradiction.
A second point of criticism refers to the fact that Rickert develops a rather comprehensive cultural philosophy which leaves the
abstract abodes of his transcendental epistemology, but enters almost
secretively into ontological and even metaphysical considerations and
reflections. He enters into metaphysics even explicitly when he tries
to complete his concept of reality-in-toto by the concept of full-fillment
as a postulate which can no longer be formulated theoretically and
scientifically, but must be intimated by means of symbols, similes
and allegories. Both transitions present, it seems to me, a logically
illegitimate metabasis eis allo genos, a change-over to a logically altogether dierent theoretical species, namely the world of what Rickert

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217

himself has defined as being atheoretical. Symbolic allegories, after

all, belong to the atheoretical reality of the arts or of religion and
mythology.
Moreover, the various sections of his general cultural philosophy
come dangerously close to specific cultural sciences, such as history,
sociology and in particular (social) psychology. That stands, of course,
in contradiction to his thesis that philosophy should be an autonomous
science alongside and distinguished from the specialized, natural and
cultural sciences.
This then leads to the question what precisely the conceptual and
logical nature is of the natural and the cultural sciences. And more
importantly, how can they be demarcated? It is the old, 19th century debate about the dierences of the Naturwissenschaften and the
Geisteswissenschaften and their alleged inherent opposition. Here too
Rickert came up, as we shall see in the following chapter, with some
original and noteworthy points of view.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE DEMARCATION OF NATURAL AND

CULTURAL SCIENCE
Nicht die sachlichen Zusammenhnge derDinge, sondern die gedanklichen Zusammenhnge der Probleme liegen
den Arbeitsgebieten der Wissenschaften zugrunde.
Max Weber1

THE QUARREL OF THE ANCIENTS AND THE MODERNS

Rickert, we have seen recurrently, makes it a crucial point to reserve
a special place for general philosophy as a science alongside to the
empirical (natural and cultural) sciences. Philosophy, he once emphasized, is still the queen of the sciences but the days of her absolutist
reign are over. She has been forced to reign in accordance with the
parliament of the sciencesas a prima inter pares, we may add. There
are, of course, the various philosophies of the dierent scientific disciplines, as so many logical and methodological investigations of their
respective disciplinary foundations, but it still has to be determined
what it then is that render these investigations philosophical. As we
have seen in the former chapters Rickert answers this question by
laying out the basic structures of transcendental epistemology and
the general philosophy of values and meanings.
However, as to the empirical sciences, Rickert holds to the idea
that the natural sciences, reigned by mathematics, are historically,
ever since Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and all the others, the model
sciences. He was in fact quite positivistic about it. Yet, he also believes
that these natural sciences run into serious logical problems of concept formation the moment values and meanings are to be taken

1
Not the real connections of things, but the cognitive connections of problems, lie at the foundation of the working domains of the sciences. Max Weber,
Die Objektivitt sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis, 1904,
in: Gesammelte Aufstze zur Wissenschaftslehre, (Collected Papers on the Logic of Science),
(Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1968, p. 166.

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into account. Natural scientists, he thinks, should not pretend to be

the custodians of the only and exclusively correct approach to reality. This is scientism and Rickert rejects it as an inadequate, metaphysical ideology. In particular the study of the past, history as a
scientific discipline, cannot be exercised adequately in exclusively natural-scientific terms. Obviously, the methodology and logic of history diers from that of physics, or chemistry, or astronomy. This
is the issue of the demarcation of Natural Science and Cultural
Science as two (heterologically) related, yet dierent approaches to
reality.
This is, of course, an old issue which began in the so-called quarrel of the ancients and the moderns in the 18th century, continued
in Germany in the debate on Naturwissenschaft versus Geisteswissenschaft
and is, according to Rickert, solved in his heterological vision of a
logical continuum between two constructed extremes, Naturwissenschaft
(Natural Science) and Kulturwissenschaft (Cultural Science). They are
to be seen as two correlated and mutually amplifying scientific methods. The conceptual limits of the former open the doors for the latter. Let us briefly look in a few broad outlines at the history of this
debate first before we discuss Rickerts quite original, yet often misinterpreted contribution to it.
The Reformation and the Renaissance shared one fundamental
objective: both searched for a renewal and transformation of postmedieval culture which allegedly had grown stale and abstract in
scholasticism and ecclesiastic rituals. A return to the original texts of
the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament, and a
close reading of Greek and Roman literature and philosophy in their
original languages had to reinvigorate Christian faith and morals, as
well as the arts, philosophy and the sciences. The art of printing
made it possible for the laymen to read the Bible, printed sermons
and theological treatises, and the emergence of urban, secular institutions of primary, middle and higher education improved the level
of literacy, and thus the decline of intellectual dependence on the
clerics on the part of the people. Meanwhile, the rapid growth of
the capitalist economy in the trading cities, first in Italy, later in
Northern Europe, carried and broadened the Renaissance revitalization of post-medieval society economically. Educational institutions, formerly exclusively in the hands of the Roman Catholic clergy,
Latin schools and universities, emerged and flourished in this capi-

THE DEMARCATION OF NATURAL AND CULTURAL SCIENCE

221

talist, civic, and early-modern culture of the urban bourgeoisie which

steadily grew in wealth and power.2
In this civic bourgeois culture it became a mark of distinction to
be acquainted with the literature of the Ancients. One yearned for
this distinction in view of the pretences and (gradually dwindling)
power of the clergy and the nobility. The intellectual synthesis of
this cultural consolidation through the Ancients was inaptly called
philology. This was not the rather technical discipline which it has
been since roughly the 19th century, but rather a general philosophy and ethos which put heavy emphasis upon the education of the
young in letters and in rhetorical virtuosity. More an art and moral
worldview than a science. To use an anachronistic expression, the
aim of Renaissance philology was Bildung, i.e. the intellectual formation of a balanced personality.
There was in this post-medieval, early-modern culture another force at work
which gradually superseded this Renaissance focus on literary revitalization
of culture. It was the spectacular emergence of the natural sciences and
their successful applications in technology.3 It began roughly in the 16th
century with the theory of solar centrism by Nicolaus Copernicus (14731543),
and its further elaboration by astronomers like Tycho Brahe (15461601),
Galileo Galilei (15641642) and Johannes Kepler (15711630). An early
philosophical foundation was laid by Francis Bacon (15611626) who intended
to open a new era of thought and research with his treatise Novum Organum
(the new tools). It is in fact a methodological treatise, claiming that human
progress will be served only, if man learns to master nature inductively

2
Cf. my monograph A Theory of Urbanity. The Economic and Civic Culture of Cities,
(New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1998), in particular pp. 1731: Urbanity:
Origins and Ramifications.
3
It has become customary to speak of a scientific revolution, but it is historically questionable whether this is correct. The historian of science Steven Shapin,
for instance, opens his book The Scientific Revolution, (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1996) with this clarion-call: There was no such thing as the Scientific
Revolution, and this is a book about it. He then defines the alleged revolution as
a coherent, cataclysmic, and climactic event that fundamentally and irrevocably
changed what people knew about the natural world and how they secured proper
knowledge of that world. It was the moment at which the world was made modern, it was a Good Thing, and it happened sometime during the period from the
late sixteenth to the early eighteenth century. Ibid., p. 1. With fellow historians
Shapin doubts that there was any single coherent cultural entity called science
in the seventeenth century to undergo revolutionary change. There was, rather, a
diverse array of cultural practices aimed at understanding, explaining, and controlling the natural world, each with dierent characteristics and each experiencing
dierent modes of change. (. . . .) The continuity of seventeenth-century natural philosophy with its medieval past is now routinely asserted. Ibid., p. 3f.

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through knowledge acquired by observations and experiments, and not by

philosophical deductions in the train of medieval scholastic philosophers
and theologians. Human knowledge has to be cleaned from prejudices which
he called idola, mental fallacies.
Science developed rapidly into a truly modern worldview and ethos which
were no longer ruled by tradition and theology, but by mathematics and
geometry, as is, for instance, testified by Benedict de Spinoza (16321677)
in his Ethica more geometrico demonstranda (1677) and Isaac Newton (16421727)
in his epoch-making book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, first published in 1687. The literati of the Renaissance were called Ancients, the
representatives of the rapidly growing natural sciences and their theorists
were labeled Moderns. The growingly fierce debate between them was
seen as a true querelle, a Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns.
Two philosophers were the leading spokesmen in this quarrel which Isaiah
Berlin in a somewhat exaggerated fashion once called a battle.4 Ren
Descartes (15961650) represented the Moderns, Giambattista Vico
(16681744) the Ancients. Yet, this is too simple an opposition, because
Vico held the French philosopher whom he in his writings endearingly
addressed as Renato, in high esteem.5 He certainly did not reject science
and the scientific method Descartes outlined in his celebrated Discours de la
mthode (1637).6 He also sympathized with the Cartesian idea of the unity
of sciences. He was in fact rather critical of Cartesianism, in particular
where it became radicalized by Cartesians like Malebranche, Lamy, Arnauld
and others.7 Vico saw in Cartesianism a new dogmatism and in that sense

4
Isaiah Berlin, Giambattista Vico and Cultural History, in: Isaiah Berlin, The
Crooked Timber of Humanity, 1959, (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), p. 66: the
famous Battle of the Ancients and Moderns.
5
See Elio Gianturcos Introduction to his translation of De nostri temporis studiorum ratione, 1709, On the Study Methods of Our Time, (New York: The Library of Liberal
Arts; The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1965), p. XIII. Wilhelm Windelband called Vico
the lonely brooding Neapolitan, in whom we should see the first Romanic opponent of the mathematical natural sciences and of the rationalistic metaphysics of
the era of Enlightenment. Wilhelm Windelband, Geschichtsphilosophie. Eine Kriegsvorlesung,
(Philosophy of History. A War-Time Lecture), in: Kantstudien, Ergnzungsheft, No.
38, 1916, p. 17.
6
(Vico) did not impugn the validity of mathematical knowledge, but he did
impugn the Cartesian theory of knowledge with its implication that no other kind
of knowledge was possible. R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, 1946, (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 64. For Collingwoods discussion of Vico see
ibid., pp. 6371.
7
Gianturco, ibid., p. XXXII. He quotes a colleague, Maria Goretti, who concluded correctly: Thus, Vico, the opponent of the geometric spirit, who is not,
however, deaf to the powerful voices of the modern achievements of science and
technique, appears to us, not so much the adversary of the Cartesian spirit, as,
rather, the enemy of the intellectualistic schema: a schema which forces tumultuous,
contradictory human nature into the straightjacket of an absolute truth, of a truth
excogitated, dreamt of, but never to be actually met with in reality. Idem.

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223

a return to the Middle Ages. In his estimation the Cartesian Moderns were
not really modern.
Vico was, according to many, mistaken in defending Euclidian, synthetic
geometry as being superior to Cartesian analytic geometry. However, in
view of the discussions of the intuitionist mathematics in the first half of
the former century, he might, according to others, have had a point there.8
In any case, he was correct in rejecting Descartes and the Cartesians scientism, i.e. their belief that the Cartesian scientific method, based upon mathematics and geometry, could cover all of reality, not only nature but history
and human beings as well. Nature can be objectified in this manner, Vico
counters, but it is highly questionable, if not simply fallacious, to believe
that history and the socio-cultural world of man can thus be adequately
investigated and understood. Nature is created by God and lies open for
mans labor and research, but history and the socio-cultural world is constructed by human beings and must be approached by a dierent method
than the mathematically and geometrically founded method of Descartes
and the Cartesians.9 Because the human socio-cultural world now and in
the past is made up of and constructed by fellow human beings we are
able to understand it adequately, unlike the sun, the rocks, the animals, in
short nature, of which we can acquire knowledge but which we cannot
really intuitively understand. This is what he meant by the often misinterpreted formula verum factum: man can understand correctly only what he
himself has made. This understanding (Berlin calls it Verstehen which he
opposed to Cartesian Wissen),10 Vico argues in his Scienza Nuova (1744), is
a special epistemological giftthe phantasia puerilis, the youthful fantasy and
curiosity which has been lost completely in Descartes rationalistic intellectus purus.11 The latter led to a disdain for the study of history and letters,
to an anti-humanistic rejection of what later was going to be called humaniora, or moral sciences, or in Germany Geisteswissenschaften.
With this emphasis upon youthful and imaginative fantasy Vico introduces in his historical epistemology an aesthetic, early romantic dimension
which, of course, was totally alien to the adherents of the Enlightenment,
whose view of man was thoroughly secularized and naturalizedi.e. Gods
role as a deus ex machina in history was finished and man was an inalienable part of nature, sharing the uniformity which natural science imposed
on nature.12 In Germany Johann Gottfried Herder (17441803), without
Gianturco, ibid., p. XXVI f.
Berlin, l.c., p. 63.
10
Berlin, l.c., p. 62.
11
Gianturco, l.c., p. XXIX. Giambattista Vico, The New Science, transl. by T. G.
Bergin, M. H. Fisch, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1948).
12
Cf. Cliord Geertz, The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept
of Man, in: Cliord Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, (New York: Basic Books,
1973), pp. 3354: The Enlightenment view of man was, of course, that he was
wholly of a piece with nature and shared in the general uniformity of composition
which natural science, under Bacons urging and Newton guidance, had discovered there. Ibid., p. 34.
8
9

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probably possessing any detailed knowledge of Vicos work, elaborated on

this aesthetic approach.13 In his view it is the possession of language which
enables us to understand other human beings and their social and cultural
creations. By means of an emotional empathy (Hineinfhlen) into folksongs,
folklore and literary traditions which in the end are creations of language,
the historian can arrive at an understanding of historical individuals. Such
individuals can be individual human beings, but also, and preferably from
a scientific point of view, collectivities of individuals such as nations or
Vlker. Relying exclusively on observations the natural scientist can only
conjecture about external causal processes, whereas the historian can get
access to inner causes, such as motives, attitudes and cherished ends through
empathic introspection. It is only through such a psychological introspection that the historian can enter into the spirit of the timethe Zeitgeist
within which particular events occur. There is objective historical material,
but that has to be ordered by subjective interventions which enable the
historian to produce a coherent narrative.14 Herder was not only a protestant minister and a philosopher, but also an in his days well known and
respected poet, friend and colleague of Goethe and Schiller. His aesthetic
view of narrative history came close to an identification of historical studies and historical novels, including the concomitant, typically romantic yearning for the past as a time with a value of its own, in many respects allegedly
better than the civilization of the present.15

In this quarrel of the ancients and the moderns one issue stood out
in particular as of special interest, i.e. the logical dierence between
13
Cf. Isaiah Berlin, Vico and Herder, (London: Hogarth Press, 1976). In this section I relied heavily on F. M. Barnard, Humanity and History: Causation and
Continuity, in: F. M. Barnard, Herder on Nationality, Humanity and History, (Montreal:
McGill-Queens University Press, 2003), pp. 105131. Barnard, it seems to me,
underexposes Herders theological belief that the continuity in history is due to
Gods providence, whereas within this grand metaphysical framework particular histories of men and nations are divergent and characterized by contingency and discontinuity. Unlike and also against Voltaire and the Enlightenment philosophes, Herder
thus maintained the traditional idea of Gods hand in history. See the Nachwort
(Postscript) of Hans Dietrich Irmscher in his edition of Johan Gottfried Herder,
Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit, (Also a Philosophy of
History for the Education of Humanity), 1771, (Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam, 1990),
pp. 140159.
14
Barnard, l.c., p. 108.
15
Cf. Collingwood, o.c., p. 87. Needless to add that there is today a resurgence
in the interest in narrative history. The social psychologist and philosopher George
Herbert Mead (18631931) added an interesting dimension to this romantic looking back to the past: the romantic historian or the historical novelist identifies with
a distinct period of time in the past, identifying oneself with the heroes and heroines of the past and looking back from there at himself in the present in order to
receive a better understanding of himself. It is a journey of the self into the past.
Mead gives the novels of Sir Walter Scott and the interest of people in Gothic
architecture as examples. George Herbert Mead, Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth
Century, 1934, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1962), p. 62.

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225

the natural sciences as generalizing disciplines in search of objective

knowledge of causal laws, and the humaniora or moral sciences as particularizing disciplines, focusing upon individuals (either humans or
collectivities like nations) and in search of a subjective understanding of such particulars which are not based upon causality but on
contingency. Most of the philosophers adhering to the humanistic
approach were in favor of a balance between these two methods
and worldviews (because that is what they in the end really were:
worldviews with a specific ethos). But none of them came to a really
satisfying solution of this old dilemma. Benedetto Croce (18661952)
though came up with a radical answer: he severed the two, claiming that the individualizing focus upon the particular was the essential feature of art, whereas the generalizing approach on species of
phenomena was typical of science.16 History to him was not a science but an art form. It has the task to narrate facts, he stated in
an early paper, entitled History subsumed under the Concept of
Art (1919). Science cannot be descriptive, it tries to understand facts
as instances of general laws. History, on the contrary, is essentially
descriptive, aims at understanding historical facts but this understanding is not cognitive but rather empathic and emotional as in
art. There is, however, a dierence between history and art. The
historian aims at narrating what really has happened and in that
sense is true, whereas the artist narrates or represents what might
have happened, focuses on the possible and the imaginary rather
than on the real and the true. Needless to add that Croce was heavily influenced by Vicos approach, and came close methodologically
to Diltheys conception of Verstehen and Bergsons theory of intuition.17

16
Cf. Collingwoods extensive discussion of Croces philosophy of history in his
The Idea of History, o.c., pp. 190204. See also H. Wilson Carr, The Philosophy of
Benedetto Croce. The Problem of Art and History, 1917, (New York: Russell & Russell,
1969). This is probably the first English reproduction of Croces aesthetic philosophy, consisting of mostly very long, literal quotations.
17
Cf. Henri Bergson, Lintuition philosophique, 1911, in: Henri Bergson, La
pense et le mouvant. Essais et confrences, (Thought and the Moving. Essays and Speeches),
(Paris: Presses Universitaire de France, 1966, 63rd ed.), pp. 117143. In the essay
Introduction la mtaphysique Bergson defines intuition as la sympathie par
laquelle on se transporte lintrieur dun objet pour coincider avec ce quil a
dunique et par consquent dinexprimable. (The sympathy by which one transfers oneself to the interior of an object in order to coincide with what it has that
is unique and consequently inexpressible.) Ibid., p. 181.

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However, his radical separation of history as an art form from science as the generalizing search for causal laws put him at a distance
from the neo-Kantian approach to the quarrel of the ancients and
the moderns. Windelband rejected Croces aesthetic definition of history emphatically, while Rickert radicalized Windelbands approach
and came, as we shall see presently, close to a satisfactory solution
of the quarrel which resembled Vicos position but was the opposite of Croces. As we shall see, Rickert viewed Natural Science and
Cultural Science in terms of a heterological dynamics within a continuum, of which both are the extreme ends and between which the
various scientific disciplines move, sometimes close to the pole of
generalizing Natural Science, then again closer to the pole of individualizing Cultural Science.
THE CONTINUUM OF SCIENCES
For the so-called social sciences, such as psychology, sociology, history, economics, political science, etc., Rickerts ideas and theories
about the methodological dynamics of the natural and the cultural
sciences are of special relevance. If one sets out to model them onesidedly and exclusively after the traditional natural sciences, such as
physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, biology, etc. in order to render their research results exact, calculable and thus predictable
a methodological position which is usually called neo-positivism, but
Rickert labels naturalismone will find Rickert in opposition. If one
claims, on the other hand, that these social sciences dier from the
natural sciences essentially, since they after all deal with human
beings and their conscious actions and interactions, and thus not
with mindless atoms and aimless, in the sense of mindless, processes
which allegedly would need an approach dierent from that of the
natural sciencesa methodological position which is usually called
anti-positivismone will also find Rickert as an opponent.
Rickert prefers the concept of Kulturwissenschaft (cultural science)
above Geisteswissenschaft for methodological reasons. In his days, Geist
was primarily viewed as mind and psyche which would put psychology in the center or even at the very foundations of the alleged
humaniora, as was actually the case in Diltheys conception of
Geisteswissenschaft. Yet, Rickert, as we have repeatedly seen, views the
psychological discipline, certainly when operating as an experimen-

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227

tal psychology, as a (generalizing) science rather than an (individualizing) humanity. This will be explained in more detail later. In any
case, we shall see how Rickert views Natural Science and Cultural
Science as two heterologically related methods and as two abstract,
logically constructed extremes on a continuum. In what follows I
shall, therefore, employ the concepts of Natural Science and Cultural
Science as equivalents of Rickerts concepts Naturwissenschaft and
Kulturwissenschaft. They must be seen as constructed types in the sense
of Max Webers reine Typen (ideal types, ideal meaning logically constructed and in that sense unreal, or non-empirical). When I use the
capitals I refer to Cultural Science and Natural Science as such ideal
typical extremes on a continuum. Without capitals I refer to the
empirical and specialized natural and social sciences, like physics or
chemistry, and history or cultural (historical) sociology.
Epistemologically and methodologically the empirical sciences,
whether natural or social, operate somewhere between these extremes,
sometimes moving closely towards the pole of Natural Science, as
in the case of most natural sciences, like chemistry, physics, or astronomy, sometimes operating very close to the opposite pole, that of
Cultural Science, as in the case of history or cultural (historical) sociology or (institutional) economics. In reality, i.e. empirically, most
sciences operate epistemologically and methodologically between these
extremes. In an address delivered in 1899, the contents of which lay
at the foundation of his Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft (1926),
Rickert phrases this continuum and its two extreme poles as follows:
In this lecture I want to restrict myself to the exposition of both
extremes, in the middle of which in a sense almost all empirical sciences are
located. And in order to make the distinctions (of Natural Science,
Cultural Science and their respective methodologies, ACZ) clear, I
have to separate what is mutually closely connected in reality.18 He also
18
Ich will mich in meinem Vortrag auf die Darlegung der beiden Extreme
beschrnken, zwischen denen in gewisser Hinsicht fast alle empirische Wissenschaft in der Mitte
liegt, und ich muss zur Klarlegung der Unterscheide begriich trennen, was in
Wirklichkeit eng miteinander verknpft ist. Italics by HR. Quoted by Rickert in
Nachwort 1928, (Postscript 1928), at the end of his opus magnum Die Grenzen der
naturwissenschaftlichen Begrisbildung, (The Limits of Natural-Scientific Concept Formation),
1902, (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1929, 5th ed.), p. 764f. Due to the many additions and improvements one should only use the fifth edition of Die Grenzen. For a
contemporary extensive critique of Windelbands and Rickerts demarcations of the
natural and cultural sciences see: Erich Becher, Geisteswissenschaften und Naturwissenschaften.

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adds: Between the extremes lie a wealth of connecting transitions. One

can detect a series of stages which gradually lead from the most or
absolute general to the most or absolute individual.19
The result of this logical approach to the methodologies of the
various natural and cultural sciences is the intriguing fact that
the so-called first Methodenstreit, the quarrel between the ancients and
the moderns, usually phrased in terms of science versus humanity
(or humaniora, or moral science), is meaningless. Once again, there
are in Rickerts view two abstract, pure and constructed (i.e. ideal)
extremes on a continuum between which the empirical natural and
social sciences operate. As long as one does not ontologize Natural
Science and Cultural Science, but view and treat them strictly epistemologically and methodologically as correlated points of view and
as correlated approaches to reality, there will not be any logical and
methodological quarrel between them. They are mutually, heterologically complementary. This, of course, has to be explained in more
detail and is the main focus of the present chapter.
However, there has been a second Methodenstreit still which led to
heated debates in the 1960s and 1970s, in particular in the social
sciences.20 It was claimed that the social sciences could not operate
in a value-free manner as the natural sciences generally do, because
unlike atoms and molecules human beings live, think, feel, and act
in a historical context of values and meanings. These values were
then defined in political and ideological terms, which were often akin
to so-called historical materialism, and in many cases additionally
embellished with a touch of psychoanalysis. The unity of (scientific)

Untersuchungen zur Theorie und Einteilung der Realwissenchaften, (Spiritual Sciences and
Natural Sciences. Investigations about the Theory and Grouping of the Empirical
Sciences), (Mnchen: Duncker & Humblot, 1921). By maintaining the concept of
Geisteswissenschaft instead of Kulturwissenschaft Becher demonstrates that he fails
to understand a crucial component of Rickerts anti-psychologistic logic and methodology. Begrisbildung, concept formation, is a technical-logical concept which plays
a crucial role in Rickerts doctoral dissertation Zur Lehre von der Definition, (On the
Theory of the Definition), 1888, (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1929, 3rd improved
ed.), p. 21, 46.
19
Zwischen den Extremen liegt eine Flle von verbindenden bergngen. Es lsst
sich eine Reihe von Stufen konstatieren, die vom Allgemeinsten oder absolut Allgemeinen
bis zum Besondersten oder absolut Individuellen allmhlich hinberfhren. Italics
by HR. Ibid., p. 765.
20
Cf. Th. W. Adorno et al., Der Positivismusstreit in der deutschen Soziologie, (The
Positivism Conflict in German Sociology), 1969, (Neuwied-Berlin: Luchterhand,
1972).

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229

theory and (political) practice was proclaimed, as in the Critical

Theory of the so-called Frankfurt School (Frankfurter Schule).21 In this
second methodological quarrel Max Webers alleged position of a
value-free sociology functioned as the main target. However, Weber
was in this issue strongly influenced by Rickert who distinguishes
logically between theoretical value-relatedness (Wertverbundenheit), practical evaluation ( praktische Wertung), and theoretical abstaining from
evaluations (theoretische Wertungsfreiheit). It needs a thorough understanding of the nature of values and considerable subtlety in logical
thinking in order to distinguish between these three concepts. Without
it, one gets lost in a quagmire of ideological, political and usually
thoroughly metaphysical sentiments, as the debates of the 1960s and
1970s in the social sciences have demonstrated. They may have
warmed the hearts and souls of many students in the social sciences,
but they rarely enlightened their minds, let alone rendered their
actions rational. In this respect, it is worthwhile to pay closer attention to Rickerts ideas and theories regarding the intricate relationships between values, meanings, judgments, theoretical thinking and
practical acting. They render the second Methodenstreit superfluous.
It is essential to realize from the start that Rickerts concepts of
nature and culture, and in particular those of Natural Science and
Cultural Science, are meant logically and formally, not ontologically
and metaphysically. As a neo-Kantian he persists in distinguishing
heterologically between form and content, between concept and reality, between theory and practice. Reality is to him, just as the phenomenologists always claim, first and foremost the experienced reality
of everyday lifethe Lebenswelt, as Husserl, or the world-taken-for-granted
as a paramount reality as Schutz phrased it.22 Yet, if one sets out to
acquire rational knowledge of this life-world, as one does in philosophy and the various specialized (natural and cultural) sciences, one
distances oneself from this experienced reality by means of concepts
which are in a sense artificial constructs. Concepts are forms which
mold the matter of reality, putting it into a rational order which is

Cf. In particular Jrgen Habermas, Erkenntnis und Interesse, (Knowledge and

Interest), 1968, (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1973) and his Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften. Materialien, (On the Logic of the Social Sciences. Materials.), (Frankfurt
a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1970).
22
Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers, vol. I, The Problem of Social Reality, edited by
M. Natanson, (The Hague: Nijho, 1962).
21

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CHAPTER FIVE

not a representation or reproduction (Abbild ) of this overwhelmingly

complex and always changing reality but, on the contrary, a conscious distortion of it. Not representation (Abbildung) of reality and
its irrational complexity but, on the contrary, transformation
(Umformung) of reality and reduction of its complexity by means of
concepts, theories and models is the proper aim of the sciences.
Philosophical and scientific attempts to grasp irrational reality rationally should not and actually cannot be vitalistic (lebendig), as is professed by philosophers within the so-called Lebensphilosophie, because
one would in the end get lost in scores of irrationalities which could
perhaps gratify the emotions, but would certainly not contribute to
any sound empirical knowledge. This was discussed in the foregoing chapters, in particular in Chapter Two, but must once more be
dealt with presently.
One should bear in mindand it cannot be repeated often
enoughthat the concepts of Natural Science and Cultural Science
are epistemological and methodological forms which do not refer to
the actual, empirical sciences as they operate inside and outside universities and laboratories. In other words, Rickerts concepts of Natural
Science (Naturwissenschaft) and Cultural Science (Kulturwissenschaft) as
two dierent approaches to reality are not real in the sense of
empirical and ontological, but ideal and logically constructed! In
his discussions of the Natural-Scientific logic Rickert refers, of course,
to the actual natural sciences as they operated in his days, i.e. to
physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, etc. But they are only used
as illustrations of what he means by the typically Natural-Scientific
approach which he defines, as we will see, as a generalizing approach
aiming at general concepts and laws which on purpose neglect individual dierences and distinctions. This approach can also be applied
to objects which Dilthey would range exclusively under Geisteswissenschaft.
Obviously, since the days of Rickert the empirical natural sciences
have developed and changed significantly, and so have philosophy
and logic. Although he kept abreast with these paradigmatic changes
and developments up till his death in 1936, he has persistently argued
that logically and methodologically, that is, from an abstract and formal point of view, the Natural-Scientific ways of concept formation
are and remain the same. General and particular relativity theory,
or quantum mechanics, which incidentally he was acquainted with,
did of course alter our view of the natural sciences and of the universe, dramatically. Yet, Rickerts main point, namely that the natural

THE DEMARCATION OF NATURAL AND CULTURAL SCIENCE

231

sciences predominantly, yet not exclusively tend to generalize, while

the cultural, or historical sciences predominantly, yet not exclusively
tend to individualize still stands up. Einsteins approach to reality
diers from that of Huizinga in that the one searched for general
concepts in the logical form of species and laws, whereas the other
tried to grasp persons, institutions and events as individual and unrepeatable phenomena, i.e. as logical individua. There is an ontological
dimension to it: natural-scientific objects are ahistorical and not related
to values, whereas cultural-scientific objects, on the contrary, are
always embedded in historical contexts of human values and evaluations. Sciences, whether Natural or Cultural, are always in search
of regularities, but here again there is a distinct dierence. The laws
of nature are ahistorical and generalized regularities which are true
as long as further research has not falsified them. But it is hazardous
to speak of cultural-scientific laws of development, since these developments are couched in historical contingencies. The alleged general laws of history, for example, as presented by the author of The
Decline of the West, a very popular book in Rickerts days, are according to him not logical-rational but metaphysical-irrational constructions which may satisfy the conservative, if not reactionary sentiments
of the day, but do not contribute anything to a sound, scientific
understanding of history or society.23
Yet, Rickerts arguments are more subtle and complex than that.
He claims, for instance, that individualization does occur in natural
sciences, particularly in evolutionary, phylogenetic biology,24 while
the social sciences, in particular psychology and sociology, could
never function satisfactorily without generalizations. This will be discussed presently. At this point, however, it is essential to bear in
mind from the start that Natural Science and Cultural Science are

Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes. Umrisse einer Morphologie der
Weltgeschichte, (The Decline of the West. Outline of a Morphology of World History),
1922, (Mnchen: Oskar Beck, 1923; 33rd47th ed.).
24
Cf. Rickert, Die Grenzen, pp. 462. Rickert, referring to Ernst Haeckel, calls
phylogenetic biology an historical biology. Elsewhere, however, he acknowledges that
the interest of biologists turns away from the phylogenetic approach in favor of a
more natural-scientific ontogenetic evolutionary theory. Cf. Rickert, ber die
Aufgaben einer Logik der Geschichte, (On the Tasks of a Logic of History), in:
Archiv fr Philosophie, II. Abteilung: Archiv fr systematische Philosophie, Neue Folge, VIII.
Band, 2. Heft, (Archive for Philosophy, Section II: Archive for Systematic Philosophy.
New Series, Vol. VIII, Book 2), 1902, p. 149f.
23

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artificial, formal, logical constructs, not ontological reproductions of

actually existing natural and cultural or social sciences!
His methodological and logical application of the individualizing, historical
approach to evolutionary biology, and his steadfast refusal to apply the generalizing, Natural-Scientific approach to the historical discipline remain, in
my view, not very convincing. In his essay On the Tasks of a Logic of
History, quoted a moment ago, he starts by opposing the generalizing and
individualizing methods radically by comparing the description of the development of a chicken in a fertilized egg by the biologist Karl Ernst von
Baer (17921876) with the description of the popes in Rome of the 16th
and 17th centuries by the historian Leopold von Ranke (17951886). The
embryologist ranges a species of objects under a system of concepts (i.e.
natural laws) which intends to be valid for each arbitrary specimen. The
historian, on the other hand, presents a certain range of realities in such
a manner that the particularity and individuality of each reality is being
highlighted. These are not just two dierent methods, but also dierent
aims of knowledge are at work here. Baer wants to gather up what dierent
objects have in common, in order to arrive at general species-concepts
(Gattungsbegrie), whereas Ranke intends to range each single object under a
particular concept, forming concepts with an individual content.25
So far so good, but Rickert then argues that phylogenetic, evolutionary
biology is an example of an individualizing approach within an otherwise
generalizing (natural-scientific) discipline. As long as the theory of descendence demonstrates how each species has emerged and as long as it presents the transition of one species into the next, evolutionary biology is still
a solidly generalizing natural science. However, Rickert claims, the moment
the biologist tries to relate which living creature emerged first, which followed next and how eventually in a particular development gradually man
came into being (about which, Rickert adds, the theory of descendence
remains tacit), his presentation is, looked at from a logical point of view,
historicaland value-related to boot, because Man is the final aim of an
evolution which is normatively viewed as not just development but progress.26
This chain of thought is, in my view, scientifically and normatively quite
hazardous. Its anthropocentrism is metaphysical and it is hard to understand why these various stages in the process of evolution would present
history as a process which can only be grasped cognitively in an individualizing manner.
We must also question Rickerts conviction that the historical discipline
could logically never apply the generalizing, Natural-Scientific method. It
is not only logically possible, as in a kind of thought experiment, but has
also been realized in actual fact, namely in so-called cliometrics. We shall
discuss that presently.

25
26

Rickert, ibid., p. 141f.

Ibid., p. 149.

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233

One will not encounter in Rickerts logic and methodology any antinatural scientific animus, as was exhibited often by the contemporary proponents of so-called Geisteswissenschaft. He rather searches for
the logical limitations of the Natural-Scientific formation of concepts
which to him become apparent, if one focuses ones scientific investigations on meanings, values and norms.27 In view of meanings, values and norms the generalizing approach of Natural Science fails
significantly. In fact, if one adhered mono-methodologically to the
natural-scientific approach, which Rickert, as we saw before, calls
naturalism, one would have to disregard meanings, values and norms
which, of course, is nonsensical. Language is more than and quite
dierent from movements of the larynx: Each word that we observe
by the senses, possesses if we understand it, simultaneously a nonsensorial meaning. (. . . .) A scientific sentence which we hear or read
and then understand as being true or perhaps also false, possesses a
meaning which must be fundamentally dierent from the words to
which it is attached, because the words as real configurations can
be neither true nor false. They become true or false always exclusively as bearers of a meaningful configuration.28 Or, to phrase it
dierently, the performance of a violin or cello concerto is more
than the scratching of cat entrails (the strings) by the hairs of a
horsetail (the bow). All these sound waves carry meanings, even values and norms which cannot be covered adequately by naturalscientific concepts.
In 1872 the German physiologist Emil du Bois-Reymond read a paper to
an audience of natural scientists. The lecture was entitled On the Limits of
the Knowledge of Nature.29 In it he criticized the philosophical materialism,

27
This is the gist of the title of Rickerts voluminous study on the methodology
of the cultural sciences: Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begrisbildung, (The Limits
of the Natural-Scientific Concept Formation), o.c.
28
Jedes Wort, das wir sinnlich wahrnehmen, besitzt, falls wir es verstehen zugleich eine unsinnliche Bedeutung. (. . .) Ein wissenschaftlicher Satz, den wir hren
oder lesen und dabei als wahr oder eventuell auch als falsch verstehen, hat einen
Sinn, der sich grundstzlich von den Worten, an denen er haftet, unterscheiden
muss, da die Worte als reale Gebilde weder wahr noch falsch sein knnen. Sie werden das eine oder das andere immer erst als Trger eines Sinngebildes. Heinrich
Rickert, Die Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie, (Heidelberg: Carl Winters Universittstbuchhandlung, 1924, 3rd, renewed edition), p. 20from now on quoted as
Problems.
29
Emil du Bois-Reymond, ber die Grenzen des Naturerkennens, (Leipzig: Verlag von
Veit, 1872).

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quite popular in his day among natural scientists, by discussing two riddles
which, according to him, could not be solved philosophically in a satisfactory manner. The first riddle concerns the universal changes in nature due
to a relation between material atoms and force or energy like gravitational
attraction. It would, he argued, need a super scientist with a universal
spirit to combine all the laws of force into one single universal formula.
This is inconceivable and thus it remains unexplained how and why changes
do occur in the material world. The second riddle concerns the relationship between the human body and brain on the one hand and the phenomenon of human consciousness on the other. He refers to a saucy
expression (der kecke Ausspruch) of a physiologist which caused a kind of
contest about the soul (eine Art von Turnier um die Seele). The physiologist in
question claimed that all those capabilities which we understand as activities of the so-called soul, are but functions of the brain, or, to phrase it
somewhat grossly, that the thoughts entertain approximately the same relationship to the brain as bile to the liver or urine to the kidneys.30 These
two riddles, Du Bois-Reymond concludes, are mutually closely connected
and will never be solved. The last word of his address is Ignorabimus! 31
Rickerts reaction to this resignation would be that Du Bois-Reymond
remained caught in naturalism and thus failed to locate consciousness in a
transcendent space, where it is confronted with unreal but valid (or invalid)
values. One of the consequences of this naturalism or neo-positivism is the
relapse to psychology, as was testified, for instance, by Carl G. Hempel
(19051997) who in an essay on the limits of science referred favorably to
Du Bois-Reymond.32 W. V. Quine (19082000) is even more radical than
Hempel. In contrast to the Vienna School of logical positivism (Carnap,
Neurath, etc.) which intended to do away with metaphysics first and epistemology next, Quine believes there is still room for epistemology, but in
a new setting and a clarified status. Epistemology, or something like it (sic!,
ACZ), simply falls into place as a chapter of psychology and hence of natural science. It studies a natural phenomenon, viz., a physical human subject. This human subject is accorded a certain experimentally controlled
inputcertain patterns of irradiation in assorted frequencies, for instance
and in the fullness of time the subject delivers as output a description of
the three-dimensional external world and its history.33

30
dass alle jene Fhigkeiten, die wir unter dem Namen Seelenthtigkeiten begreifen,
nur Functionen des Gehirns sind, oder, um es einigermassen grob auszudrcken,
dass die Gedanken etwas in demselben Verhltnisse zum Gehirn stehen, wie die
Galle zu der Leber oder der Urin zu den Nieren. Du Bois-Reymond, o.c., p. 31.
31
Ibid., p. 33.
32
Carl G. Hempel, Science Unlimited?, in: James H. Feitzer (ed.), The Philosophy
of Carl G. Hempel. Studies in Science, Explanation, and Rationality, (Oxford: The Oxford
University Press, 2001), pp. 276297.
33
Willard Van Orman Quine, Epistemology Naturalized, in: W. V. Quine,
Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, New York: Columbia University Press, 1969),
6990, quotation: p. 82f.

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It is interesting to notice that Quine, without calling it such, also introduces sociology as an inherent component of epistemology. Speaking about
observation sentences, or what the Vienna School called Protokollstze, i.e.
simple statements about the external world, such as A red cube is standing on the table, Quine claims that their truth, contained in the meanings
of the constituting words, depends on a community-wide, social acceptance:
a sentence that is true by mere meanings of words should be expected, at
least if it is simple, to be subscribed to by all fluent speakers in the community.34 He even calls it a straightforward attribute of community-wide
acceptance, and distinguishes sociologically dierent communities: What
count as observation sentences for a community of specialists would not
always so count for a larger community.35 This is, of course, not epistemology but empirical sociology of knowledge. However, psychologism and
sociologism and their inherent scientism are based upon a rather ideological petitio principii. It is, in fact, the end of epistemology (if not of philosophy altogether). Quine calls this psychologistic and sociologistic epistemology
new, contrasting it to an allegedly old epistemology as it was traditionally exercised in philosophy. However, in view of Brentano, Dilthey, or
Meinong, epistemological psychologism is in fact quite old and traditionally stale, whereas a sociologistic theory of knowledge occurred in the sociology of knowledge, particularly in the sociologically focused epistemology
of Karl Mannheim.36
This protracted debate on the demarcations of history and natural science and on the role of psychology, or sociology in the theory of knowledge demonstrates the importance and originality of Rickerts approach as
laid down in his Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlischen Begrisbildung and in
Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft. It needs more than one close reading
to fully understand the weight of his ideas concerned.

ANALYTICAL MATRIX
Empirical reality, i.e. reality as it is experienced in daily life, Rickert
argues, is in and of itself extremely complex and in that sense irrational.37 He coined the ontological concept of a heterogeneous continuum
Quine, l.c., p. 86.
Ibid., p. 86 and 87.
36
Cf. e.g. Karl Mannheim, Das Problem einer Soziologie des Wissens, (The
Problem of a Sociology of Knowledge), in: Karl Mannheim, Wissenssoziologie. Auswahl
aus dem Werk, (Sociology of Knowledge. Selection from the Oeuvre), (Berlin, Neuwied:
Hermann Luchterhand, 1964), pp. 308388. For a sociological critique of Mannheims
epistemological definition of knowledge see Peter L. Berger, Thomas Luckmann,
The Social Construction of Reality.A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, (Garden City,
NY: Doubleday, 1966), pp. 811, 183f.
37
Rickert, like Weber, uses the concept irrational when referring to the transcendent reality of everyday experienceor, for that matter, to Kants Ding-an-sich.
34
35

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for this irrational reality:38 there is this continuous flow of changes

and developments, but there is, at the same time, also this overwhelming heterogeneity (pluriformity) of facts and events. If one
focuses on a particular fact or event, one discovers soon that there
are no sharp and absolute limits but only gradual transitions between
it and another fact or event. This is the continuity of empirical realityreality as a continuum. However, there is not one thing or event
in the world that resembles another thing or event completely. Each
thing or event has in this sense its own identity and particularity.
That is, empirical reality is in this sense particularistic and individualistic. Things and events are only more or less alike. And within
each thing or event there are again parts which dier from each
other, as close as they may appear to be in space or time. In fact,
one will never bump into two things or events which are absolutely
homogeneous. Not only does everything flow and change continuously, everything is also intrinsically dierent. This Rickert calls the
heterogeneity of all of reality.39 The combination of heterogeneity and
continuity renders empirical reality highly complex.
In everyday life human beings reduce this complexity through language by giving names to processes, facts and eventsproper names
and generic names. These common-sense concepts are not forged in
any logical and systematic manner, but they develop, as it were
organically, within various cultural contexts which harbor their own
languages and dialects. Rickert calls it a pre-scientific concept formation (vorwissenschaftliche Begrisbildung), which each scientist runs into,
when he starts his scientific investigation. Unlike the common-sense
concept formation of everyday life, however, scientific conceptualization is strictly rational, i.e. systematic and ruled by logic.40
Philosophical and scientific approaches of reality employ words
and names as well, but they are logical and methodological concepts
It seems to me that non-rational would have been more appropriate, since it refers
to absence of rationality, whereas irrationality refers to anti-rationality. But I
shall for claritys sake not constantly substitute non-rational for irrational.
38
The concept heterogeneous continuum is equivalent to the phenomenological concept Lebenswelt. Naturally, Rickert would reject the latter as it contains strong
vitalistic and ontological connotations. His concept is also ontological but clearly
forged from an epistemological and logical point of view.
39
Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaftt, 1898, (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1986), p. 51.
40
Heinrich Rickert, Probleme, p. 31. Cf. also his distinction of words and concepts (Worte and Begrie), and the role he adjudicates to language and concepts in
definitions in Zur Lehre von der Definition, o.c., pp. 1622.

THE DEMARCATION OF NATURAL AND CULTURAL SCIENCE

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which try to be as adequate as possible, if it comes to an understanding of reality. However, as we have seen time and again before,
Rickert rejects the popular notion that such scientific concepts are
only exact and true, if they represent or depict, as faithfully as possible, the facts and events in reality. It is the so-called Abbildlogik, the
logic of reproduction, which, as we saw in the second chapter, lies
at the foundation of the Lebensphilosophie and its belief in the adequacy of emotional and psychological empathy. Rickert is decisively
critical of this approach and repeats his emphatic rejection of it
repeatedly. To him, it is a simple and evident fact that our mind is
far too limited to encompass, store up and grasp the intensive and
extensive complexity of the heterogeneous continuum in its totality.
The mind must reduce complexity through the formation of concepts and theories.
But even if we were able to do sofor instance by means of a
computer, we could add todaywe would not get what we in science and philosophy try to acquire, namely rational knowledge of
an irrational reality. The irrationality of realityits endemic heterogeneity and continuitywould be duplicated in our mind or in
the computer, and thus not yield any true knowledge, since this
duplication would in its turn beg for a rational explanation. There
is an unbridgeable gap between our scientific, rational, abstract and
steadfast concepts on the one hand, and the continuous stream of
intrinsically heterogeneous reality on the other. Rickert compares
metaphorically our scientific concepts with the piers of a bridge which
overarches a river. We may try to build these piers as close to each
other as possible, yet the ongoing stream with its continuous and
therefore inexhaustibly dierent qualities will still flow between them
without being grasped or understood. Therefore, with our concepts
we can only construct bridges over the stream of reality, as close to
each other as the various arches of these bridges may be. That will
not be changed by any science of empirical reality.41 In this respect,
one could speak of the powerlessness, if not impotence of scientific
concepts.

41
Wir knnen also mit den Begrien nur Brcken ber den Strom der Realitt
schlagen, mgen die einzelnen Brckenbogen auch noch so klein sein. Daran wird
keine Wissenschaft vom realen Sein etwas ndern. Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft,
p. 53.

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This stands, of course, in strong contrast to the neo-positivistic belief in prediction and control as in the case of traditional behaviorism. The founder of
this natural-scientific brand of psychology, John B. Watson (18781958),
boasted: Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified
world to bring them up in and Ill guarantee to take any one at random
and train him to become any type of specialist I might selectdoctor,
lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his
ancestors.42 It is the idea of an applied social science for the betterment
of man and society: To answer any of the whys adequately about human
activity we need to study man as the chemist needs to study some new
organic compound. Psychologically, man is still a reacting piece of unanalyzed protoplasm.43 Incidentally, Watson added the need for genetic experiments: (. . .) only systematic long-sustained, genetic studies upon the human
species begun in infancy and continued until past adolescence will ever give
us the experimental control over human conduct so badly needed both for
general social control and growth and for individual happiness.44
Burrhus F. Skinner (19041990) designed a special ontology in order to
be able to realize his behavioristic program of prediction and control. It is
the precise opposite of Rickerts heterogeneous continuum, while its normative and metaphysical content is obvious: Science is more than a mere
description of events as they occur. It is an attempt to discover order, to
show that certain events stand in lawful relations to other events. No practical technology can be based upon science until such relations have been
discovered. But order is not only a possible end product; it is a working
assumption which must be adopted at the very start. We cannot apply the
methods of science to a subject matter which is assumed to move about
capriciously. (. . .) If we are to use the methods of science in the field of
human aairs, we must assume that behavior is lawful and determined.45
As is well known, Skinner, following the experiments on conditioned reflexes
by Iwan Pawlow (18491936),46 rejected notions about inner states like
consciousness and mind, since they could allegedly not be analyzed scientifically
and thus not be made socially functional: The objection to inner states is
not that they do not exist, but that they are not relevant in a functional
analysis.47 He focused on bodily functions, in particular those he named

42
John B. Watson, Psychology. From the Standpoint of a Behaviorist, 1919, (London,
1924), p. 9.
43
Ibid., p. 6.
44
Watson, o.c., p. 8.
45
Burrhus F. Skinner, Science and Human Behavior, (New York: Macmillan, 1953),
p. 6.
46
Cf. Iwan P. Pawlow, Vorlesungen ber die Arbeit der Grosshirnhemisphren,
(Lectures on the Function of the Cerebral Cortex), in: Augewhlte Werke, (Selected
Works), (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1955), pp. 129154. His famous experiment
with the ticking metronome and the salivating dog: l.c., p. 149f.
47
Skinner, o.c., p. 35.

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reinforcements, i.e. feed-back processes within the chain of stimulus and

response. Like Watson, Skinner believed that his brand of behaviorism, particularly its technique of behavioral engineering through operant conditioning, could contribute to the improvement of man and society, because
it would enable individuals to adjust to societal demands and thereby reduce
various social conflicts.48 In this respect, Skinners behaviorism carried rather
heavy ideological and even metaphysical presuppositions.49
Needless to add that Rickerts neo-Kantianism stands in radical opposition to the ontology and metaphysics of this kind of behaviorism which, of
course, has been criticized from the beginning also by psychologists and
sociologists.50

Yet, Rickerts standpoint does not entail intellectual passivity, nor

false modesty. On the contrary, philosophy and science will not duplicate or depict reality, but in a sense they rather distort it by imposing on reality concepts and theories which have been constructed
logically in terms of specific interests and perspectives. The natural scientist, for example, looks at the complexity of reality and subjects it
to research in terms of the concept of nature, whereas an historian
approaches reality in terms of the concept of culture. The various
sciences are next divided in specific specialisms and sub-specialisms
48
Cf. his controversial Beyond Freedom and Dignity, (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1972).
Skinners sociological colleague George A. Lundberg (18951966) formulated the
behavioristic program of social science as follows: Broadly speaking, it is the business of social scientists to be able to predict with high probability the social weather,
just as meteorologists predict sunshine and storm. George A. Lundberg, Foundations
of Sociology, (New York: David McKay, 1964), p. 32. In a behaviorist pamphlet Can
Science Save Us?, (New York, 1947) Lundberg refers to a friend and colleague who
proposed to erect a Barometer of International Security, manned by sociologists.
As a kind of social-weather-station this barometer should detect in an early stage
international tensions that could cause the eruption of wars. Ibid., p. 40.
49
As Rickert would probably comment, such presuppositions are scientifically
inadequate, if not simply false, but he would appreciate Skinners literary excursion
in his novel Walden Two, 1948, (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.; London:
Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1976). The novel is a piece of social-science-fiction
and describes a community of thousand people whose behavior is engineered by
Skinnerite operant conditioning. It presents a utopian society which avoids the
grave ills of urban life, in particular crime and pollution. Skinner enunciates his
environmentalistic social philosophy in a preface to the reprint of the novel: Walden
Two Revisited, January 1976, l.c. pp. VVXI.
50
Cf. the satirical critique on Pawlow by Bernard Shaw, The Adventures of the Black
Girl in her Search for God, 1932, in: Bernard Shaw, The Black Girl in Search of God and
Some Lesser Tales, (London: Penguin Books, 1986), pp. 2785. For an early psychological critique see L. Berman, The Religion Called Behaviorism, (New York, 1927). For
a sociological analysis of American pragmatism and behaviorism see Ralph Dahrendorf,
Die angewandte Aufklrung. Gesellschaft und Soziologie in Amerika, (The Applied Enlightenment.
Sociology and Society in America), (Mnchen: Piper Verlag, 1963).

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which again is a further reduction of the complexity of reality. It is

then, of course, essential that these reductions are systematized logically and methodologically. And that is precisely what Rickert sets
out to do in his Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begrisbildung and in
his Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft.51
He works with a matrix which, it should be emphasized from the
start, is not meant as a classification of the various scientific disciplines.52 He is rather interested in an exposition of the logic of the
sciences and in the methodological consequences of this logic. There
is then a basic logical distinction, he claims in a typically neo-Kantian
manner, between a material (ontological) distinction of the concepts
of nature and culture; and a formal (methodological) distinction
between the generalizing approach of Natural Science and the individualizing approach of Cultural Science. This leads to four basic
scientific disciplines: (1) the generalizing approach to nature; (2) the
individualizing approach to nature; (3) the generalizing approach
to culture; (4) the invidualizing approach to culture. Although he
did not phrase it this way, we could see in this matrix a continuum
of the various sciences between the two extremes of (1) and (4): the
generalizing approach to nature as exemplified by the conventional
natural sciences such as physics, chemistry, astronomy, etc. on the
one extreme of the continuum, and the individualizing approach to
culture as exemplified by history on the other end of the continuum. And then there are the disciplines in the middle, such as
sociology and psychology which predominantly, Rickert argues,
approach culture in a generalizing manner, and evolutionary biology which, according to Rickert, approaches nature in an individualizing manner.53
It becomes apparent once more that Rickert rejects the simple
classification of the sciences in terms of Naturwissenschaft and Geistes51
Rickert, I believe, would have sympathized with both Rudolf Carnap, The
Logical Structure of the World, translated from the German edition of 1928, (California,
1967) and Alfred Schutz, Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt. Eine Einleitung in die
verstehenden Soziologie, (The Meaningful Construction of the Social World. Introduction
to an Understanding Sociology), 1932, (Vienna: Julius Springer, 1960). Yet, he
would reject the scientism of the first and the phenomenological ontologism of the
second.
52
For Rickerts ideas about the classification of sciences see his Grenzen, chapter
4.X, pp. 611622.
53
Cf. Die Mittelgebiete (The Middlegrounds), in: Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft, o.c., pp. 129142.

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wissenschaft and the inherent inimical opposition between the two. If

one defines Geist in metaphysical terms as something like transcendent spirit, as was done in German Idealism, it is, Rickert argues,
worthless in terms of empirical science. If one defines the concept
in terms of mind, soul, or psyche, one locates it within the specialized discipline of psychology and it is not at all clear why something like the soul could not be dealt with in a generalizing
(Natural-Scientific) manner in conjunction with the body. In fact,
Rickert is convinced that psychology is methodologically a representative of generalizing Natural Science rather than of individualizing Cultural Science, although in terms of the analytical matrix it
could as well operate methodologically in an individualizing manner. This also holds true of sociology. We return to this point later.
We will now first investigate Rickerts ideas with regard to the
material (ontological) distinction of nature and culture, and next
focus on his formal (methodological) distinction of Natural Science
operating with a generalizing approach to reality and Cultural Science
applying an individualizing methodology.
NATURE AND CULTURE DISTINGUISHED ONTOLOGICALLY
Rickert thinks and writes in terms of so-called heterology, i.e. he defined
opposed concepts in terms of correlations between them.54 This often
comes close to circular definitions as is quite obvious in the case of
Rickerts definition of the concepts of nature and culture. As we shall
see, it is a rather problematic distinction.
Nature is defined in terms borrowed from Kant, as the reality
which is left to its own design and development without interference
of human beings. But nature is then defined more specifically in a
heterological distinction to culture: The words nature and culture are
not unambiguous, and in particular the concept of nature is always
determined more precisely only through the concept to which one
opposes it. (. . .) Natural products grow freely from the earth. Cultural
products are produced by the field, when man has tilled the soil and
54
Mannheim called Rickerts idea of conceptual heterothesis, as for instance in
form-content, a conceptual correlation. Cf. Karl Mannheim, Die Strukturanalyse der
Erkenntnistheorie, (The Structural Analysis of the Theory of Knowledge), in: Karl
Mannheim, o.c., pp. 166246. On heterothesis and conceptual correlation: p. 170
and 177.

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sown the seeds.55 Rickert refers here to the original Latin connotation of culture as cultura agri, i.e. agriculture. Wild strawberries, to
give an obvious example (not Rickerts though), are natural products, growing without any interference of men, and as such not
invested with value or meaning. Potatoes, on the other hand, are
sown, cultivated and harvested, and are as such products of agriculture. In other words, culture is what man produces according to interests and valued goals, or, if it exists already, what is carefully attended
to because of its inherent value and interest. Nature then is reality
as far as it is value-free, i.e. not related to values and interests.
This material (ontological) definition of nature is rather problematic. Rickert
is obviously aware of this, since he acknowledges, as we just saw, that nature
can only be determined more precisely through the concept to which one
opposes iti.e. culture. Nature is then non-culture which, of course, is
redundant. But even then it remains a problematic material (ontological)
concept, because in the end it appears to be formal (epistemological).
Ontologically, there is very little nature because the moment humans
approach nature it changes into a valued reality and thus into culture. In
agriculture nature is in the end always culturized, as it is in ecology. Wild
strawberries are natural products, but the moment children pick them and
gather them in their buckets, take them home, wash and consume them
they are valued and thus cultural goods. The atoms, molecules and genes
of the natural scientist are as such not related to values, but the moment
the physicist, chemist or geneticist starts to investigate them scientifically,
they become objects of scientific interest and are then related to values
the values of the cultural good Science. Strictly speaking, nature exists ontologically only, when it cannot be observed, as in the case of particles or
objects and phenomena in outer space. But even that shrinks increasingly
due to the discoveries of nanotechnology and the detecting techniques of
astrophysics. The conclusion is that material ontology is in the end always
formal epistemologyas, incidentally, the second half of the concept ontology, referring to the Greek logos, indicates.
Rickert sticks usually to the Kantian primacy of epistemology over ontology. Yet, his definition of nature is ontological. Rickerts rejoinder would
probably be that the ontological concept of a value-free nature is possible
and meaningful, when one strips reality conceptually (as in a thought experiment) of meanings and values, when one thinks away meanings and values. The concepts wild and strawberries carry meanings and values in
55
Die Worte Natur und Kultur sind nicht eindeutig, und insbesondere wird der
Begri der Natur immer erst durch den Begri nher bestimmt, zu dem man ihn
in einen Gegensatz bringt. (. . .) Naturprodukte sind es, die frei aus der Erde wachsen. Kulturprodukte bringt das Feld hervor, wenn der Mensch geackert und gest
hat. Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft, o.c., p. 35.

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our minds, but we are able to strip them away as in a thought experiment:
after all, strawberries without any interest, meaning and value are conceivable, so are the value-free atoms, molecules, particles in the laboratories of natural scientists. But this rejoinder would not be convincing, because
the thought experiment of thinking away is, of course, an epistemological
technique applied to empirical reality. Formal epistemology still precedes
and overshadows (material) ontology.
We may, therefore, hold on to the idea that the material distinction of
nature and culture is epistemologically a weak one. In fact, in view of the
formal distinction of Natural Science and Cultural Science as two dierent,
yet correlated, mutually amplifying approaches or methods, the ontological
distinction is superfluous. But before we discuss this, we must first look at
Rickerts material definition of culture in more detail.

Culture then is ontologically speaking reality invested with values

which are acknowledged not just by a single human being, but by
the majority of people within a community. As we saw before, culture becomes empirically concrete and scientifically researchable in
cultural goods (Gter). A simple example (which is not Rickerts) can
clarify this. If I value my dog as my pet and companion, contributing
to the quality of my personal existence, this particular dog cannot
be considered to be a cultural good. But if a majority of people in
society value dogs as pets and companions which contribute to human
happiness and feelings of well-being and safety, it is possible to call
the dog a component of the culture of this community of dog loving people, i.e. a cultural good. Values do not float in abstract air
but adhere to the cultural goods of a society. Such cultural goods
are, for instance, physical objects like houses, boats, books, musical
instruments, tools, etc., or institutions (institutional sectors) like the
church, the law, the state, language, literature, art, etc., or living
things like domestic pets, cattle, artists, scientists, etc. The various
cultural sciences deal with and investigate these dierent cultural
goods. The focus is in particular on their institutional settings, such
as laboratories, churches, schools and universities, hospitals, hostels,
court-houses, etc. Such institutions or the broader institutional sectors to which they belong, can and are subjected to scientific research
in specialized manners, such as comparative religion, legal studies,
political science, veterinary science, linguistics, literary history, art
history, etc. Values are, as we saw in the former chapter, unreal and
non-empirical. They belong to the Second Realm. But the objects
to which they are attributed and to which they adhere, rendering
them into cultural goods, are real in the sense of empirical. They

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constitute the First Realm. Moreover, as we have also seen, values

do not exist in terms of being, but are or are not valid to a multitude of people, i.e. a community that feels obligated to these valid
values. This sense of obligation towards certain values and valued
objects (goods) is not a matter of drive or instinct, nor instigated by
individual moods, but the result of a normative commitment to values and goods which are defined as being valid and thus worthy of
compliance and care.
OBSERVABLE AND UNDERSTANDABLE REALITY
Thus, the primary, material (ontological) distinction Rickert imposes
on irrational reality is the heterological opposition of value-free and
meaningless nature on the one hand, and value-related and meaningful culture on the other. But there is also still another dimension
and distinction conceivable. Nature, Rickert argues, consists, ontologically speaking, of objects which are in and of themselves devoid
of meanings and therefore, epistemologically speaking, only observable (wahrnehmbar) and not understandable (verstehbar), whereas culture
consists, ontologically speaking, of objects which are meaningful and
valuable, and thus, epistemologically speaking, not just observable
but also understandable. Rickert realizes that the concept of Verstehen
is a rather ambiguous one and in need of a precise circumscription.
We return to his theory of understanding later, but must briefly deal
with it here, as it is crucial for his material (ontological) distinction
of the concepts of nature and culture.
Rickert thus juxtaposes the understanding (Verstehen) of reality and
the observing (Wahrnehmen) of it. Empirical reality, i.e. reality as it is
experienced through the senses (Sinnenwelt), consists of all the physical and psychic processes and objects which we observe. For instance,
we hear the spoken words, register linguistic sounds and observe the
movements of the lips. They can be isolated as objects and measured quantitatively. But we also understand the meaning (Sinn) and
significance (Bedeutung) of these words. Words are more than observable and quantifiable sounds, they are also understandable meaning
complexes (Sinngebilde) which do not merely exist in reality as the
observable and quantifiable objects do. Meanings and meaning complexes are non-sensual and in that sense unreal, yet they are not
metaphysical as they do occur in concurrence with observable objects.

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The meaning of words is, of course, nothing without the observable

spoken or written words. Significance and meaning cannot be observed,
but they are (or are not) understood. This pertains to the distinction of nature and culture: the former is the observable reality, the latter the correlated, yet very dierent understandable reality.
This distinction has consequences for the methodological distinction of Natural Science and Cultural Science: For science there are
objects, which, as in the case of culture, have a significance or a
meaning, and which we understand due to this significance and
meaning. On the other hand, there are objects which, like nature,
are to us completely devoid of significance and meaning, and which
therefore remain incomprehensible. (. . .) Nature then would be all
that is meaningless, only observable, but incomprehensible. Culture,
on the other hand, would be the significant and therefore understandable reality.56 Rickert adds that value-relatedness (or value-relevance) is the crucial moment in the determination of objects as
significant, meaningful and thus understandable objects of Cultural
Science. It is always in the first place values which determine what
is and what is not significant and meaningful. Or in other words,
understanding (Verstehen) of meaning and significance remains scientifically vague without a consideration of values.57 We will see later
how important this relating to values is for the methodology of
Cultural Science.
We encounter here the same problem as before: the distinction is strictly
speaking not material (ontological) but formal (epistemological). This is even
expressedly acknowledged by Rickert when he warns: Logical division is
not real separation.58 Empirical reality, for example the speaking and writing of words, is ontologically one and undivided. But we can focus analytically on dierent dimensions and set these dimensions apart artificially
through our conceptualizations: on the one hand the observable reality of
meaningless facts, events and objects, say the sound waves of our speaking, and on the other hand the understandable reality of meaningful facts

56
Es gibt fr die Wissenschaft einerseits Objekte, die wie die Kultur eine Bedeutung
oder einen Sinn haben, und die wir um dieser Bedeutung und dieses Sinnes willen
verstehen, und es gibt andererseits Objekte, die wie die Natur uns als vllig sinnund bedeutungsfrei gelten und daher unverstndlich bleiben. (. . .) Natur wre danach
das bedeutungsfreie, nur wahrnehmbare, unverstndliche, Kultur dagegen das bedeutungsvolle, verstehbare Sein. Ibid., p. 37f.
57
Ibid., p. 38.
58
Rickert, Probleme, p. 42.

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and events, such as the spoken or written words as expressions of meaningful configurations (Sinngebilde). As is obvious, these are two analytical
interventions leading to the formal (epistemological) and not material (ontological) distinction of an observable reality vis--vis an understandable reality.

THE GENERALIZING AND INDIVIDUALIZING METHODS

The problematic nature of Rickerts material (ontological) distinctions demonstrates once more that not material ontology but formal
epistemology ought to be the primary philosophical approach to
empirical reality. In the end, ontology is epistemology. What then
is more precisely the formal, epistemological approach, and more
precisely the formal, epistemological distinction of Natural Science
and Cultural Science? Ad medias res: generalization is, according to
Rickert, the typical feature of the conceptualization of Natural Science
and the conventional natural sciences such as chemistry, physics,
astronomy, etc., whereas the conceptualization of Cultural Science
and the cultural disciplines, such as history, historical sociology, historical (institutional) economics, etc., is rather characterized by individualization. Rickert prefers, as we have seen, these concepts over
Windelbands well-known distinction of the nomothetic approach
of Naturwissenschaft versus the idiographic approach of history,59 since
idiography as description comes rather close to depiction (Abbildung)
which Rickert rejects. However, if one reads Windelbands exposition carefully, it becomes apparent that Rickert leans heavily on it,
without actually acknowledging this explicitly, but also has some
grave reservations about it.
Wilhelm Windelband (18481915) acquired fame in particular
through his phenomenal knowledge of the history of philosophy.60
But his Rektoratsrede of 1894 was one of the most quoted and debated
publications in the history of 20th century philosophy. In particular
his distinction between idiographic and nomothetic sciences acquired
59
Wilhelm Windelband, Geschichte und Naturwissenschaft. Strassburger Rektoratsrede,
1894, (History and Natural Science. Inaugural adress as President of the University
of Strassburg), in: Prludien. Aufstze und Reden zur Philosophie und ihrer Geschichte,
(Preludes. Essays and Speeches on Philosophy and its History), Vol. 2, (Tbingen:
Mohr-Siebeck, 1915, 5th enlarged ed.), pp. 136160.
60
Cf. Wilhelm Windelband, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie, (Textbook of the
History of Philosophy), 1891, (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1957; 15th ed. by Heinz
Heimsoeth).

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almost the status of a philosophical clich. In view of Rickerts similar distinction between individualizing Kulturwissenschaft and generalizing Naturwissenschaft we must briefly discuss Windelbands theory of
the idiographic and nomothetic sciences.
In this lecture Windelband admits right from the start that he is
not happy with the opposition of Naturwissenschaft and Geisteswissenschaft,
based on the opposition of Natur and Geist, which was already very
popular in his day. The distinction of Natur and Geist, Windelband
argues, is a survival of an ancient, material (ontological) opposition
which became prominent at the end of Antiquity and at the beginning of medieval philosophical and theological thought. It was then
prolonged with all of its coarseness in the newer metaphysics from
Descartes and Spinoza till Schelling and Hegel. The opposition, however, is, Windelband continues, epistemologically very questionable,
as is demonstrated by psychology as a scientific discipline. According
to its object of investigation psychology would be a Geisteswissenschaft
but according to its actual execution, i.e. methodologically, appears
to be a Naturwissenschaft. What then is it that renders psychology
methodologically a natural science? Obviously, psychology collects
and processes facts, and tries to grasp the general, lawful regularities to which these facts are subjected. But that is precisely what the
natural sciences are doing. However, the methodology of the sciences we call Geisteswissenchaften, history first and foremost, does not
focus on such general regularities, but is, on the contrary, oriented
towards what is particular, unique (einmalig), and limited in time. In
other words, there is a logical and methodological dierence at work
here: some sciences, like the traditional natural sciences, such as
chemistry, physics, astronomy, etc. search for and analyze general
and timeless laws of development. They are in that sense nomothetic.
Others, like history, focus on and describe unique and particular
events in time and are in that sense idiographic. The former are,
Windelband adds, Gesetzeswissenschaften (law-oriented sciences), the latter Ereigniswissenschaften (eventful sciences).
This is a formal, not a material distinction. One and the same
object, Windelband warns, can be subjected to either a nomothetic
or an idiographic investigation. A particular language, for example,
can remain stable and alter minimally over a very long period of
time. It thus lies open for a nomothetic analysis. Yet, this particular language is also a historical, transitory phenomenon within the
linguistic life of humanity in its totality. It can thus be approached

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and described also idiographically. The same applies to the physiology of the body, or for geology, and in a certain sense even to
astronomy: and thereby the historical principle is transferred to the
area of the natural sciences.61 Yet, there are, Windelband notices,
immense methodological dierences between history and the natural
sciences. Both depend on experiences, on facts of observation, but
the natural scientist searches for general laws (Gesetze), the historian
for individual figures (Gestalten), the one leans strongly on cognitive
abstraction, the other on concrete graphicalness (Anschaulichkeit). The
historianand this reminds one of Croces aestheticismpaints a
picture of the past in such a way that it begins to live in the present time in all of its individuality. Therein roots the anity of the
historical creation with the aesthetic creation and the anity of the
historical disciplines with the belles lettres.62 The historian paints pictures of people and of human life.
Windelband emphasizes that all human interests and judgments,
i.e. all human evaluations, are linked to the individual and the unique
(das Einzelne und das Einmalige), because all our feelings of value are
solidly rooted in uniqueness and incomparability.63 Value-relatedness
is therefore the essence of the idiographic approach to reality. However,
both methods, the nomothetic and the idiographic approach, should
not be held in strict separation. Windelband gives an example.
Nomothetically, the cause of an explosion is the composition of the
explosive material whose chemical-physical laws can be reconstructed,
but idiographically the cause is a particular move, a single spark, a
shock or something similar. Only the two together cause and explain
the event, but neither one of the two is the result of the other.64
Dilthey distinguishes within the psychological discipline a naturalscientific, explanatory approach which focuses on causal processes,
on the one hand, and what he called descriptive psychology aiming at
an understanding of inner, experienced processes, on the other. The

61
hnliches gilt fr die Physiologie des Leibes, fr die Geologie, in gewissem
Sinne sogar fr die Astronomie: und damit wird das historische Prinzip auf das
Gebiet der Naturwissenschaften hinbergetrieben. Windelband, l.c., p. 146.
62
Darin wurzelt die Verwandtschaft des historischen Schaens mit dem sthetischen und die der historischen Disziplinen mit den belles lettres. Windelband, l.c.,
p. 150.
63
Ibid., p. 155.
64
Erst beides zusammen verursacht und erklrt das Ereignis, aber keines von
beiden ist eine Folge des anderen. Ibid., p. 158.

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latter was in his view constitutive for the so-called Geisteswissenschaften,

the former for the so-called Naturwissenschaften. Initially, Dilthey views
them as two separate realmsthe realm of nature ruled by the
empty and deserted repetition of the course of nature in contrast
to the realm of history dominated by the sovereignty of the will
and by the capability to subject everything to thought. The proper
object of the latter was the historical-societal reality, albeit founded
upon descriptive psychology.65 However, this was just an initial,
preparatory distinction which he mitigates considerably in the
further course of his argument. In fact, he sees the humaniora
(Geisteswissenschaften), history in the first place, and the natural sciences (Naturwissenschaften) metaphorically as the two halves of the globus
intellectualis, but he does not radically separate them, nor does he
demarcate the two exclusively in methodological and epistemological terms.66 The former focus on human beings who are viewed by
Dilthey expressedly as psycho-physiological unities, that are anchored
in historicity, yet also physiological by nature. They are thus objects
of natural-scientific research, but also of historical investigation. Yet,
there is an essential dierence. Like Vico, Dilthey stipulates that
human beings are both subject and object of the Geisteswissenschaften,
being capable of understanding (Verstehen) themselves, the others,
events, institutions, etc. subjectively. This is, of course, impossible in
the natural sciences which aim at a causal explanation of their objects
of research but are unable to understand them intuitively: I understand the life of society. The individual is, on the one hand, an element in the interplays of the society, a crossing point of the dierent
systems of these interplays, reacting consciously, willfully and actively
to their eects. But the individual is, at the same time, the intelligence which observes and investigates all this.67 Thus, the crucial
65
Wilhelm Dilthey, Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften. Erster Band, (Introduction
to the Humaniora. Volume One), 1883, B. Groethuysen ed., Gesammelte Schriften,
Bd. I (Collected Publications, vol. I), (Stuttgart: Teubner Verlag; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973) pp. 47.
66
Dilthey, o.c., pp. 1421. See also Jos de Mul, De tragedie van de eindigheid. Diltheys
hermeneutiek van het leven, (The Tragedy of Finiteness. Diltheys Hermeneutics of Life),
(Kampen: Kok Agora, 1993), p. 172.
67
Ich verstehe das Leben der Gesellschaft. Das Individuum ist einerseits ein
Element in den Wechselwirkungen der Gesellschaft, ein Kreuzungspunkt der verschiedenen Systeme dieser Wechselwirkungen, in bewusster Willensrichtung und
Handlung auf die Einwirkungen derselben reagierend, und es ist zugleich die dieses
alles anschauende und erforschende Intelligenz. Dilthey, o.c., p. 37.

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dierence between the natural sciences and the humaniora is, according to Dilthey, the fact that the latter are able to understand their
objects of investigation. This understanding (Verstehen) was viewed by
him as the process by which the objects of outer experience are
being linked to the intuitive inner experience.68 (We return to this
later.)
Rickert follows Windelbands arguments closely, but tacitly rejects
his theory on mainly two points. First, he cannot accept the idea
that the historical disciplines remain graphic and aesthetic. Cultural
Science does dier from Natural Science in that it is, as Windelband
also says, value-related and focused on the individual, the unique
and particular, but it may not, as Windelband like Croce suggests,
evaporate in idiographic aestheticism. The historian engages in historical research and reports his findings scientifically. He is not supposed to tell nice stories. Cultural Science should remain scientific,
should construct concepts, and not aspire to be some sort of art
form. Second, Rickert also rejects Windelbands distinction of natural-scientific abstraction vis--vis historical (idiographic) Anschaulichkeit
which were allegedly concrete because it would produce pictures
of men and human life (Bilder von Menschen und Menschenleben). This
smacks, of course, too much of Lebensphilosophie which, Rickert would
argue, does not befit a true student of Kant.
He directs the same criticism to Dilthey and adds that his focus
on inner experience and the related processes of intuition and understanding end up in what Dilthey called descriptive psychology and
thus in a psychologistic methodology. Despite some remarks to the
contrary, Diltheys abundantly used concepts Geist and Seele (soul, or
psyche) carry the very same psychological meaning. There is indeed
a lot of soul in his Geist. That may warm the hearts of vitalists, but
will not much enlighten their minds.
It is for these reasons that Rickert shies away from the concepts
nomothetic and idiographic, and exchanges them for generalizing
and individualizing, when he characterizes the distinct methodological and logical dierences between Naturwissenschaft and Kulturwissenschaft.69 In order to avoid any suggestion of embracing vitalism
Cf. de Mul, o.c., p. 171, also pp. 319331.
See Heinrich Rickert, Wilhelm Windelband (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1915), an
In Memoriam of 43 pages. Rickert does not only discuss Windelbands contribution
to the philosophy of values, but uses the opportunity to explain also his own phi68
69

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and putting psychology on a methodological and philosophical

pedestal, he replaces Geisteswissenschaft by Kulturwissenschaft. Moreover,
it is a misconception to reserve so-called Geisteswissenschaft for the
investigation of humans and human aairs exclusively and to exclude
the natural-scientific approach from this domain. As we shall see
shortly, it is possible to apply a historical approach to a natural science, as for instance happens in biology, whereas a discipline like
sociology can legitimately be studied in a generalizing, natural-scientific
way. In fact, that has been done and still is being done. In other
words, Rickert would not have been in favor of the idea of two
cultures as was pictured in the famous, often quoted (and wrongly
applied) essay by C. P. Snow.70 Dilthey, and maybe also Windelband,
would in all probability have less problems with this dichotomy.
Natural Science then is first and foremost characterized by Rickert
formally and methodologically by the fact that its concept formation
(Begrisbildung) sets out to construct general concepts which as genus
concepts, or generic concepts (Gattungsbegrie), cover various singular
phenomena as specimens (Exemplare) of the related genus. What is relevant or essential in the objects and events under natural-scientific
scrutiny is only and exclusively what they have in common. These
common elements are then grouped together into a genus concept,

losophy and methodology. His critique of nomothesis and idiography is on p. 26,

where he presents his own individualizing Cultural Science as a valid alternative to
the in his eyes fallacious notion of the idiographic historical method. He regrets
the fact that Windelband did not revise his theory after Rickerts exposition of generalizing Natural Science and individualizing Cultural Science as two complementary methods had appeared in print. Windelband came, however, close to such a
revision, inspired by Rickert, in his Geschichtsphilosophie, o.c., pp. 49.
70
C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures and a Second Look, 1959, 1964, (Cambridge: At
the University Press, 1964). In his Rede Lecture of 1959 Snow did not oppose natural scientists and representatives of the humaniora, as is often asserted, but scientists and literary writers. Speaking from experience (he was scientist and writer),
Snow claimed scientists and writers had intellectually, morally and psychologically
little in common, and lived in two totally dierent worlds. Ibid., p. 2. However, in
A Second Look of 1964 he acknowledged after experiences in American universities that there was a Third Culture somewhere in the middle, consisting of intellectual persons in a variety of fieldssocial history, sociology, demography, political
science, economics, government (in the American academic sense), psychology, medicine, and social arts such as architecture. It seems a mixed bag: but there is an
inner consistency. All of them are concerned with how human beings are living or have
livedand concerned, not in terms of legend, but fact. Ibid., p. 70. Logically and
methodologically neither Snows two cultures nor his three cultures are relevant
or heuristically helpful. His essay is sociological rather than philosophical and logical.

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whereas everything that is individual and particular in these objects

remains irrelevant and is therefore not conceptualized. Rickert acknowledges that this kind of cognitive generalization occurs already prior
to any scientific scrutiny, since we employ in our daily language
scores of general concepts. If they are not proper names which always
refer to individual and particular objects and events, words do cover
usually general objects and events. This was, of course, realized by
the Greek philosophers (Plato and Aristotle in the first place) and
also by the medieval scholastic philosophers (realism versus nominalism). Rickert elaborates on this further. His intentions can be illustrated by a simple example. The word dog is in a sense a generic
concept which covers general features and characteristics common
to all dogs. In veterinary science this concept is formalized into an
abstract genus concept which not only contains natural-scientific laws
but also covers all individual and empirical dogs. After the genus
concept and its related laws are formulated and defined scientifically
in a systematic manner, there is no need to subject more particular, individual dogs to further scientific research. They are scientifically
irrelevant. The particularities and unique character traits of Thomas
Manns famous dog Bauschan, for instance, was and still is of no
interest to any veterinarian scientist. However, this particular family
dog of the 1920s which is the main character in Manns novella
Herr und Hund will be of interest to the literary historian or the biographer who investigates the life and works of the great German novelist.71 But he then operates conceptually and methodologically within
a logically completely dierent frame of reference, i.e. the individualizing context of Cultural Science to which we will turn shortly.
Natural-Scientific concept formation is a sort of conscious and logically controlled continuation of the common-sense generalization of
daily language. Moreover, Rickert argues, it suces to say that in
this case the conceptual content consists of so-called laws, i.e. unconditionally general judgments about more or less encompassing sectors
of realitya reality which nobody has observed in its totality.72

Thomas Mann, Herr und Hund, 1919, (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer Verlag, 1981),
in: Gesammelte Werke. Spte Erzhlungen, (Collected Works. Late Short Stories), pp. 7101.
72
Es gengt zu sagen, dass in diesem Falle der Begrisinhalt aus sogenannten
Gesetzen besteht, d.h. unbedingt allgemeinen Urteilen ber mehr oder minder umfassende
Gebiete der Wirklichkeit, die niemand in ihrer Totalitt beobachtet hat. Ibid.,
p. 58f. Italics by HR.
71

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Generalizing natural-scientific concepts cover large quantities of objects

and events by focusing quantitatively (e.g. statistically) on their similarities and regularities (laws), while disregarding their qualitative,
individual particularities and unique, unrepeatable characteristics. It
is, of course, possible to focus on a single object or event, but by
means of experiments and comparisons with other objects and events
the natural scientist will still search for general characteristics which
fit into general statements of law. The single objects and events are
then defined and treated as specimens (Exemplare) of the genus and
forged theoretically in a genus concept (Gattungsbegri ). In fact, when
one has formulated the genus concepts and their related regularities
(laws), one need not investigate more specimens. The genus concepts
and their relative laws are true until changes occur which demand
a revision of the generic concepts and their laws.
Cultural Science will conceptualize in a dierent and opposite
manner. One will focus on what is individual, particular, unique and
unrepeatable. The historian, for instance, whom Rickert views as the
prime example of a Cultural Scientist, will investigate individual
events, e.g. the Battle of Waterloo, and individual historical actors,
e.g. Napoleon, Wellington, Blcher. Of course, he will in a sense
generalize also since battle and historical actors are general concepts. We will discuss this point in greater detail later, yet it must
be emphasized at this point that cultural-scientific (historical) generalizations are logically very dierent from natural-scientific generalizations. The latter move from ahistorical specimina to ahistorical
genera, the former from historical parts to historical totalities. Both,
parts and totalities are individual and time-bound, not general and
timeless. Totalities are in their turn always individual, time-bound
parts again of larger, encompassing totalities which again are parts
of even larger and more abstract totalities, until one arrives at humanity or human civilization in totowhich, of course, most historians
will preferably not take as their cultural-scientific object of investigation.73 Moreover, it always remains necessary to investigate individual, particular objects and events since in time points of view may
An example of such an encompassing, very general approach in history is
H. G. Wells, The Outline of History. Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind, 1920,
(London:, Toronto, Melbourne, Sydney: Cassell and Company, 1932, rev. ed.). Henry
T. Buckles History of Civilization in England, 1865, in five volumes, as a prelude to
Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History, 19341961, in twelve volumes. Rickert usually refers to Oswald Spenglers Der Untergang des Abendlandes (1922), observing that
73

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change and throw new light on these particular objects. Unlike the
research in Natural Science which comes to rest after the generic
concepts and their natural-scientific laws have been formulated. Only
when (usually) suddenly irregularities are being discoveredwhich,
incidentally, often happens in terms of serendipitythat cannot be
explained by the existing general concepts and laws, will further
research and experiments on individual objects and processes be necessary. Here Rickert comes close to the idea of paradigmatic revolution, but he was not yet able to formulate it expressedly and clearly.74
A simple example can illustrate the methodological dierence of NaturalScientific generalization and Cultural-Scientific individualization. Rickert
would find the example too simple to be useful, but it might be helpful for
those who are not well introduced into his brand of neo-Kantian thinking.
In everyday life we all know immediately what the word forest refers to.
Now let us take as an example a specific forest, located in a specific province
or region of a specific country. In this forest there is a hut in which an
hermit dwells, prays and meditates. A botanist will be interested in the forest in so far as it may comprise some specimens of a rare genus of plants.
He will roam through the forest, pass the hut of the hermit, and search
for these specimens which can tell him more about the rare botanic genus.
When he has found sucient specimens which enable him to formulate
the generic and regular (law like) features of these individual plants, there
will be no need for him to return to the forest or any similar forest elsewhere in order to collect more individual specimens. In other words, there
is no need for any further individualization.
A sociologist will look at this very same forest in a completely dierent
manner, certainly if he follows in the methodological footsteps of Weber and
such very general historical studies (a) are unavoidably normative and metaphysical, and (b) claim to establish semi-natural-scientifically certain laws of development. Both points of critique apply also to Wells and Buckle and certainly to
Toynbee. Toynbee has been criticized extensively by historians. See for a perceptive and sympathetic survey of his work: Harry Elmer Barnes, Arnold Joseph
Toynbee: Orosius and Augustine in Modern Dress, in: Harry Elmer Barnes (ed.),
An Introduction to the History of Sociology, 1948, (Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1958, 5th ed.), pp. 717736. Very general historical studies, focusing on large
units of research, are still en vogue, albeit much less metaphysical and semi-natural-scientific than the above mentioned histories. See for example Paul Kennedy,
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to
2000, 1988, (London: Fontana Press, 1989, 4th ed.). Cf. also the perceptive book
review by the Dutch historian Jan Romein, De graal der geschiedenis. De stand
van het vraagstuk der historische wetten, (The Grale of History. The State of the
Issue of Historical Laws), 1947, in: Jan Romein, Historische lijnen en patronen, (Historical
Lines and Patterns), (Amsterdam: Queridos Uitgeverij, 1976), pp. 327352.
74
Cf. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962, (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1970, 2nd and enlarged ed.).

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his verstehende Soziologie which is a historical and cultural sociology (interpreted

methodologically as a sociology operating as a Cultural Science). This forest is to the cultural sociologist the particular biotopos of this individual hermit, whose lifestyle diers so remarkably from most of his fellow men. The
sociologist is not interested in the forest as the biotopos of rare plants, or
insects, or birds, he will pass these specimens of various natural-scientific
genus concepts (botany, entomology, ornithology) and enter the shack in
order to interview this sociologically and psychologically interesting person.
But he will also be interested in meeting and interviewing other individual
hermits since he aspires at some degree of representative objectivity. If he
is successful, he may eventually come up with an interpretive theory of hermitdom which is, of course, a form of generalization. But hermitdom is in
its turn again an individual part of a larger, historical totality: renunciation
of the world which again is an individual, historical phenomenon.

What then is the precise nature of generalization in Cultural Science,

and how does it dier from generalization in Natural Science?
CULTURAL-SCIENTIFIC GENERALIZATION
Rickert believes that, unlike psychology and sociology, history as a
scientific discipline could in its conceptualization and methodology
never employ the generalizing approach of Natural Science. The
general concepts of Natural Science emerge systematically by the
conceptual unification of the similarities of a massive amount of particular objects and processes. The exercise is value-free since the similarities are not in any way related to values and meanings. The
moment these similarities have been conceptualized and the similar
processes of development have been caught in law like statements
(if-then propositions), further individual objects and occurrences are
irrelevant. In history, on the contrary, the focus is rather on the very
individuality and particularity of time-bound and value-related objects,
persons, and events. In fact, their individuality and particularity originate in their value-related significance. Historical conceptualization
is thus, unlike its counterpart in Natural Science, based on actual
value-relatedness (Wertbezogenheit) on the part of the historical objects
as well as on the active, theoretical relating to values (Wertbeziehung)
on the part of the historian.75 That is to say, according to Rickert,

75
Rickerts ideas about value-freedom (Wertfreiheit), freedom-from-value-judgments
(Wertungsfreiheit), value-relatedness (Wertbezogenheit) and the methodological relating of

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the historical discipline is methodologically located at the extreme,

Cultural-Scientific (individualizing, or particularizing) end of the continuum of Natural Science and Cultural Science.
At this point two critical interjections are called for. (a) When using the
word history (Geschichte) Rickert (like many historians) never clearly distinguishes between history as the ongoing process in time and history as the
scientific study of this process. This is at times confusing. Usually he means
the scientific discipline. (b) He was, moreover, determined to fixate history
on the extreme pole of (individualizing) Cultural Science. As we have seen,
he believes that any attempt to come up with natural-scientific laws of history has to end sooner or later in an unscientific (usually metaphysical)
historicism, as was exemplified by so-called historical materialism, and by
the earlier mentioned Oswald Spengler. However, it is questionable whether
this position is logically and methodologically tenable. For example, there
have been so-called cliometric studies which tried to design a historical discipline which comes as close as possible to the quantitative, statistical methodology of the natural sciences. In terms of Rickerts continuum this is
legitimate, since it presents a methodological approach, not a metaphysical
philosophy.76

Rickert realizes that radical individualization would be impossible

and improbable, since all sciences, including the scientific study of

objects to values (Wertbeziehung) must, of course, be explained. That will happen in

a later section of this chapter.
76
In Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft Rickert at one point surmises that there
may emerge in the future a Natural-Scientific approach in the historical discipline:
o.c., p. 76. This has meanwhile happened. See Robert William Fogel, Stanley L.
Engerman, Time on the Cross. The Economics of American Negro Slavery, (Boston-Toronto:
Little, Brown and Company, 1974), Prologue. Slavery and the Cliometric Revolution,
pp. 313. In an appendix both authors explain the nature and intentions of cliometry in terms Rickert could, and in all probability would approve of: Appendix A.
Science, Humanism, and Ideology in the Interpretation of Slavery, in: Time on the
Cross: Evidence and Methods A Supplement, (Boston-Toronto: Little, Brown and Company,
1974), pp. 320. The authors acknowledge that the writing of history cannot be
reduced merely to science. And add that the study of history will be advanced by
combining the methods of science with the concerns of humanism. L.c., p. 3.
However, they continue to belittle the vicars of humanism (l.c., p. 10) who are
bound together by their common emphasis on oral and aesthetic values and texture their language delicately with metaphors and words of multiple connotation.
L.c., p. 7. Within the group of social scientists, they continue somewhat haughtily,
there is still a group of scholars who work in the humanist tradition. But they are
a minority, and have not fully been able to stem the scientific onslaught. L.c.,
p. 8. Obviously, these Americans were at the time they were writing not aware of
the fact that their brand of positivism was very predominant in Europe at the end
of the 19th century and that precisely neo-Kantian epistemology tried to escape its
deadly embrace without stepping into the trap of Romantic humanism.

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history, try to transcend the mere experience of reality in order to

gain plausible, if not true knowledge of this reality. Our pre-scientific
experiences are indeed radically individual, particular and maybe
even unique, but scientific knowledge wants more than that. It wants
concepts and theories which are generally valid, plausible, and intersubjectively true. It therefore needs general concepts, and that holds
true also for history, if it aspires to be part of the scientific universe.
Rickert then seeks to determine what sorts of generalization could
be distinguished within the historical disciplineand thus within
Cultural Scienceand to which extent and how these historical
(Cultural-Scientific) generalizations dier from those of Natural Science.
In an appendix to the 5th edition of Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen
Begrisbildung he discusses four kinds of generalization in history as a
Cultural Science.77 Since Rickerts idea of individualizing Cultural
Science is usually dismissed by the argument that in history and the
historical social sciences generalization is unavoidable, it is necessary to discuss these four types of Cultural-Scientific generalization.
To begin with, it is evident that science, whether Natural or
Cultural, consists of judgments (Urteile), i.e. statements whose basic
components must be general not individual because they must be
intersubjectively meaningful and understandable. It is comparable to
language which employs generally understandable, meaningful words,
even if we talk about very individual things and occurrences. Words
like dog or child are general and we need them as linguistic elements, if we want to talk about our particular dog or our individual child, both of whom we have given proper names, since proper
names express individuality. In other words, generalization here is a
means towards an end, and the end is the individual and particular, unique and unrepeatable object, person, event, etc. The same
holds true of history: the elements of its statements are concepts like
war, revolution, monarch, citizen, state, society, etc. These conceptual elements are indeed general, but they are elements of statements
which aim at the understanding of individual or particular phenomena as significant, value-related phenomena, such as the First
World War, the French Revolution, King George III, the French

77
This appendix is a German translation of a French essay with the title Les
quatres modes de lUniversel en histoire which appeared in the Revue de synthse historique, Paris, April 1901. Heinrich Rickert, Anhang in: Grenzen, pp. 737766.

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citoyen, the Dutch state, American society, etc. This is very dierent
in Natural Science, where the general is not a means but an end.
Natural Science treats individual and particular objects as specimens
(Exemplare) of general, generic concepts (Gattungsbegrie). It may be
objected that such concepts are employed for the sake of prediction
of an individual evente.g. an eclipsebut even then the generic
concepts concerned constitute a general natural law about the occurrence of the eclipse without any values or norms involved. These
general, generic concepts come about by the combination or unification
of all that is similar in the particular objects of Natural-Scientific
research. There is no relating to values and thus no understandable
meaning involved here, for the simple reason that the objects under
scrutiny are not value-related.
Secondly, the historian can, of course, not conceptually cover all
the individual events and persons drawing his scientific curiosity and
interest. Reality, past and present, consists of a vast and incalculable multitude of people, things and events. Even if the historian
restricted himself to human events and beings, he would still have
to deal conceptually with a pluriformity which is so complex and
versatile that he could not possibly cover all of them adequately. He
is in need of a criterion of selection by which he can determine
which situations and events are essential and which are not. Historically
essential then is what possesses in society a general significance which
can only be determined by general valuesi.e. values that are significant
to a majority of people, not just to one or more single individuals.
The historian will relate the many events, processes, persons and
things which he encounters in reality to such general values and
through this value-relation he will determine what is historically
significant and what is not. This, Rickert acknowledges, is, of course,
not the objectivity and certainty with which the physicist formulates
mathematical laws, but it still is far remote from the contingency
of the value-relatedness of a particular individual human being.
Meanwhile, after the historian has thus determined what is valuewise significant, he is also able to determine what is particular and
individual, in the sense of unique and unrepeatable. An example
(which is not Rickerts) may clarify this point: writing the biography
of John Calvin a historian will focus on those particular details of
his life only which relate to general values, like the values of the
Reformation and the so-called Puritan Ethics. Petty details of Calvins
life, such as the color of his eyes or the names of his grandchildren

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(if he had any), may have an entertainment value but are scientifically
irrelevant.78
Thirdly, science is a systematic enterprise and history as a scientific
endeavor will not be satisfied with an enumeration of individual facts
and data, adding them all up to a mere bric-a-brac.79 There are in
reality, as we experience it, no absolutely isolated objects and processes.
Everything is related somehowas we have seen, reality is a heterogeneous continuum. Each historical object stands in a coherent
context and is particular and individual within this context. This too
is something general. However, the nature of its generality is very
dierent from that of Natural Science. As we have seen before, in
Natural Science individual and particular objects are specimens
(Exemplare) of a generic concept (Gattungsbegri ), whereas in history
(Cultural Science) they are parts of a totality which is more than
just a composition of constituent parts, but in its turn a part of a
larger totality. Or, in other words, the meaningful context of the historical object is a Sinngebilde which itself is a historical individuum.
Robespierre, for instance (and this is again not Rickerts example),
is as a historical individual only understandable in the context of the
terrorist phase of the French Revolution.
Incidentally, Rickert emphasizes that the individual conceptualization of history does not automatically mean that, as is often said,
single personalities make history, and that therefore history is essentially the scientific study of great personalities. This is not what the
concepts individual and individualization mean. The historian as
the representative of Cultural Science par excellence focuses on objects,
events, collectivities and single persons in so far as they are particular, specific and unique (unrepeatable) due to their relationship to
values which are then and now held to be valid and relevant.
Individual persons, and great personalities like Caesar or Napoleon
are often the objects of historical research, but so are material objects,
like the Kohinoor or the papal tiara, and historical events, such as
the French Revolution or the Battle of Waterloo. They are in a
sense the bearers of important, generally respected or acknowledged

Ibid., pp. 741746.

Historians often fall prey to a neo-positivist drive to be as exact as possible,
if it comes to the registration of facts and data. This historiography usually ends up
in a sort of value-free book-keeping which does not contribute to any scientific
understanding of what has actually happened in terms of significance.
78
79

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values. (Incidentally, these can be morally objectionable values as is

the case of individual dictators like Hitler or Stalin.) And, once more,
these individua do not exist in the past or the present as a chaotic
bric-a-brac but belong, due to their value-relatedness, to a general
context, the generality of which, needless to say, is very dierent
from the generality Natural Science aspires to.80
There is still a fourth sort of generality in the historical discipline
as a Cultural Science. Critics of Rickerts methodological distinction
of generalizing and individualizing sciences often claim that the historian often focuses on groups or even masses which are conceptualized in terms of similarities, not in terms of value-related significance.
The French citoyens storming the Bastille, for instance, constitute a
class of people which are conceptualized generally according to (sociological) similarities, not according to what each individual citoyen
signified in terms of the revolutionary values of those days. This is,
of course, true, but Rickert hastens to add that this is being done
not on logical principle, as in Natural Science, but for reasons of
convenience. Indeed, there are many generalized concepts used by
historians, such as Antiquity, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Modernity,
or bourgeoisie, working class, urban culture, etc. Yet, these are generalizations for conveniences sake, comparable to stenography. They
are definitely not Natural-Scientific, logical generalizations on principle. Moreover, they are, unlike the value-free generalizations of
Natural Science related and relating to values. In fact, if the historian focuses specifically on one of such general historical phenomena, as for example Jacob Burckhardt did in his celebrated study on
The Culture of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), it becomes obvious that
the methodology is one of Cultural-Scientific individualization, not
of Natural-Scientific generalization.81

80
Rickert, Grenzen, pp. 746749. Rickert states expressedly that this approach is
not at all what is usually called history of Great Men. Allegedly great men like
Napoleon or Bismarck are logically and methodologically only relevant by their historical relationship to shared (general) values. History is moved neither by individuals, nor by mass movements. Cf. Heinrich Rickert in his response to Ferdinand
Toennies in his essay ber die Aufgaben einer Logik der Geschichte, (On the
Tasks of a Logic of History), in: Archiv fr Philosophie, II. Abteilung: Archiv fr systematische Philosophie, Neue Folge. VIII. Band, 2.Heft, (Archive for Philosophy. Section
II: Archive for Systematic Philosophy, New Series, Volume VIII, Book 2), 1902,
p. 151f.
81
Jacob Burckhardt, Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien. Ein Versuch, 1860, (Stuttgart:
Alfred Krner Verlag, 1976). The sub-title Ein Versuch (An Essay, or An Attempt)

THE DEMARCATION OF NATURAL AND CULTURAL SCIENCE

261

Rickert continues the argument still one step further. Assume a

historical study in which only concepts of groups of people occur,
and in which these concepts only contain what all the constituent
parts of the groups have in common. Take as an examplewhich,
incidentally, was not given by Rickerta historical-sociological study
of peasant culture in medieval France. Would that be a NaturalScientific study? Hardly, because the object, although phrased by
means of generalized concepts, is circumscribed in terms of time and
space, and also quite unique (einmalig).82 Peasant culture in medieval
France is logically and methodologically a value-related individuum,
not a value-free genus. The moment the historian sets out to investigate such an alleged peasant culture in medieval France, he must
descend to individual, particular, unique components. There are,
as it were, stages of generality and individuality, but in Cultural
Science each stage of generality is individual compared to the next
stage. The final stage is humanity or the universe which is still an
individuum but, of course, hard to handle empirically and open to
metaphysical fantasies which, according to Rickert, have no place in
any kind of science.
EMPATHIC UNDERSTANDING83
In the opposition of Naturwissenschaft and Geisteswissenschaft the juxtaposition of explaining (Erklren) and understanding (Verstehen) plays a
predominant, and a logically as well as methodologically rather questionable role. The proponents of Geisteswissenschaft usually claim in
addition that understanding is only possible through introspection or
empathy (Nacherleben). As this is allegedly a psychological exercise, it
is believed that psychology constitutes the logical and methodological foundation of all sciences outside the natural sciences. Psychology
is interesting. A Natural-Scientific report would never be called an attempt, or an
essay. Rickert would probably also reject this sub-title, since he always emphasized
the need for objectivity and certainty in all sciences, including the Cultural-Scientific
sciences.
82
Ibid., p. 751f.
83
Once more one is confronted here by the problem of translation. I chose for
explaining (Erklren) and understanding (Verstehen) which is admittedly arbitrary.
Rickert alternates Erklren with Begreifen which will be translated with to grasp and
grasping. The German verb has the same root as Begri (concept), but like Erklren,
Begreifen is usually reserved by him for the Natural-Scientific mode of conceptualization.

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was thus put on a scientific and methodological pedestal. Wilhelm

Dilthey was the most outspoken and best known representative of
this position.
Dilthey, as is well known, did not succeed in leaving a coherent, systematically organized philosophy. Although he put the systematic structure of
the human mind (Geist) and soul (Seele) in the centre of his descriptive psychology, he failed to organize his thoughts and theorems in a coherent
and structured system. This certainly added to the liveliness of his thinking and writing, but also hinders a satisfactory grasping of the often fragmentary theorems and theories. His theory of Verstehen is for that reason
hard to grasp. He kept adding and changing it, without really rendering it
more precise and understandable.84
Understanding (Verstehen) as the essential method of acquiring geisteswissenschaftliche knowledge is, according to Dilthey, not, as is often thought, subjectivist introspection, i.e. it is not an emotional turning into ones own and
private feelings which then are projected on objects, events, other human
beings outside ones own psyche or consciousness. It is, Dilthey stipulates,
the other way around: man can only understand himself and the world
outside him (the other human beings to begin with) by the detour of what
is being expressed, through observable expressions (Ausdrcke). We possess
memories of past experiences and can therefore, as in an emotional analogy, identify with what we observe. For instance, if someone stumbles, falls
and contorts his face in pain, we can empathize with him which in German
is called Nacherleben.
Dilthey distinguishes three classes or types of such expressions which he
also labeled life expressions (Lebensusserungen). There are, first, the cognitive expressions such as concepts, judgments, theories. De Mul labels this
aptly as a logical understanding and adds that it is the simplest type of

84
Jos de Mul provides a helpful survey of the various developments and additions of Diltheys theory of Verstehen in his PhD-dissertation De tragedie van de eindigheid.
Diltheys hermeneutiek van het leven, (The Tragedy of Finiteness. Diltheys Hermeneutics
of Life), (Kampen: Kok Agora, 1993), pp. 319340. This is not the place to discuss all this in detail. For this brief excursus on Diltheys ideas of Verstehen I have,
guided by De Muls dissertation, relied on the posthumously published fragments
in the third chapter of Wilhelm Dilthey, Der Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den
Geisteswissenschaften, (The Construction of the Historical World in the Humaniora),
1926, B. Groethuysen, ed., Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. VII, (Collected Publications, vol.
VII), 1958, (Stuttgart: Teubner Verlag; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973,
6th ed.). pp. 191294; in particular pp. 205220. Rickert, it should be noted, appreciated and incorporated parts of Diltheys historical psychology. Discussing, for example, Diltheys analysis of ancient Roman metaphysics of the will, exhibited in
particular in Roman law, he called it extraordinarily impressive (ungemein eindrucksvoll).
Cf. Heinrich Rickert, Kant als Philosoph der modernen Kultur. Ein Geschichtsphilosophischer
Versuch, (Kant as Philosopher of Modern Culture. An Essay in Historical Philosophy),
(Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1924), p. 65. But he then went on criticizing Diltheys
alleged psychologism: ibid., p. 68.

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understanding, since it is not embedded in complex socio-historical and

psychic circumstances. The Pythagorean theorem can be understood without knowing the circumstances under which it was invented. The second
type of understanding, called technical by De Mul, refers to acts which
express clear and obvious aims without verbal expressions of these aims.
We understand, as it were immediately, without much reflection, the picking up of a knife and the cutting of a piece of meat. The emotions of the
person who cuts the meat are irrelevant for the understanding of the
observed action. The third type of expression is infinitely more complex
and the actual source of geisteswissenschaftliche understanding: the expression
of an inner, emotional experience (Erlebnisausdruck). It can, Dilthey argues,
tell us more about the psychic cohesion of a person than a subjective introspection could ever demonstrate. The facial expression, the look and the
blush do not tell us cognitively, as in a judgment, about truth or falsehood,
but tell us everything about mendacity and veracity.
Dilthey adds to this theorem of understanding-through-expressions two
dierent forms of understanding: elementary forms and higher, more complex forms. As to the elementary forms, it should be realized that humans
need mutual understanding in practical life. Understanding is functional in
human communication. Dilthey once spoke of the business of understanding.85 In practical everyday life we are all accustomed to elementary
forms of understanding, since we have learned while growing up certain
elementary acts which are components of more complex actions for the
sake of certain aims. For example, we understand immediately, without
reflection, the picking up of a bucket or the pounding with a hammer, or
the back and forth movement of a saw, indicating the collection of water,
the driving in of a nail, the cutting of a piece of wood. These acts fit within
larger aims again, such as cleaning a floor, hanging up of a picture, wood
paneling a wall, constructing a box, etc. Dilthey adds that in this elementary form of understanding the expression is not separated from the
expressedi.e. fear and its facial expression cannot be separated as cause
and eect, but are one integrated phenomenon. In addition, elementary
understanding always occurs in commonalty, i.e. in an environment of common practices and customs, of organizations and institutions we grew accustomed to. It is, in short, the organized world of the objective spirit, or
culture.86
The elementary forms are, as it were, the building blocks for the higher
forms of understanding.87 The focus in this type of understanding is on the
coherence within an object or a person. The person is understood as an
individual with a coherent psychic structure, the work of art is understood
as a coherent aesthetic structureeven if we have no personal knowledge
of the individual and even if we have no knowledge of the artist who

85
86
87

das Geschft des Verstehens, Dilthey, o.c., p. 213.

Ibid., pp. 208210.
Ibid., pp. 210213.

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created the work of art. As to the latter, Dilthey gives the example of the
performance of a play in a theatre. A spectator who is not trained in literature can still immerse in the action on stage without thinking of the
playwright, but also the literary expert can live spell-bound during the performance. (Note Diltheys use of the verb live through!) It is in both cases
an understanding Nacherlebena living through subjectively of what happens
on the stage. The beholders understanding focuses on the coherence of
the actions on stage, the characters of the roles, the interconnecting of
moments which determine the fatal turn of the performed drama. Yes,
only then will he enjoy the full reality of the exhibited extract from life.
Only then will in him fully be realizes a process of understanding and experiencing as the poet intended to generate in him.88
Dilthey then comes to the vitalist conclusion that Erleben, the life-experience, transcends the cognitive concepts of scientific thought. Life and living first, thought and thinking next. LifeLeben, Erlebenis like a fludum
or aroma, functions, certainly in the case of the Geisteswissenschaften, as a
sort of background music: Erleben can never be solved in concepts, but its
dark, deep tones accompany, if only softly, all the conceptual thinking in
the Geisteswissenchaften.89

In Rickerts opinion such typically geisteswissenschaftliche ideas of understanding and empathy or introspection have caused much confusionwhich, we may add, they still do up till this very day. Rickert
phrases his critique with mild irony: the theories of Verstehen are as
diverse as the meaning of the word.90 We should avoid indulging
in the abstruseness and the mysteries of the geisteswissenschaftlichen
Verstehen.91 He then develops his own intriguing theory of understanding (Verstehen), explaining (Erklren) and empathy or introspection (Nacherleben), while he acknowledges that this theory is not definitive
but consists only of but first attempts to arrive at an understanding
of understanding.92 And, as we shall see, in the end his own conception of Verstehen is not really that dierent from Diltheys!
88
Ja nur dann wird er die volle Realitt des hingestelleten Ausschnittes aus dem
Leben geniessen. Nur dann wird sich in ihm voll ein Vorgang des Verstehens und
Nacherlebens vollziehen, wie ihn der Dichter in ihm hervorbringen will. Ibid.,
p. 212.
89
Nie kann Erleben in Begrie aufgelst werden, aber seine dunklen, tiefen Tne
begleiten, wenn auch nur leise, alles begriiche Denken in den Geisteswissenschaften.
Ibid., p. 331.
90
die Theorien des Verstehens sind so mannigfaltig wie der Sinn des Wortes.
Rickert, o.c., p. 558.
91
das Schwelgen in dem Tiefsinn und in den Geheimnissen des geisteswissenschaftlichen Verstehens. Ibid., p. 559.
92
Nur um Anstze zum Verstehen des Verstehens handelt es sich. Idem. Rickert
develops his ideas about explaining, understanding and empathy in Ibid., pp. 557611.

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Although Dilthey, as we saw, denied this himself, Rickert maintains that he and others after him saw and applied understanding
in psychological terms, namely as empathy (Nacherleben) with regard
to what other people in the present or the past experienced or felt
inwardly. Rickert quotes Dilthey in a footnote, where he defines
Verstehen as the knowledge of something inside (ein Inneres) which comes
to us from outside signalsi.e. from expressions. What is something inside?, Rickert then asks. After all, everything depends on
that. We know how meaningless the concept something inside is.93
When it comes to understanding, Rickert is, of course, particularly
anxious to avoid metaphysics and psychologism, both of which were
rather popular in his days, as we have seen in Chapter Two. He
admits nevertheless that Cultural-Scientific understanding (Verstehen)
does indeed stand in opposition to Natural-Scientific explaining
(Erklren), and must somehow incorporate empathy (Nacherleben). It
needs considerable logical and conceptual virtuosity to then avoid
the trap of psychologism and to refuse to fall back on metaphysics.
Rickert has, I think, not been altogether successful in this. Let us
try to reconstruct the main line of his respective arguments.
We must, to begin with, repeat a basic notion which we discussed
earlier. Both the body and the psyche (Seele) belong to empirical
(experienced) reality which is the proper domain of Natural-Science
and its generalizing conceptualization. Psychology then is, according
to Rickert, predominantly a representative of generalizing NaturalScience. There is, however, still another kind of reality which cannot be experienced and observed, and which is therefore not a
sensual, empirical reality. It is the non-empirical world which is valid
or not valid (Geltung). This is the non-sensual, non-empirical world
(die unsinnliche Welt) of values and meanings. Our spoken words, for
instance, can be heard and their sound waves can be measured natural-scientifically, but their meaning and significance cannot be sensually experienced, nor scientifically measured. They make sense (are
meaningful and thus valid) or they are senseless (meaningless, invalid).
Now these non-empirical values and meanings are not psychological realities, since the psyche or soul belongs together with the body
to the empirical world, nor are they metaphysical realities, floating

93
Was ist ein Inneres? Darauf kommt doch alles an. Wir wissen, wie nichtssagend
der Begri des Inneren ist. Ibid., p. 560, note 1.

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around, as in traditional Idealism, as a kind of metaphysical Geist.

They are forms which through meaning bestowing acts (Aktsinn) are,
as it were, attached to substances, i.e. to cultural goods (Kulturgter),
like value-judgments and institutions, organizations, social movements,
and other sociological configurations. In addition, these objectified
meanings hang together, constitute coherent configurations which
Rickert called Sinngebilde, i.e. meaningful structures or configurations.
Value-judgments, for example, constitute coherent ideologies, scientific
values hang together in theoretical paradigms, religious values in
organized and institutionalized belief systems, etc. Once again, Rickert
is keen on emphasizing that the non-empirical world of values and
meanings (the Second Realm) is neither metaphysical, nor psychological. In fact, as transcendent forms they are not, but they are
or are not valid. Validity, not being is their main characteristic. This
has all been explained in the former chapter, but had to be repeated
briefly in order to grasp Rickerts theory of understanding.
Now Rickert argues that knowledge of the empirical reality of
facts, objects and events, including those of the human psyche, is a
typically Natural-Scientific explaining (Erklren), while knowledge of
the unreal and non-empirical world of values and meanings, and
their meaningful configurations, is a typically Cultural-Scientific understanding (Verstehen). For example, we can explain through experiments
and measurements the psychological processes that go on in the
psyche of a religious person. In that case, the psychologist will not
be interested in the specific content of the religious values this person adheres to. He searches rather for a detection and explanation
of general, psychological processes which may as well occur in aesthetic emotions or lust experiences. But we can, in any case, not
explain in such a natural-scientific, generalizing way the values and
meanings of the specific religious sect to which this person belongs.
That would require a dierent approach, the approach of Cultural
Science in which understanding rather than explaining, and also historical, individualizing research, would be necessary.
In the case of an individual religious believer within the context
of an historically specific religious sect, we, of course, want to understand what is going on within his mind and soul: what is it that
makes him believe the doctrines, observe the rituals and attend the
ceremonies of this particular sect? That, it is obvious, must have
something to do with values and meanings. We want to understand
not the general psychological processes of true believers (that is the

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task of the psychological discipline), but the experience of values and

meanings by persons who may be very dierent from us, who may
be even alien to us, as in the case of believers of a strange sect, or
of members of a civilization far back in the past. For this kind of
understanding, Rickert admits, we must indeed rely on empathy or
introspection. This is a remarkable step! Although Rickert castigates
Dilthey ironically, as we saw above, for his focus on something
inside, he himself now needs to introduce the inner psyche as the
focus of empathetic understanding! Yet, he keeps denying that this
is in fact psychology, mainly because he has, as it were, fixed psychology to the Natural-Scientific pole of the continuum.
In any case, empathy or introspection, he argues now, is of special importance to history as the Cultural Science par excellence, because
by investigating historical records (archives, archeological discoveries, etc.) historians try to understand how human beings in the past
were related to values and meanings, how these values and meanings were experienced in the often distanced past.94 This can only
be done through empathic introspection. Naturally, the historian will
also study the cultural goods of the past (the institutions, organizations, movements, theories, etc.) since they are the empirical embodiments of the non-empirical values and meanings of those days. This
understanding of the meanings, the values and the norms coincides
with empathy or introspection regarding the psyche, mind or consciousness of the person or persons involved. This, of course, demands
a further explanation. As to empathy, the essential question is how
it could be possible to draw valid conclusions from the direct experience of our own psyche about the strange psyche of others (in the
present or the past) that obviously cannot be experienced directly.95
Rickert distinguishes understanding (Verstehen) and empathy (Nacherleben). He
gives a heuristically helpful example. Often someone expresses words which

94
It is interesting to remember once more the approach of so-called cliometrics
which investigates archives natural-scientifically (statistically) and searches for general regularities (laws) with the aim to explain rather than to understand the workings of a societal and economic configuration like slavery.
95
Obviously, historians, archeologists in particular, will also often need to explain
things in a Natural-Scientific manner, as for example in the case of the chemical
compositions of food remnants, found in archeological sites, or, in these days, in
the case of the genetic (DNA) composition of bones in human skeletons. This is
the domain of explaining (Erklren) which for claritys sake is disregardedat the
moment.

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we understand completely and immediately, and which for that reason are
familiar. (This is similar to Diltheys elementary form of understanding.)
Yet, at the same time, they may strike us as being strange, preventing
any feeling of empathy. This paradox of familiar and strange is illustrated by Rickert with the help of the following example. After World War
I a German expresses his satisfaction about the Peace of Versailles.96 One
thing is clear, Germans in the 1920s did understand immediately the unreal
meaning (den irrealen Sinn) of these words. They knew, in particular, without any reflection the meaning of the familiar words Peace of Versailles.
The reaction could indeed be: I know what you mean. But having experienced this war, most Germans in Rickerts days, including, we may assume
safely, Rickert himself, would at the same time find the statement rather
strange. They may respond by saying: I know what you mean, but find
your statement strange. We encounter here, Rickert argues, the distinction between the understanding of the unreal (non-empirical) meaning of the
words and the empathy (or, in this case the lack of empathy) with the real
(empirical) psychic processes within the other.97 Now, if they do not angrily
dismiss the other and turn their back on him, his fellow-Germans could,
of course, make an eort to understand the psyche of the other who
expressed these words. To him who expresses these words, they are not at
all strange but on the contrary rather lively (lebendig), to his fellowGermans they are not, or in any case, not yet lively at all. They had at
least initially great troubles to empathize (Nacherleben) with what to him was
lively.
Now if they were historians, they might try to overcome this gap between
their own psyche and the strange psyche of the other who expressed
his satisfaction about the Peace of Versailles. However, it is only possible
to know and understand directly ones own psyche, whereas there is no
direct road from ones own psyche to that of another. There is only the
indirect road via the understandable meanings and meaning configurations

In a subtle value-judgment Rickert places Peace between quotation marks:

Frieden. Ibid., p. 575.
In fact, the example given here is itself based upon a political value-judgment
which, according to his own theory, is inadmissible, certainly in a logical exposition. The following quote is pregnant in this respect: We may content ourselves
with the statement that a German who expresses satisfaction with the Peace of
Versailles, thinks like a Frenchman, and perhaps we try to empathize with that
statement on the ground of the psychological knowledge that there are people
everywhere who, because they have had little luck in their fatherland, rejoice when
the others fare badly also. (Wir begngen uns eventuell damit, zu sagen, ein
Deutscher, der ber den Frieden von Versailles Genugtuung empfindet, denkt wie
ein Franzose, und das suchen wir vielleicht nachzuerleben auf Grund der psychologischen Kenntnis, dass es berall Menschen gibt, die, weil sie in ihrem
Vaterland wenig Glck gehabt haben, sich freuen, wenn es den Anderen ebenfalls
schlecht geht.). Ibid., p. 579.
97
This, of course, reminds us of the earlier discussed distinction of Frege between
Sinn and Bedeutung.
96

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of the expressed words. German historians in Rickerts example will remind

themselves of the unreal, but understandable meaning and value of the
words Peace of Versailles, and next remember through introspection how
the words of satisfaction regarding this peace may be strange to themselves, yet are apparently familiar to others. In other words, they will
place themselves in the position of the other who expressed the words of
satisfaction, and understand through their meanings and meaning configurations what has probably gone on in his mind and psyche, when he spoke
such understandable, yet strange words. However, this is not to say that,
in terms of value-judgments, they will agree and sympathize with the content
of the words.98
Historians will not be satisfied with a mere understanding of meanings
and meaning configurations of the past, but want to know also what is
going on in the mind and psyche of the strange and alien persons
under scientific scrutiny: what is driving them? They can only reach these
strange and alien minds and psyches of the past indirectly by a combination of (a) the understanding of the values and meanings to which their
objects of research have been related and (b) by realizing through introspection how he himself is related to values and meanings, and how they
become lively (lebendig) in his own psyche and mind. Rickert calls this
Nacherleben, i.e. living through what others experience or have experienced.
The distance to Dilthey is now rather small. The dierence is, of course,
that Rickert focuses beyond the Diltheyean expression upon the general
meaning and value configurations which form the understandable context
of the historical object under investigationin the case of the above example, the person who expressed his at first sight strange opinion of being
satisfied with the Peace of Versailles. And the other dierence is, of course,
that Dilthey views in this whole operation of empathic understanding the
core of the psychological discipline, whereas Rickert sticks to his almost
dogmatic conviction that psychology is and should be a generalizing, i.e.
natural-scientific discipline.

As he does so often, Rickert tries to explain all this by entering into

a critical discussion with a fellow-philosopher. In this case he does
not address himself to Dilthey which is quite understandable since
his ideas about empathy are in fact so similar to Diltheys hermeneutic psychology. He addresses himself critically to a theorem of Max
Scheler who claims that it is incorrect to say that only ones own

This is similar to George Herbert Meads theorem of the taking the role or
position of the other. See my De theorie van het symbolisch interactionisme, (The Theory
of Symbolic Interactionism), (Amsterdam: Boom Meppel, 1973), pp. 7385. As we
saw also in Chapter Three there are, despite Rickerts dislike of Pragmatism, distinct similarities between some basic theorems of Mead and Rickerts epistemology
and methodology.
98

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psyche could be known or understood directly, that however the psyche of others could not be understood without mediation.99 As dierent
as individual human beings may be, Scheler argues, they nevertheless all share the same kind of psychological constitution. But although
corporeal sensations like erotic lust or physical pain are often similar, they are yet never identical. As to their kind and degree of intensity such bodily sensations are experienced by each of us personally
and dierently. However, psychological sensations like grief or sorrow, joy and happiness are not only similar but also identical. We
can immediately empathize with the psychological sorrow or joy of
someone else. Rickert questions this. Schelers argument, Rickert
points out, suers from the psychologistic error which fails to acknowledge that the human psyche and its processes are empirical and real
phenomena which we cannot immediately, without mediation, enter
into, just as we cannot directly get at the things and processes of
the objective world around us. Psycho-physical sensations such as
lust, or pain, or joy in others cannot directly be understood but only
reached at through the mediation of related meanings and meaning configurations which in their turn, as we saw before, are related
to generally valid values.
We do not feel precisely what someone else feels, when he is in
grief, or experiences pain or joy. But we do know what grief, or
lust, or joy, or pain means since such psychological processes are
related to non-empirical values which are deemed to be valid. Grief ,
pain or joy are value-laden phenomena with a position in our
general culture. When it is said it was one joy, one grief, one delight
that got hold on the population,100 we realize that each individual
alone experiences his or her private joy, grief or delight, as far as
these are psychological (empirical) realities. The experience is private and individual, but the understandable meaning of such a national
joy, or grief, or delight is related to a objectively valid value (e.g.
the nation), virtually shared by the entire population. Incidentally,
Rickert, we saw in Chapter Three, is aware of the fact that there
will always be dissidents who evaluate such national sentiments not
positively, e.g. as a laudable patriotism, but negatively, e.g. as a

For this debate with Scheler see Grenzen, pp. 568575.

Quotation marks by Rickert: es war eine Freude, ein Leid, ein Entzcken das
die Bevlkerung ergri. Ibid., p. 574.
99

100

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despicable nationalism, since in the realm of values each positive

value has its opposite counterpart: true-false, good-evil, beautiful-ugly,
lust-pain, divine-demonic, etc.
In conclusion, understanding is, according to Rickert, empathy but
not as a direct feeling into the mind and psyche of others, either
in the present or in the past. Verstehen is rather an indirect process,
a combination of (a) an understanding of the non-empirical, valuerelated meanings in the context of which people think, act and feel;
and (b) the empathic introspection of the observer or investigator
which teaches him how the values of his cultural environment and
the connected meanings are lively at work within his own psyche
and mind enabling him by analogy to grasp what is going on in the
minds of others past and present. Verstehen is a combination of (a)
and (b). Rickert calls it empathic understanding.101
Again, he admits that he is unable to present a satisfactory theory of the process of understanding and that much remains unclarified.
But he hopes to have presented some first steps towards a sober
understanding of understanding which is, he adds, scientifically more
valuable than the carousing in the abstruseness and secretiveness of
the geisteswissenschaftlichen Verstehen.102 It is questionable, if he
has managed to exceed Dilthey who kept calling his psychological
theory of understanding geisteswissenschaftlich, in clarity and lucidity.
VALUE-RELATIONSHIP, RELATING TO VALUES AND ABSTAINING
FROM VALUE-JUDGMENTS
It need not to be repeated again: value-freedom is not possible in history, or in Cultural Science, since, as Vico and others after him
have argued time and again, the objects of Cultural Science are like
its subjects human: human beings, human artifacts, human events,
etc. Unlike the animals and atoms, molecules, light waves and sound
waves, etc. of the natural sciences, the people and their cultural
goods are not and can not be free from values. Nor are the historians, or the researchers of Cultural Science, ever free from values

nacherlebenes Verstehen. Rickert, o.c., p. 582.

wissenschaftlich wertvoller als das Schwelgen in dem Tiefsinn und in den
Geheimnissen des geistewissenschaftlichen Verstehens. Ibid., p. 559.
101

102

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and normative value-judgments with regard to the values and valuejudgments of their objects of research. Natural scientists too are, of
course, not just in their personal lives but also in their research,
related to values, truth in particular. Moreover, science and research
are values too, objectified values, or in Rickerts terminology, cultural goods. Scientists are related to these values, loyal to and dependent on these goods. They even in some cases believe in Science as
in a kind of religious or ideological substitute. It is called scientism.
But these values and value-judgments of the natural scientists do
obviously not stand in any relationships to any values of their objects
of research, as is the case in Cultural Science, since the objects of
natural-scientific research are simply value-free, value-indierent.
What is at stake here is the logical and methodological nature and
dierences of value-relatedness (value-relationship) as a fact, the relating to values as a practice and the abstaining from value-judgments
as a methodological rule or norm. In the debates on the so-called
value-freedom of the social sciences fact, practice and norm are usually mixed up.
Cultural Science, we have seen before, in contrast to Natural
Science is characterized methodologically by the fact that it not only
focuses on what is individual, particular, or unique, but also reduces
the complexity of reality as a heterogeneous continuum by constantly
referring, or relating to values, because by means of this relating to
values (Wertbeziehung) the essential and relevant is separated from the
inessential and irrelevant. Moreover, as we also saw before, the historian as the representative par excellence of Cultural Science is enabled
to focus on what is individual, particular or unique because he relates
his objects of investigation to values. Only he who, or that which is
related to values, can logically be singled out from the irrational
chaos of facts, objects, and living beings as individual, particular,
unique.
There are, obviously, various kinds of value-relationship which,
incidentally, Rickert does not always distinguish sharply enough. To
begin with, there is the sociological fact that the objects of historical investigationhuman beings, events, works of art, organizations
or institutionsare always related to values. If the historian wants
to investigate the life and works of Erasmus or Napoleon in order
to write their biographies, he will have to study their cultural contexts, their contemporary sets of values, norms and meanings to
which they are positively or negatively related. This is the value-

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relationship of the object of historical research. However, the historian himself is, of course, also related to his own contemporary values, norms and meanings which, needless to say, will dier significantly
from those of Erasmus or Napoleon. This is in both cases the factual, sociologically determined, past and present value-relationship
(Wertbezogenheit). To formulate it somewhat bluntly, value-relatedness
(or value-relationship) is a fact like gravity. It is senseless to deny it,
or to revolt against it.
Secondly, there is the act of relating objects of investigation to
values by the historian (Wertbeziehung) which Rickert defines as a theoretical act in contrast to the practical act of expressing a normative value-judgment (Wertung). The latter is not just a relating to
values, but a practical (political, religious, aesthetic, etc.) evaluation
of present or past realities. Rickert stresses the fact that the theoretical relating of objects to values remains within the domain of
scientific determination of facts and it is for that reason that he calls
relating to values theoretical. But the expression of normative valuejudgments (evaluations, Wertungen) in terms of praise and reproach
departs from the domain of science, belongs rather to the atheoretical world of religious, political, artistic, etc. practice. It is for that
reason that he calls value-judgments practical. Or, in other words,
it is a fact that people acknowledge certain values as valid values
and try to produce in relation to these values cultural goods. In
his research the historian separates relevant facts from irrelevant
ones in accordance with this relating to values of the people under
investigation.
Yet, he is not concerned with the question whether these values
are objectively valid: The value-relating procedure (. . .) must therefore
be separated (. . .) as sharply as possible from the evaluating procedure. That means, values are only relevant for history in so far as
they are de facto evaluated by subjects and in so far as, therefore,
certain objects are to be considered de facto as cultural goods.103 To
give an example from after Rickerts death, it is for an historian as
a cultural scientist irrelevant what the validity of Hitlers worldview

103
Rickert, Das wertbeziehende Verfahren (. . .) ist also (. . .) auf das schrfste vom
wertenden Verfahren zu trennen, und das heisst: fr die Geschichte kommen die
Werte nur insofern in Betracht, als sie faktisch von Subjekten gewertet und daher
faktisch gewisse Objekte als Gter betrachtet werden. Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft,
p. 112. Italics by HR.

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and its values was or is. These values are only historically relevant
in so far as they were evaluated positively or negatively, and deemed
valid or invalid between 1933 and 1945 by Nazis and anti-Nazis,
and in so far as the Nazi party NSDAP and the resistance movements had developed into cultural goods, i.e. objectified crystallizations of the Nazi and anti-Nazi values. All this is, of course,
notwithstanding the possibility, or even the human obligation, to disclaim Hitlers worldview morally in strong terms, and thus to judge
it morally invalid. But one has then made a logical transitiona
metabasis eis allo genosfrom the scientific (theoretical) to the moral
(atheoretical) realm. The historian ought to be conscious of such a
logical transition.
Even if in the eyes of the historian (i.e. in his own experience of
values, norms and meanings) none of the values under investigation
carry any validity, the fact remains that the practical relating to the
values, expressed in value-judgments by the people under investigation, assists the historian to separate the scientifically relevant from
the scientifically irrelevant. That is to say, without practical valuejudgments on his part, but by theoretically exhibiting the value-relatedness of his objects under investigation, the historian can determine
what is and what is not relevant and significant. Or, in other words
still, it is through his theoretical relating to the values and the valuejudgments of the people under investigation that historical individua
emerge.104 For example, historians will generally agree that the events
called French Revolution have been significant and important for
the further political, social and cultural development of France and
Europe, and that therefore these events are in their individuality,
particularity and uniqueness historically essential and relevant. Yet,
historians will not be able to prove scientifically that the French
Revolution has fostered or injured the political, social and cultural
developments of France and Europe in terms of progress or decline.
Those are normative, practical value-judgments which ought to be
kept out of any scientific enterprise.105 In fact, in the world of values and normative value-judgments there exists no objective validity
but a permanent conflict about what is deemed to be positive or
negative.106
104
105
106

Ibid., p. 113.
Ibid., p. 114.
Idem.

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CULTURAL-SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVITY
All this leads to a complex set of questions about the objectivity of
Cultural Science in general and history as a Cultural Science in particular. Does all this not end up in historicism and relativism?107
Although he criticizes him as the journalist of science whose thought displays a constant, restless fluctuation, a crowding of questions upon questions, a dropping of problems once taken up and a failure to keep apart
historical and systematic problems, Karl Mannheim (18931947) sees the
voluminous study Der Historismus und seine Probleme (1922) by Ernst Troeltsch
(18651923) as the main source of inspiration for his own theory of historicism.108 In fact, he follows Troeltsch when he claims that historical
knowledge can only be acquired, if the historian occupies an ascertainable
intellectual position (Standort) (. . . .) harboring definite aspirations regarding
the future and actively striving to achieve them. Only out of interest which
the presently acting subject has in the pattern of the future, does the observation of the past become possible. The trend of historical selection, the
form of objectification and representation becomes understandable only in
terms of the orientation of present activity.109 But also the objects of historical research must be seen in terms of their sociological positional determination (Standortgebundenheit).110 Troeltsch, Mannheim relates with approval,
rejected neo-Kantian epistemology because of its alleged formalistic conception of the knowing subject, but he obviously failed to notice Rickerts
theory of the value-relatedness of both the subject and the object of historical research which comes close to his own positional determination . . .
Mannheim broadens Troeltschs theories considerably, defining historicism as something more than just a scientific methodology. Historicism in
Mannheims view is a worldview (Weltanschauung), a way of life and a state
of consciousness which came into being, he adds, after the religiously
determined medieval picture of the world had disintegrated and when the
subsequent Enlightenment, with its dominant idea of a supra-temporal
Reason, had destroyed itself.111 Mannheim attacks neo-Kantian, allegedly
formalistic epistemology in favor of a clearly vitalistic standpoint. Historicism

107
Cf. Guy Oakes, Weber and Rickert. Concept Formation in the Cultural Sciences,
(Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, UK: The MIT Press, 1988). It discusses primarily the problem of the objectivity of the cultural sciences as analyzed and allegedly
not at all solved by Rickert and Weber.
108
Karl Mannheim, Historicism, 1924, in: Karl Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology
of Knowledge, transl and ed. By P. Keckskemeti, (New York: Oxford University Press,
1952), pp. 84134; quotation: p. 98 (slightly altered by me in accordance with the
German original text, ACZ).
109
Ibid., p. 102.
110
Ibid., p. 103.
111
Ibid., p. 85.

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does not only see and experience every segment of the spiritual-intellectual world as in a state of flux and growth, it also seeks to derive an ordering principle from this seeming anarchy of changeonly by managing to
penetrate the innermost structure of this all-pervading change.112
Rickert, of course, would object to the vitalistic core of Mannheims historicism and would probably have joined Karl Popper who radically criticized the historicists faith in historical laws and its utopian social engineering,
both of which are scientifically unacceptable and indefensible.113 In Die
Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie (The Problems of the Philosophy of History),
1924, Rickert devotes a small section to historicism which he labels an
absurdity (ein Unding) since it is couched in relativism and skepticism. That
must end up in a radical nihilism which always dissolves itself, because it
also has to annihilate itself.114 He is convinced that a philosophy of history
which wants to avoid the nihilism of historicism needs the concept of
progress. The past must not only be mediated and reconstructed but also
critically evaluated in terms of what ought to be (was sein soll). That, of
course, comes close to metaphysics which, as he always has emphasized,
has no place in a scientific philosophy oriented towards the empirical reality.

The historian is related to the values of his own cultural context and
will approach the objects under investigation in terms of this valuerelationship. As a result, a historian will not and cannot be valuefree in the sense of Natural Science. In fact, Rickert admits, he will
often subject his objects and their values and value-relationships to
normative (positive and/or negative) value-judgments which are, of
course, not his private opinions because those are not very interesting and relevant. They are rather judgments that relate to the leading cultural values of his days. Historians will often relate and refer
to these leading values of their cultural environment in order to
express the historical importance or significance of historical events
and processes. In other words, such judgments related to the shared
Ibid., p. 86.
Karl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism, 1957, (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1969), pp. 6471: Piecemeal versus Utopian Engineering. By his one-sided
(very critical) focus on Karl Mannheim who identified historicism with a sociology
of knowledge, Popper wrongly attacked and radically rejected this type of sociology. Cf. Peter L. Berger, Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality. A
Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966) which refutes
from the start Mannheims approach and takes Alfred Schutzs phenomenology as
theoretical frame of reference. Being the positivist he was, Popper would probably
also have rejected this type of sociology though, but could not have accused it of
either historicism or holism.
114
Heinrich Rickert, Die Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie, (Heidelberg: Carl Winters
Universittsbuchhandlung, 1924), pp. 129132: Der Historismus und seine berwindung. Quotation: p. 129.
112
113

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277

values of the historians cultural context will help to demarcate the

field of historical research. Yet, he should abstain from personal and
private (positive or negative) value-judgments, nor is it his task to
determine, whether the objects of his historical investigation are moral
or immoral, beautiful or hideous, truthful or mendacious, lustful
or painful, etc. This is, of course, not easy since human beings are
intrinsically evaluating creatures. An example, not oered by Rickert
but in the spirit of his ideas, may illustrate this. A dictator responsible for genocide is scientifically relevant because of this abhorrent
fact of mass murder. But a biographer should abstain from further
value-judgments for the duration of his research, trying to collect as
many objective facts about the dictators regime as possible. He
should even try to understand empathically what inspired the dictator to commit or condone such abhorrent acts. What drove him,
what caused his dictatorship, what were the values and anti-values
he related to, what were and still are the meaning and significance
of his written and spoken words?
Rickert admits further that historical investigations, or Cultural
Science in general, are mutually dierent according to dierences of
the cultural contexts to which they are value-related. He calls it the
variety of leading value-related points of view (die Verschiedenheit der
leitenden Wertgesichtspunkte). A simple example, given by Rickert, illustrates his point. The rejection of the emperors crown by Friedrich
Wilhelm IV is historically interesting, relevant, essential. After all, it
is a bold act to refuse such an exalted oce, certainly in those days.
And the refusal had important political consequences to boot. However, it is historically completely irrelevant who this particular princes
tailor has been. That is to say, it is irrelevant in terms of political
history, because from the viewpoint of the history of fashion or of the
dress-making craft, it may again be very relevant to know who this
particular tailor has been.115 This has two methodologically far-reaching consequences. First there is obviously a shifting of historical relevances in line with the perennial changes and transformations of
cultural contexts. This fact is expressed by the clich dictum that
each generation re-writes history and writes its own history. It entails,
secondly, a pluriformity of historical perspectives which is, for instance,
demonstrated by the co-existence of dierent historical schools. The

115

Rickert, Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft, p. 115f.

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question then emerges, of course, if there is any historical objectivity.

Or re-phrased negatively, do these two consequences not imply that
history, or Cultural Science, is at the end of the day hopelessly arbitrary, if not totally subjective, and beyond that turned over to relativism? If that were true, if Cultural Science were couched in arbitrariness
and subjectivism, Rickert argues, it would no longer be scientific. Unlike
common-sense and everyday-life experience, science wants to be systematic and is always in search of objective, i.e. absolute and timeless truth. What then is the objectivity of history, or Cultural Science?
And what is its systematic nature?
The concepts of the empirical generalizing natural sciences, Rickert
reminds us, are forged by one generation of researchers, and modified
or radically overhauled again by the next generation, which in its
turn will have to accept the fact that their concepts and theories will
be succeeded by often quite dierent ones in the following generation. In fact, Rickert points out, Natural Science and empirical natural-scientific research are themselves historical inventions, cultural
goods, which in time have emerged in the European cultural context and which, as is the case with all cultural goods, are taken care
of sedulously in universities and laboratories.116
In the recent history of science the leading focus is no longer exclusively
on scientific concepts and theories of the past, but rather on scientific practices, on science in action.117 The historians Steven Shapin and Simon
Schaer engaged in a detailed historical reconstruction and interpretation
of the controversy between Boyle and Hobbes over the scientific, societal
and political importance of experiments and experimental life. It is a commonly accepted wisdom that with the invention of the air-pump Robert
Boyle established himself in the world of science as the father and founder
of the experimental method and of the experimental life of scientists (experimentalism) beyond that. Thomas Hobbes was from the start a fierce opponent of Boyle, but was immediately put aside and even ridiculed as an
ignoramus by the Royal Academy first and the larger scientific community
of his and later days next. Thus emerged what Shapin and Schaer call
members accounts versus strangers accounts, i.e. positions taken by
the insiders of experimentalism and positions of outsiders and contenders
of experimentalism. Shapin and Schaer did not intend to prove that Hobbes

Ibid., p. 173.
Cf. Bruno Latour, Science in Action, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1987). It is a detailed study of what goes on in laboratories and other centers of scientific research.
116

117

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was in fact right and Boyle wrong, or the other way around, but rather
assumed the role of strangers vis--vis the community of Boyle followers,
and next studied the debate and in particular the arguments and actions
of the Boyle camp from this assumed standpoint: We have said that we
shall be setting out by pretending to adopt a strangers perspective with
respect to the experimental program; we shall do this because we have set
ourselves the historical task of inquiring into why experimental practices
were accounted proper and how such practices were considered to yield
reliable knowledge. As part of the same exercise we shall be adopting something close to a members account of Hobbess anti-experimentalism. That
is to say, we want to put ourselves in a position where objections to the
experimental programme seem plausible, sensible, and rational.118 (Rickert
would have applauded such a heterological approach!)
The interesting part of this contrary methodology is the fact that the
mechanisms of power of an established and authoritative in-group like the
Boyle experimentalists, are being demonstrated, while the belief in the selfevident nature of the experimentalist truth is being questioned. Both historians set out to break down the aura of self-evidence surrounding the
experimental way of producing knowledge. (. . . .) Of course, our ambition
is not to rewrite the clear judgment of history: Hobbess views found little
support in the English natural philosophical community. (. . . .) Giving other
circumstances bearing upon that philosophical community, Hobbess views
might well have found a dierent reception.119 This gives an important
clue of what objectivity is all about in the cultural-scientific context of historyin this case the history of science. As in a thought experiment both
historians assume the position of a stranger to the experimentalist community, then the texts and facts of the debate are carefully studied from
an outsiders point of view. That yields fruitful insights and knowledge of
the working of power and authority within an in-group that is certain of
the self-evidence of its truth. Boyle was wrong, Hobbes was right? That
is not what these historians set out to prove. All they did was to question
the taken-for-granted assumption that Hobbes was an ignoramus in respect
to the experimentalist issue, and beyond that to lay bare the mechanisms
of power and authoritarianism of an in-group of believers. Actually, Shapin
and Shaer apply to historical research the principle of democratic justice
formulated as hearing the other side. They hope in this way to come
closer to an objective evaluation of the past.
That the accounts of a stranger entail epistemological objectivity was
argued convincingly by Georg Simmel in his short essay on The Stranger.
Simmel claimed that the stranger s outsider-position entails both objectivity

118
Steven Shapin, Simon Schaer, Leviathan and the Air-Pump. Hobbes, Boyle, and
Experimental Life, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985, p. 12f.
119
Ibid., p. 13. The Latin text of Hobbess attack on Boyle Dialogus Physicus de
Natura Aeris was, according to Shapin and Schaer, never translated and read by
his critics. Simon Schaer translated it and added it to his and Shapins book.

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and freedom: Objectivity may also be defined as freedom: the objective

individual is bound by no commitments which could prejudice his perception, understanding, and evaluation of the given. It provides the stranger
with critical a birds-eye view.120

The main dierence between the objectivity of Natural Science and

that of Cultural Science is that the natural laws and the concepts
of generalizing Natural Science are unconditionally valid, even if we
did not possess any knowledge of them. That is, the various naturalscientific concepts come more or less close to an absolutely valid
truth, while the historical expositions lack such a relationship to an
absolutely valid truth, as long as the leading principles of their conceptualizations consist of actual evaluations which, Rickert adds,
come and go like the waves in the sea.121
The objectivity of a specialized historical investigation, say of the
dress making craft in 17th century Germany, is in a sense assured
by the relationship to the leading contextual values of the historical
specialist in question. There is a forum of historical specialists who
deem this topic relevant and the majority of whom is devoted to
such a kind of historical research. In a sense, this forum of fellow
historians and the interested readers of the subsequent publications
on the dress making craft in 17th century Germany will acknowledge the value of his scientific endeavor and thus constitute the objective (intersubjective)122 validity of the results of his research. A problem
arises, when one transcends this level of empirical specialization and
operates at a higher level of generality, usually called universal history (Universalgeschichte). At this level, Rickert argues, we need an
objective and systematic concept of culture consisting of a system of
objectively valid values. Such a concept of an objectively valid and
systematic culture which is the logical and methodological equivalent of the absolutely valid concepts and laws of Natural Science,
does not exist in reality, Rickert asserts. It must remain a hypothesis, orand these are not Rickerts wordsa kind of dream or

120
Georg Simmel, The Stranger, in: Kurt H. Wol (ed. and transl.): The Sociology
of Georg Simmel, (London: The Free Press of Glencoe; Collier-Macmillan, 1964), pp.
402408; quotation: p. 405.
121
die kommen und gehen wie die Wellen im Meer. Kulturwissenschaft und
Naturwissenschaft, p. 165.
122
Rickert does not use the concepts intersubjectivity and intersubjective but I think
they do adequately cover what he meant to say about cultural-scientific objectivity.

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utopia, which the empirical, specialized historical investigations try

to approach as closely as possible.123
It is, one may add, not the utopian dream of the historicist which
Popper castigated. One is rather reminded of Kants concept of a
transcendental Idea which is a possibility, a postulate, not a reality.
In this concept of a hypothetical, objectively valid and systematic
culture we find an equivalent of the objectivity and systematic nature
of Natural Science: The unconditionally, generally valid value which
is more or less realized by our cultural goods, must correspond with
the unconditionally, generally valid law of nature which the generalizing sciences search for.124 Rickert is, however, quite honest, when
he sighs that he might not have given satisfactory answers to the
many reservations this theory will evoke. But then, he says as an
excuse, the relationship of science to the validity and the systematic
nature of values contains dicult problems, which he has addressed
previously, he adds, in his epistemological treatise Gegenstand der
Erkenntnis (cf. Chapter Three).125
However, it is possible and legitimate to speculate about the absolute
objectivity of values beyond the mere hypotheses to which the empirical, specialized, cultural sciences have to restrict themselves. At this
point we, of course, remember Rickerts concept of the full-filled
reality as the coping stone of his conceptualization of the reality-intoto. It was discussed at the end of the former chapter where there
was this remarkable shift from the realm of science to that of metaphysics. In that realm the normal concepts of science could not be
used anymore. The metaphysical concepts are rather symbols or allegories, referring to virtual, sur-real realities. In his search for an
absolute objectivity of Cultural Science, Rickert again leaves the
scientific, empirical domain and transfers to the metaphysical,
non-empirical domain, which is theoretically no longer covered by
scientific history but by philosophy of history (Geschichtsphilosophie). It
is presented as the heterological counterpart of natural philosophy

123
See his monograph Probleme, chapter 3: Die Geschichtsphilosophie als
Universalgeschichte, o.c., pp. 121156.
124
Dem unbedingt allgemeingltigen Gesetz der Natur, das die generalisierenden
Wissenschaften suchen, muss dann der unbedingt allgemeingltige Wert entsprechen,
den unsere Kulturgter mehr oder weniger realisieren. Ibid., 169f.
125
das Verhltnis der Wissenschaft zur Geltung und Systematik der Werte enthlt
schwierige Probleme. Ibid., p. 169.

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(Naturphilosophie).126 Sciences always operate empirically, never metaphysically. However, the scientific disciplines adhering to the methods of Cultural Science are permanently in danger of falling back
on naturalism (or neo-positivism) which is, as we saw before, the
belief that Natural Science is the only legitimate scientific approach
to reality. It entails, of course, a radical denial of the world of meanings, values and norms which is in itself rather ideological, metaphysical and thus unscientific. But Rickert also wanted to avoid the
opposite error which claims that social reality cannot be investigated
in a generalizing, natural-scientific manner because human beings
are not only value-related, but also conscious and free. They are
individuals whose thoughts, emotions and acts ought not to be
explained in terms of natural-scientific laws of causality (Erklren), but
can allegedly only be understood (Verstehen) in an empathic manner.
We have seen how Rickert accepts the notion of empathic understanding (of the values of the subjects under historical investigation),
but rejects any metaphysical connotations, since metaphysics can
never be part of empirical and specialized, scientific investigations.
All that belongs to the domain of philosophy, or the philosophy of
history.
Since we focus in this chapter on the logic and methodology of
history and related cultural sciences, we will not deal with Rickerts
endeavors in the domains of metaphysics. Much of it has been covered already by the former chapter. There is one final issue we still
must discuss: Rickerts dealing with the idea of causality in Cultural
Science.
CAUSALITY IN CULTURAL SCIENCE
Rickert, we saw in the Introduction and in the second chapter, is
often in opposition to fashionable ideas and theories, and discusses
them, as it were e contrario, in order to be able to clarify his own
thinking. Causality in history, or in Cultural Science is, in his day
particularly, a hotly debated issue giving rise to conceptualizations
and methodological propositions which he takes apart analytically

126
See the last part of Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begrisbildung, entitled
Naturphilosophie und Geschichtsphilosophie, ibid., pp. 624736.

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without compromises, often operating on the sharp edge of his logical raiser blade.
So, in the tradition of Geisteswissenschaft it has been popular to
claim that causality has no place in it, since human beings are free
and therefore not caught in the webs of cause and eect.127 Consequently, its approach is allegedly not causal, i.e. its focus is
not causally on origins, but teleologically on ends. In this teleogical
focus man is defined as being essentially free. Needless to say that
Rickert rejects such metaphysical juxtapositions. Often, he argues,
the concept of freedom is, together with that of casualness (Zuflligkeit),
dished up as the opposing counterpart of causality. Freedom is then
reduced to something like causelessness (Ursachlosigkeit) which is philosophically not very helpful. One may believe in freedom as a kind
of transcendent freedom of the will, but it is logically very hazardous to apply such a concept to an empirical science like history,
let alone to found its methodology upon it. History as a specialized
cultural science can admittedly not apply the generalizing concepts
and methods of Natural Science, but that is the case not because its
objects of investigation, human beings, are allegedly free creatures,
but because these creatures must be investigated and understood in
their individuality, particularity and uniqueness. Causality is logically
not the issue, the generalizing method is! As we saw before, history
as a Cultural Science is characterized by the individualizing approach,
not by the alleged fact that it focuses on human freedom. Thus, the
idea that history is concerned with free individuals which is then
contrasted to Natural Science whose objects and processes are causally
conditioned, does logically and methodologically not make sense.128
It is not an empirical but a metaphysical idea.
Much confusion around the idea of the causal method which he
calls a meaningless catchword,129 are caused, according to Rickert,
by the erroneous identification of the concept of empirical causality
with that of conceptual, law like regularity (Gesetzmssigkeit). There is an
127
This is not the place to discuss in depth Max Webers theory of culturalscientific causality which he interprets in terms of causal imputation which he links
to rational ideal types. See e.g. Max Weber, Knies und das Irrationalittsproblem,
in: Gesammelte Aufstze zur Wissenschaftslehre, o.c., pp. 42145, particularly pp. 127.
Rickerts echo, as discussed in more detail in Chapter Six, is loud and clear in
these logical considerations of Weber.
128
Rickert, Grenzen, p. 378.
129
Rickert, Probleme, p. 48.

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important, often overlooked dierence between them: in order to be

real, empirically causal relations are individual, particular and nonrepeatable realities, whereas the laws of Natural Science are not real
but conceptual, not individual but general. So we ought to speak of
individual causal connections as empirical realities and of general,
natural laws as abstract concepts.130 This holds true for both Natural
Science and Cultural Science.
Max Weber follows Rickert in this logical distinction closely, but re-phrases
it as follows. Discussing the duality of cause and eect he introduces the
two concepts real origin (Realgrund) and epistemic origin (Erkenntnisgrund)
and warns never to confuse them. He gives two examples to clarify the
distinction. There was in his days an anthropologist who had studied the
relationships between the sexes in two American-Indian tribes. He then
concluded that these relationships caused the formation of a state and he,
in addition, claimed that this case was typical for all state formations and
thus possessed universally historical relevance. Now, Weber argues, it is
obvious that the alleged state formation among these Indian tribes did not
have any real, empirical impact on state formations elsewhere in the world.
In that respectthat is, as real originthis historical and empirical case
of state building has been of no importance whatsoever. However, Weber
continues, it is possible that the anthropologists analysis of this specific case
of state building may be heuristically eective in that it provides knowledge about how states are generally being formed. This specific case of
state formation may well be, heuristically useful, and thus present an epistemological origin.
The second example stems from the world of nature, as Weber phrases
it. The concrete X-rays that Rntgen saw flash from his screen, left concrete eects in his environment which, according to the law of the conservation of energy, must still be eective in the cosmos. However, it is not
this real, cosmic cause-and-eect that render these discovered X-rays important and relevant, but the fact that they and Rntgens experiments increased
our knowledge about the laws of these rays in particular and of energy in
general.131
Logically this distinction, as phrased by Weber, remains, I find, questionable. The real origin can, of course, never be detected without the
intervention of concepts and is thus, in the end epistemological as well.
That is proven by Webers own theory of causal imputation by means of
ideal types.132 Moreover, he tries to connect this logical distinction of Realgrund
and Erkenntnisgrund with Windelbands and Rickerts methodological distinction of the idiographic/individualizing and nomothetic/generalizing

130
131
132

Idem.
Weber, Wissenschaftslehre, pp. 234238.
Ibid., pp. 190214.

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approaches to reality, but gets, in my opinion, quite confused in the process.133

Rickert avoids such confusions by sticking to his dierentiation of the individualizing and generalizing methods as two heterological, correlated modes
of scientific knowledge of reality.

Historical factspersons, things, events, institutions, etc.are never

isolated realities as they are always constitutive parts of larger totalities, and they continuously act upon each other in terms of cause
and eect. Cultural Science searches for causal origins and causal
eects just as Natural Science does, and it is senseless to claim, as
often happened in Rickerts days, that there were two alternatives:
causality (reserved for Natural Science) and teleology (reserved for
Cultural Science, or history). It is false, Rickert says time and again,
to think in terms of two opposed realities, causally conditioned nature
and causeless historical development: we only know one empirical
reality which constitutes the only material of the natural-scientific as
well as the historical disciplines. And the general forms of this reality, for instance causality, must be relevant to the generalizing as
well as the individualizing sciences.134
Systematic coherence is one of the hallmarks of science. In Natural
Science this coherence consists of generic concepts (Gattungsbegrie)
which constitute lawful regularities (Naturgesetze). There are, according to Rickert, in history as a Cultural Science two dimensions which
constitute systematic coherence. There are, to begin with, the synchronic relationships of the objects investigated or events with their surrounding environment (Umwelt). These connections can in principle
be extended well-nigh endlessly. There must be a limit to them, but
it is hard to determine what that limit is and where it should be
drawn. Theoretically, each particular object of investigation relates
to a vast network of connected objects which in the end is reality-in-toto, the last and final totality which, of course, is hard to deal
with empirically. In a specialized, historical investigation one will not
stretch these synchronic connections to the utter limit of such an
unfathomable total reality. Depending on the main issue or theme

Ibid., p. 237.
wir kennen nur eine empirische Wirklichkeit, die das einzige Material der
naturwissenschaftlichen sowohl als auch der historischen Disziplinen bildet, und die
allgemeinen Formen dieser Wirklichkeit, z.B. die Kausalitt, mssen fr die generalisierenden ebenso wie fr die individualisierenden Wissenschaften von Bedeutung
sein. Rickert, Grenzen, p. 373.
133

134

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of the specialized investigation, the historian will impose certain limits on his investigation of the synchronic connections. But there are,
secondly, also and at the same time, the diachronic developments of the
investigated historical objects which were caused by former objects
that in their turn were again caused by previous objects. Here too,
one could in principle continue the causal lines of development ad
infinitum, as in an endless regression, moving from stage to stage of
development, until one hits the absolute origin of all these developing objects. This will also not make much sense in an empirical,
specialized historical investigation. Historical regressions in time will
also be limited in accordance with the main issues and themes under
investigation.135
There is, of course, a formidable problem here: what precisely are the limits of the synchronic extension and the diachronic regression? Where does,
for instance, the historian who investigates the Russian October Revolution,
end his scrupulous investigations of all the synchronic and diachronic facts
and processes which bear causally upon this particular object of research?
Rickert argues that it depends on the main issue or theme of his specialized investigation. But that is still rather arbitrary, since in that case the
limits were in the end rather individually determined, as it is the historian
himself who decides that certain facts do no longer contribute heuristically
to his investigation of this particular issue or theme under investigation.
It would be more in the line of his main course of argumentation, if
Rickert referred here also to the dominant, intersubjectively valid values of
the historians time and society. It is, after all, this set of values which assists
him in separating the relevant from the irrelevant data. It is simultaneously
this set of values which will determine where the heuristically fruitful limits of the synchronic and diachronic network of causal strings lie. In the
case of the October Revolution, for example, the historian of the 1970s,
operating in what then was called the Cold War, will focus on dierent
individual facts and dierent causal (synchronic and diachronic) networks
of facts than the historian of today. Likewise a German historian of today
will investigate the fateful years 19331945 with a dierent focus than his
colleagues from the 1950s and 1960sapart from the fact that there were
and still are dierences in view between historians from West- and historians from East-Germany. Today, German historians will (and do) pay more
attention to the suering of the German people after 1943, than their predecessors would do (or dared to do) thirty or twenty years ago.

Historical developments are not undierentiated flows in time, but

usually exhibit certain stages which, in order to be individual and
135

Rickert, Probleme, p. 44.

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mutually dierent, must contain, according to Rickert, some innovation, i.e. something new and not yet existing.136 They are thus only
individual, particular, and uniquethat is, historically interesting and
significant facts. This shows once more that history cannot be molded
by the generalizing concepts and laws of Natural Science. As we
have seen before, Rickert dismisses theories about the laws of history, as the cultural-scientific equivalents of the laws of nature, as
unscientific, metaphysical constructions which are usually not free
from ideological, political value-judgments. Yet, this is not to say
that Cultural Science could not conceptually construct lawful regularities of historical developments.
At this point Rickerts arguments become very complex and admittedly rather abstract, if not vague, which is, of course, due to the
fact that he apparently introduces now in the logical realm of history as the prime example of individualizing Cultural Science a
clearly generalizing concept like the laws of development. He has
argued up till now that, unlike such disciplines as psychology or sociology, history could not apply conceptual generalizations. History,
he claimed earlier, is a radically individualizing kind of Cultural
Science. How does he solve the apparent contradictions which emerge,
when he introduces the notion of laws of development?
The following theorem of Weber is, I think, quite enlightening. Arguments
of cause and eect in the cultural sciences, he argues, appertain to rules
and regularities. There are five logically dierent, yet corresponding historical facts which have relevance with regard to causality. He takes Goethes
love letters addressed to Frau von Stein as example. (1) To begin with, the
objectively observable fact of the paper Goethe used is, of course, historically irrelevant. But there is another fact which is historically important,
namely the content of these letters, i.e. the expressions of Goethes feelings
towards the lady, i.e. the actual meaning (Sinn) of these letters which can
be analyzed and interpreted scientifically. These sentiments must have had
a tremendous impact on Goethes literary personality and it is scientifically
relevant to reconstruct the eect of this on the poets creations. Weber does
not formulate it thus, but he refers, of course, to the Realgrund which the
literary historian will try to uncover. (2) Let us assume, Weber continues,
that there is no such impact on Goethes creations. In that case, these intimate letters still bear historical relevance, because they will provide a unique
insight into his way of life and into his particular view of life. In other
words, these letters are historically relevant as Erkenntnisgrund, as a means

136

Ibid., p. 46.

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to acquire knowledge of Goethes view of life and the world. (3) But, given
Goethes status and position, the contents of these letters may also throw
light on the typical way of living in certain circles of the German society
of those days. They then function as an epistemological means to acquire
knowledge about the characteristic cultural habitude of those circles in those
days, distinct from the ways of life in other times and in other societies.
The letters are then placed, as it were, in a cultural-historical causal
configuration. (4) However, it is possible that these letters reveal cultural
characteristics which go beyond the particular features of Goethes time
and society, which are actually quite generally relevant and can be used
as material for a cultural psychology or social psychology which, being sciences, aim at analytical, abstract and generalizing regularities (laws). In
this approach the individual and unique sentiments and experiences of
Goethe are in themselves irrelevant. They are only relevant as a means for
the acquisition of scientific generic concepts (Gattungsbegrie). (5) Finally, if
all of these four instances are irrelevant it is still possible that a psychiatrist, interested in the psychology of eroticism, subjects these letters to his
brand of investigation. Goethes letters to Frau von Stein may function in
that case as an ideal typical example of a type of erotic behavior which,
Weber adds, can without doubt be compared to Rousseaus Confessions.137
In view of Rickerts theory of cultural objectivity, causality and generalization these five constructed stages from the highly historically-individual
to the very general-natural-scientific is, I think, quite enlightening.

Rickert follows Kant who argued that causality is a transcendental

category by means of which we are able to think about reality, if
we want to consider it as nature. But he adds that Kant did not
restrict this idea of categorical causal imputation to the natural sciences,
as has often be claimed, but applied it to each specialized, natural
and cultural science. History in particular, Rickert claims, was according to Kant in need of such a categorical imputation of causality, if
it wanted to understand the course of events in time.138 However,
this should not lead to the false conclusion that history then needs
to determine, what the causal laws of historical developments are,
because in that case one would again fall back upon the naturalistic fallacy which claims that the generalizing method of Natural
Science is the only legitimate scientific method. The concept of causality is then falsely identified with that of natural law.

Ibid., pp. 241244.

Rickert, Grenzen, p. 374f. This is an interesting interpretation of Kants theory of causality, because it is usually believed that Kant restricted the idea of causality, as most of the other categories, to the natural sciences.
137
138

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Speaking about causality in the case of Cultural Science, Rickert

distinguishes three dierent concepts. First there is the basic principle that every event or happening in time has a cause. It is, so to
say, the categorical causality principle. (This is, of course, a typically
Kantian, transcendental, a priori concept of causality.) Second, there
are historical, thus specific and particular configurations which we may
define as distinct (synchronic and diachronic) relationships of cause
and eect and which are particular, individual and unique parts of
reality. Third, there are causal laws which in a generalizing manner
group together what various historical configurations have in common in the manner of causes and eects. They constitute general
judgments (allgemeine Urteile) whose content consists of what various
individual causal configurations repeat and have in common This is
surprising because it constitutes clearly the introduction of a generalizing conceptualization in history as a Cultural Science which
Rickert previously expressedly called impossible and thus inadmissible.139 These repetitive and similar regularities in history resemble
strongly the laws of Natural Science. Apparently, there are, as Rickert
sums it up, in history as a specialized cultural-scientific discipline (a)
individual, or historical and (b) general or natural-scientific causal
configurations, both of which must be distinguished from (c) the basic
(transcendental, a priori) principle or category of causality.140 It is (b)
that is surprising!
Naturally, this needs further explanation. Why and how are causal
laws employed in a historical analysis of a particular chain of cause
and eect? The reason is that the historian is not just interested in
the merely accidental sequence of cause and eect in time, but as
a scientist he also wants to understand the necessity by which this
individual, unique, never recurring eect emerged from this individual, unique, never recurring cause or origin. The historian namely
not only wants to indicate the temporal succession of cause and
eect, but wants to receive insight also in the necessity with which
this individual, never recurring eect emerges from this individual,
never recurring cause. In doing so a detour alongside general concepts

139
In Grenzen Rickert was still very explicit about this. Cf. ibid., pp. 376384. In
Probleme (1924), as we will see later, he apparently changed his mind on this issue.
It is interesting to observe that he did not incorporate this change in the revised
5th edition of Grenzen, which came out five years after publication of Probleme.
140
Ibid., p. 376.

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of causal relationships and maybe causal laws is unavoidable.141 In

other words, the causes and eects are empirical realities and therefore individual, particular and unique, but that what bridges these
causes and eects are often molded in a spatial and time bound
scheme of everywhere and always.142
Let me illustrate what Rickert means by the following example.
The Glorious Revolution is a shorthand concept for a complex
configuration of very individual, particular and unique (diachronic
and synchronic) processes of cause and eect, so are the French
Revolution, and the Russian Revolution. Now, if the historian wants
to demonstrate why it is logically legitimate to label these three
dierent historical configurations by the general concept of revolution, he must search for regularities in the individual cause-andeect developments constituting the three historical configurations.
Individual eects are, so to say, grouped together in generalizing
concepts and then connected with individual causes which are also
grouped together in generalizing concepts, and these generalizing
concepts of cause and eect are then, as it were, tied together in a
schematic development which carries the character of necessity. In order
to be legitimately called revolution the three configurations, and
similar ones in history, must be molded by these general, law like
processes of cause and eect. Needless to add, that they also carry
the character of an if-then proposition or natural law. Rickert adds
that this exercise will not always be possible in the neat manner just
formulated. Often there are not sucient historical data to reconstruct such schematic and generalizing connections of individual causes
and individual eects. In that case causal necessity cannot be demonstrated, or if so only hypothetically. Often, Rickert sneers, historians
then speak of the apparent freedom of the historical subjects.143
141
Der Historiker will nmlich nicht nur die zeitliche Folge von Ursache und
Wirkung angeben, sondern auch einen Einblick in die Notwendigkeit gewinnen, mit
der aus dieser individuellen, nie wiederkehrenden Ursache diese individuelle, nie
wiederkehrende Wirkung hervorgeht, und dabei ist ein Umweg ber allgemeine
Begrie von Kausalverhltnissen und eventuell Kausalgesetzen nicht zu vermeiden.
Rickert, Probleme, p. 49.
142
das rumliche und zeitliche Schema des berall und immer. Idem.
143
Ibid. p. 50. Rickerts argument in question is, as I said, abstract and rather
vague. The example of the three revolutions was not given by him, but illustrates
suciently, I believe, what he meant to say. I think that whereas Natural Science
operates with if-then-propositions (and only-if!), the schematic and causal regularities of Cultural Science, and history in particular, are better formulated by whenthen-propositions. It does not make sense to add and only when to these propositions,

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CONCLUSION
Generalizing, value-free Natural Science and individualizing, valuerelating Cultural Science are the ideal typical, logically constructed
extreme ends of a continuum on which the empirical natural and
social sciences operate. Sometimes they come very close to the one
extreme, as in the case of history which Rickert well-nigh identified
with Cultural Science, although it too carried generalizing elements
as we just saw when we discussed the laws of historical development. Most empirical, specialized natural sciences, on the other hand,
operate close to the other extreme, Natural Science, but here too
there are exceptions, as in the case of evolutionary biology which,
according to Rickert, works with individualizing, historical concepts.
Contrary to the advocates of a Geisteswissenschaft he positioned psychology close to the Natural Science pole of the continuum, arguing that materially the human being is a psycho-physical unity of
mind-and-body and that formally, i.e. logically, nothing stood in
the way of psychologists approaching this mind-and-body in a generalizing, natural-scientific manner. Modern psychologists do not have
to adhere to behaviorism and similar exact schools in psychology,
to agree with him wholeheartedly.
Yet, it remains questionable within the terms of Rickerts own
continuum of sciences to pin down one single discipline to one of
the two logical extremes, as he does in the case of history as an
almost exclusively Cultural Science and psychology as an almost
exclusively Natural Science. As to the empirical natural sciences,
developments since Einstein, Bohr and Heisenberg have indicated
that Rickerts definition of the material object of natural-scientific
research in terms of mechanically moving things is old-fashioned,
while his exclusive positioning of the contemporary natural sciences
on the logical extreme of Natural Science is no longer possible. The
extremes are, maybe more than he was aware of, indeed non-empirical ideal types, formal and abstract limes concepts. Historians can
legitimately try to move from the one end of Cultural Science to
as is for instance illustrated by the so-called unintended consequences and the elective anities (Wahlverwandtschaften) which played such a big role in Max Webers
cultural sociology. See my De relativiteit van kennis en werkelijkheid. Inleiding tot de kennissociologie, (The Relativity of Knowledge and Reality. Introduction to the Sociology
of Knowledge), (Amsterdam: Boom Meppel, 1974), on the logic of elective anity:
pp. 137142.

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the other end of Natural Science, as has been tried by the proponents of so-called cliometrics.144 Likewise, psychologists can legitimately
develop their discipline as an historically and culturally oriented discipline. There are, of course, scores of historical-psychological studies belonging to the Cultural Science pole of Rickerts continuum.
Let me give just one, rather unconventional example. Although admittedly strongly criticized by most psychologists and historians, an interesting case is presented by the Dutch psychologist J. H. van den
Berg in his Metabletica or Theory of Changes (1956) which bore the
telling sub-title: Principles of a Historical Psychology. It is an unconventional, at times rather fanciful and capricious study of often very
subtle changes in the consciousness of Western men and women
changes which Van den Berg connects with societal transformations.145
This leads to another point of possible criticism. Rickert warns
against generalizing historical studies which tried to demonstrate the
existence of long-term regularities as the equivalents of naturalscientific laws. They would inevitably end up in metaphysical and
ideologically normative visions which would not have any scientific
value and validity. As we saw, he refers to Oswald Spenglers Decline
of the West as a telling example, and could have added Arnold
Toynbees A Study of History as well. History in particular, he emphasizes time and again, is an individualizing discipline and should not
try to imitate the generalizations of Natural Science, lest it drifts o
into muddy metaphysics. Yet, his friend and colleague Max Weber,
for instance, did also design a grand sociological theory of socio-economic change, in which he defined the modernization of the Western
world as a process of increasing rationalizationa process which he viewed
as an ever broadening and deepening disenchantment.146 As the
Cf. Robert W. Fogel, Stanley L. Engerman, o.c.
J. H. van den Berg, Metabletica of de Leer der Veranderingen, 1956, translated as
The Changing Nature of Man. Introduction to a Historical Psychology, (New York: Delta
Books, 1983) An application of this theory to the changes in our attitudes towards
the human body is J. H. van den Berg, Het menselijk lichaam. Een metabletisch onderzoek, (The Human Body. A Study in Metabletica), (Nijkerk: Callenbach, 1959).
The theory was also applied to socio-psychological and sociological transformations
in J. H. van den Berg, Leven in meervoud. Een metabletisch onderzoek, 1963, translated
as Divided Existence and Complex Society, (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University, 1974). The
neologism metabletica which Van den Berg coined for his brand of historical
research, is derived from the Greek verb metaballein which means to change, to
transform.
146
Cf. Max Weber, Wirtschaftsgeschichte. Abriss der universalen Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, (Economic History. Outline of the Universal Social and Economic
144
145

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encompassing and generalizing approach of Weber clearly demonstrates, attempts to arrive at a universal history do not necessarily
have to end up in unscientific metaphysical vistas. The fascinating
aspect of Webers methodology is indeed that he moves back and
forth on the continuum of the generalizing and the individualizing
approaches to reality.
Another interesting example of a historical, cultural-scientific sociology which
tries to demonstrate a long-term development in a generalizing manner
without drifting o into metaphysics is Norbert Eliass celebrated study of
the process of civilization which he published prior to World War II but with
which he gained fame only several decades later. Starting at the end of
the Middle Ages in the courtly society of absolutism but then developing
further into the circles of the urban bourgeoisie, a process got hold of men
and women in which they increasingly learned to curb bodily and psychical impulses. Burping, defecating, urinating, making love, etc. were gradually and ever intensively banned from public life, the threshold of shame
was heightened, children were imbued with a constraint from outside
(Fremdzwang) which had to grow into an inner constraint (Selbstzwang) behind
the heightened threshold of shame. Beyond these psychological transformations, Elias demonstrates in two volumes packed with often minute historical (quite individual) data, how also fundamental sociological and
political-scientific changes occurred. The social relationships between human
beings became long, thin and abstract chains of interdependencefrom
clans, to villages, to cities, to regions, to nations, to nation-states, to continents. Likewise, organizations and institutions transformed radically in the
direction of multinational and supranational bodies in which communication and power relations altered in proportion.
In short, Elias combines the individualizing historical approach with a
generalizing approach without ending up in metaphysical and ideological
quicksand.147

History), reconstructed from posthumous lectures by S. Hellmann and M. Palyi,

J. F. Winckelmann, ed. (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1958).
147
Norbert Elias, ber den Prozess der Zivilisation. Soziogenetische und Psychogenetische
Untersuchungen, (On the Process of Civilisation. Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic
Investigations), 2 volumes, 1936, (Bern, Mnchen: Francke Verlag, 1969, 2nd ed.).
Also Norbert Elias, Die hfische Gesellschaft, (The Courtly Society), 1969, (Darmstadt,
Neuwied: Luchterhand Verlag, 1975, 2nd ed.). In a brief autobiographical essay
Elias (18971990) relates that he attended Rickerts seminars when he studied at
the University of Heidelberg in the 1920s. He was, however, not influenced by
Rickerts epistemology, or for that matter by Max Webers methodology, since he
had obviously no antenna for philosophical issues. Norbert Elias, Notities bij mijn
levensloop, (Notes regarding my Course of Life), Dutch translation from a German
text by R. Knij, in: A. de Swaan c.s. (eds.), De geschiedenis van Norbert Elias, (The
History of Norbert Elias), (Amsterdam: Meulenho, 1987), pp. 93164.

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This can also be applied to economics and sociology. It is legitimate

to define both disciplines, as much as is possible, as representatives
of Natural Science, as actually happens in the case of econometrics and
neo-positivist sociology,148 but it is as legitimate to rather move more
in the direction of the other logical extreme, that of Cultural Science,
as happens in institutional economics and cultural sociology. They are then
methodologically defined as historical and comparative economics
and historical and comparative sociology.149 As we have seen, Rickert
once suggested that the continuum should indeed be seen as flexible
as this, but in general he stuck to the rather tenacious conviction
that history is an individualizing discipline, whereas the social sciences are typically Natural-Scientific, and thus generalizing sciences.
Sociology is an interesting case. Rickert sees this discipline, like
psychology, as a science which focuses materially on culture, not
on nature, but operates formally (i.e. logically and methodologically), like psychology, as a representative of Natural Science. Even
the verstehende Soziologie of Max Weber is mentioned several times by
Rickert as an example of a social science which operates as a generalizing Natural Science. Max Weber who in his methodology was
deeply influenced by Rickert, is indeed of special interest here, as
he published widely in the logic of science (Wissenschaftslehre) and
demonstrated in his sociological investigations and publications that
he actually moved on the logical continuum of Rickert, sometimes
very closely to Natural Science, as in the case of his posthumously
published general (sic!) sociology, entitled Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, and
then again very closely to Cultural Science, as in the case of his historical and comparative essays in the sociology of religion.
Weber, who was trained as a legal scholar, but developed great
expertise in history, economics, sociology and comparative religion,
is generally considered to be one of the great masters of the social
148
The concept sociometrics has never got hold of the sociological discipline. It
remained restricted to the so-called small-groups research.
149
The classic study in institutional economics is, of course, Joseph A. Schumpeter,
Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 1942, (London: Unwin University Books, 1974,
13th ed.). Institutional, historical economics is, of course, not the same as economic
history, although the dierence is at times very thin, as is exemplified by a classic
scholar like Werner Sombart. Cf. his six volumes history of capitalism Der moderne
Kapitalismus, 1916, (Mnchen, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 19211927). See also
Werner Sombart, Warum gibt es in den Vereinigten Staaten keinen Sozialismus?, (Why is
there no Socialism in the United States?), 1906, (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, 1969).

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sciences. As no one else, he demonstrated how inspiring and influential

Rickerts thinking and writing has been and still can be. He was
indeed the most important but not the only scholar who was methodologically inspired and influenced by Rickert. The next and last chapter discusses what I like to call the echo of Rickert in the socio-cultural
sciences. It is only a selection but, I trust, a representative one.

CHAPTER SIX

RICKERTS ECHO: APPLICATIONS,

AMPLIFICATIONS, AMENDMENTS
Aus den Irrtmern sonst bedeutender Gelehrter lernt man oft
mehr, als aus den Korrektheiten von Nullen.
Max Weber1

INTRODUCTION
If we try to determine what the eect of Rickerts philosophy has
been on the thoughts and publications of fellow philosophers and
philosophically interested social scientists, we run into considerable
problems. In fact, due to reasons given in the Introduction, there
was little if any eect. However, it is also hard to find out what the
impact of his writings were in the days of his widespread fame, i.e.
the decades around 1900. The reason is that in those days scholars
were not supposed to burden their publications with quotes of and
references to fellow scholars. Apparently, the reader was supposed
to be well read and to know without such references who was actually
being discussed and, more indicatively, who was intentionally ignored.2
1
Often one learns more from the mistakes of important scholars, than from the
correct ideas of nullities. Max Weber, Energetische Kulturtheorien ( Energetic
Cultural Theories), in: Max Weber, Gesammelte Aufstze zur Wissenschaftslehre, 1922,
(Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1968), p. 425.
2
An exception is the previously mentioned, small study by Sergius Hessen,
Individuelle Kausalitt. Studien zum transzendentalen Empirismus, (Individual Causality.
Studies on Transcendental Empirism), (Berlin: Reuther & Reichard, 1909) which
can be read as a helpful introduction to Rickerts transcendentalism. As we have
seen, Rickert was enamored by the label transcendental empirism for his brand
of philosophy. A more recent exception is presented by Guy Oakes, Weber and
Rickert. Concept Formation in the Cultural Sciences, (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press,
1988). This monograph is restricted though to the issue of cultural objectivity and
comes to the conclusion that both Rickert and Weber failed to present a sound
theory of objectively valid values. Oakes in his turn, it seems to me, fails to understand the neo-Kantian distinction between absolute, formal, universal (objective)
values which in value-judgments are imposed on contingent, concrete and particular contents. These judgments are subjective but carry the relative objectivity of
intersubjectivity. Incidentally, Oakes presentation of Rickerts philosophy of values
lacks lucidity and remains rather far removed from Rickerts texts.

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Georg Simmel, for instance, does not refer to any fellow philosopher in his book on the logic and methodology of history in which
he developed ideas which sometimes come very close to those of
Windelband and Rickert, but also deviate from them significantly.3
The first edition was published in 1892, prior to Windelbands famous
inaugural address and to Rickerts Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen
Begrisbildung. However, Simmel published a second edition of his
book in 1905 after he had read Die Grenzen. Actually, he practically
re-wrote the book, adjusting his ideas at several points to those of
Rickert.4 But once more, Rickert is not mentioned at all, nor is
Windelband.
In this concluding chapter we shall discuss in some broad outlines
Rickerts impact on four disciplines: general philosophy (mainly Georg
Simmel), legal philosophy (mainly Lask and Radbruch), history (mainly
Huizinga) and sociology (mainly Weber and Mannheim). It is the
purpose of this chapter to demonstrate the influence of Rickerts theories of knowledge, values and natural-scientific and cultural-scientific
methods. However, as we shall see, this influence did not consist of
an uncritical adoption of Rickertean ideas and theorems, but was
rather the inspirational factor of a critical debate with his neo-Kantian
standpoints. Rickert, so much has hopefully become clear in the former chapters, was not a kind of guru, like Hegel or Heidegger, who
was viewed and adored as the founder of a school which would
attract crowds of admirers and followers, who would propagate almost
religiously his ideas and doctrines. Upon his death in 1936 he did
not leave an ideological worldview which would warm the hearts
and inspire the moods of faithful followers. On the contrary, like his
colleague and friend Max Weber, he was rather the Socratic type
of intellectual that invites one to think critically about our thinking
and our thoughts, about our values and value-judgments, about our
collective constructions of reality. Neither was Rickert a teacher who
educated his students and readers by means of orderly composed,
yet in the end platitudinous textbooks. In his lectures and in his
books which, as we saw in the Introduction, were actually also lec-

3
Georg Simmel, Die Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie, (The Problems of the Philosophy
of History), 1892, (Mnchen, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1923, 3rd ed.).
4
Cf. Anton M. Bevers, Dynamik der Formen bei Georg Simmel, (Dynamics of Forms
in Georg Simmels Work), 1982, translated from the Dutch original by F. E.
Schrader, (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1985), p. 47f.

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299

tures, he confronted his audiences with an ongoing process of thinking in the hope that they would join him in what he himself experienced as the demand and the joy of thinking. In philosophy, the
social sciences, and the study of law, as we shall see in this chapter, his impact was often indirect. It had the character of an echo,
rather than that of a loudspeaker. He triggered critical debates, rarely
called forth emotional and thus uncritical cries of adulation and
admiration.
The fact remains though that ever since roughly the First World
War it has apparently not been fashionable to mention his name. If
it comes to issues like the logical demarcations of the natural and
the cultural sciences, or the logical dierences of facts and values,
Sein and Sollen, etc., philosophers and social scientists either disregard them, due to a neo-positivist, or an existentialist, or any other
anti-epistemological worldview, or refer to Windelband and Weber
rather than to Rickert. In any case, in the remainder of this chapter I shall try to indicate in some main outlines what Rickerts echo
has been in various debates on epistemology, logic of the social sciences, and legal philosophy. It may be superfluous to remind the
reader that the following sections will discuss the various theorists
exclusively with respect to the impact Rickert had on their thinking
and writing. This discussion will therefore not even come close to a
true insight into their work.
GENERAL PHILOSOPHY
Georg Simmel (18581918) was a personal friend of both Rickert
and Max Weber, and admired by them for his intellectual brilliance
and philosophical depth. It would be preposterous to assume an intellectual dependence of Simmel on the neo-Kantian philosophy of
Windelband, Rickert, or on the methodological and sociological
theories of Weber. In general philosophy, methodology, logic of
the social sciences and sociology Simmel developed ideas and theories which were idiosyncratic and highly original.5 But he always

5
Simmel developed his methodology and logic mainly in his publications on the
philosophy of history. See next to the previously quoted Die Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie the following two essays: Das Problem der historischen Zeit (The Problem
of Historical Time) and Vom Wesen des historischen Verstehens (On the Essence

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maintained a close intellectual, though critical tie with the neoKantians of the South-West German School. Rickert and Weber in
their turn were admirers of Simmels publications, but also quite critical as to his continual sliding o into metaphysical speculations.
Rickert in particular rejected Simmels endeavor to reconcile neoKantian epistemology and logic on the one hand and vitalism
(Lebensphilosophie) on the other.6
Indeed, the essence of Simmels thinking is an ongoing attempt
to reconcile Kants critical epistemology, as it was elaborated in particular by Windelband and Rickert on the one hand, and the philosophy of life (vitalism), as it was formulated in particular by Nietzsche,
Schopenhauer and Bergson.7 Or, more precisely, Simmel rejects the

of Historical Understanding), in: Georg Simmel, Brcke und Tr (Bridge and Door),
essays on history, religion, art and society edited by M. Landmann, (Stuttgart:
Koehler Verlag, 1957), pp. 4359 and 5986. I made gratefully use of Bevers previously quoted discussion and analysis of Simmels work, especially of the second
chapter, o.c., pp. 4777 which discusses Simmels theory of knowledge against the
background of Windelband and Rickert (ibid., pp. 3145). For Simmels ahistorical sociology of forms see ibid., pp. 7297 and his philosophy of life, ibid., pp.
141174. In chapter 5 Bevers gives a comparative analysis of Simmels sociology
of forms and Webers understanding sociology, ibid., pp. 120140. Rickerts influence
in the philosophy of his days was, of course, larger than just in Simmels publications. His thoughts and ideas penetrated often in special philosophical problems.
An example is Sergius Hessen, Individuelle Kausalitt, o.c. I restrict the present discussion to Simmel, since he was intellectually of the same stature as Rickert.
6
Simmels metaphysical vitalism was very obvious in his Lebensanschauung. Vier
metaphysische Kapitel, (Vitalistic Worldview. Four Metaphysical Chapters), (Mnchen,
Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1922). Rickert, as we shall see, did subject Simmels
vitalistic ideas to a critical, yet rather sympathetic discussion in his Die Philosophie
des Lebens. It is indicative though that he limited his discussion to this swan-song of
Simmel which he wrote while he was dying of cancer of the liver. He ignored
Simmels less metaphysically loaded publications, which was, I think, a bit unfair.
Weber was reported to abstain from any critical publications since he feared this
would impede Simmels professorial career in Germany. In fact, not only Simmels
unconventional philosophy but also anti-Semitic forces prevented a regular professorship in one of the major universities. It was not before 1914, four years before
his death and at the start of the First World War, that he was appointed regular
professor at the university of Strasburgnotably, in the centre of the Western front
of the war! See for the anti-Semitic, academic opposition to an appointment of
Simmel in Heidelberg, to a second professorship next to the one of Rickert:
K. Gassen, M. Landmann (eds.), Buch des Dankes an Georg Simmel. Briefe, Erinnerungen,
Bibliographie, (Book of Gratitude. Letters, Recollections, Bibliography), (Berlin:
Duncker & Humblot, 1958), p. 26f.
7
Cf. Georg Simmel, Schopenhauer und Nietzsche. Ein Vortragszyklus (Schopenhauer
and Nietzsche. A Cycle of Lectures), (Mnchen and Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot,
1920). Schopenhauer, according to Simmel, is the philosopher of hopelessness, boredom, grey uniformity, aimlessness, whereas Nietzsche, on the contrary, represented

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realistic stance according to which concepts are allegedly pictures

(Abbildungen) of reality, emphasizing like Kant and the neo-Kantians the
dierence of and the distance between theory and reality. In his philosophy of history, for example, he emphatically rejects the ideology of
historicism, as exemplified by Rankes pretension that the historian
ought to reconstruct the past as it has been. Historicism is, according to Simmel, the counterpart of the positivistic ideology which claims
that the natural sciences could provide a precise picture of what nature
would be all about. Yet, Simmel rejects also the Kantian construction
of reality by concepts as an unattractive and even fallacious intellectualism. Conceptseveryday life as well as scientific and philosophical
conceptsare not a priori, pure components of the mind, but themselves components of life, conceived of not by an abstract mind or consciousness but by a total personality. Man is a thinking being, but he
is so in conjunction with emotions and bodily experiences.
In addition he re-formulates the Kantian distinction between form
and content in such a way that both become beyond epistemological and logical categories, components of reality which he principally defines in terms of life. This is, for instance, elaborated
impressively in his brand of sociology, called a sociology of forms.
In Simmels sociology forms are actually seen as functions in the
ongoing process of society formation. Independent of their historical
and actual dierences of content, he analyzes phenomena like power
relations as in super ordination and subordination, economic exchange
relations, relations between man and wife, dyadic and triadic relations, conflict relations. But he discusses also micro-sociological and
psychological forms like coquetry, loyalty and gratitude, the secret
and the secret society, the repast, the stranger, and even yodelling
(allegedly as the transitional form between speaking and singing), as
various transhistorical forms of human behavior.8
a philosophy of meaninglessness, evolution of life, increasing inequality and vitalistic evolution as aim. Reading these four lectures it becomes clear why Simmel was
such a successful lecturer. In the upper-class of Berlin the verb simmeln was used
for attending Simmels public lectures at the university. He taught without notes,
improvising and thinking aloud. His audiences did not know what he confessed to
Rickert in a letter dated August 15, 1898. He was not happy that the percentage
of women in his lecture hall had increased strongly since that disturbed the uniformity of the auditorium. Since I actually do not at all address the audience but
rather speak to myself , I love it when the auditorium is as colourless and indierent
as possible. K. Gassen, M. Landmann (eds.), o.c., p. 96.
8
See Georg Simmel, Soziologie. Untersuchungen ber die Formen der Vergesellschaftung

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These sociological and psychological forms are, in his view, not

cognitive, or better epistemic forms imposed on reality in order to
acquire knowledge of reality, but realities in themselves, components
of the ongoing process of life. Likewise, the Kantian forms of Anschauung,
time and space, are according to Simmel indeed forms which mold
contents, but as transhistorical as these forms are, they yet are constitutive components of life. It is here that both Rickert and Weber,
remaining faithful to Kants conceptual transcendentalism, object to
Simmels philosophy. Rickert in particular sticks to the Kantian position that thinking and living are philosophically two dierent realities, and should not be mashed into one, uniform reality, called life.
A crucial element of Simmels logic is the idea of a mutual
influencing of phenomena and concepts. He calls it Wechselwirkung,
reciprocity, and combines it with an approach which is very much
akin to (and may well have been inspired by) Rickerts heterothesis
and heterology. However, there is in this approach, which he called
relationism, a strongly relativistic bias, since he cannot accept Rickerts
notion of universal, formalistic values in the non-empirical world of
validity. As we have seen, truth is according to Rickert a formal,
empty value which becomes empirical and substantial only in valuejudgments, in the imposing of this transcendental form on particular, historical contents. This is much too intellectualistic, Simmel
believes. He views truth rather as an emerging quality in the juxtaposition of opposites. In his historical and sociological analyses Simmel
argues consistently in terms of dualistic concepts referring to opposite phenomena, believing that truth is somewhere in the middle,
somewhere between these opposites which in reality function in a
perennial reciprocity. Truth, like the other values, is therefore never

(Sociology. Investigations on the Forms of Society Formation), 1908, (Berlin:

Duncker & Humblot, 1958), passim. For an English translation of portions of this
book see Kurt H. Wol (ed. and transl.), The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 1950, (New
York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1964). Wol wrote a helpful introduction to this
volume: pp. xviilxiv. See also Georg Simmel, Conflict and the Web of Group Aliations,
K. Wol, R. Bendix, translators, 1955, (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe,
1964). The most curious form he analyzed was, I think, the handle: Georg Simmel,
The Handle, in: Georg Simmel et al., Essays on Sociology, Philosophy & Aesthetics, ed.
by Kurt H. Wol, 1959, (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965), pp. 267275.
Bevers relates in a footnote that Simmel designed a simple questionnaire for his
research on yodelling as the source of music which was published in the yearbook
of a Swiss Alpine club in 1878/79. Cf. Bevers, o.c., p. 220.

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303

absolute as in the case of Rickerts transcendental philosophy of values, but always relativei.e. in mutual relations, reciprocities, and
opposites. Needless to add that Rickert sees the concept of relationism as a sham play of words. In his view, Simmel has not
avoided the logical mortal sin of relativism.
It is as if Simmels conceptualization is in its essential elements a
continuous and critical debate with Rickerts logic and philosophy
of values. There is, for example, Rickerts typically Kantian distinction of values and reality with which Simmel expressedly disagrees.
We saw in Chapter Four how Rickert tries to define the dierence
of facts and values. The negation of a fact, he argues, is nothingness, in the sense of non-existence, but the negation of a value is
not nothingness but a counter-value. It can be proven that the unicorn does not exist. It may function as a symbol or a myth, but as
an animal, a horse with a single pointed horn, the unicorn is nonexistent. The denial of truth, however, is falsehood, of honesty is
dishonesty, of a god is a devil, of beauty is ugliness, of lust is pain,
etc. Simmel finds this problematic and in three dierent letters to
Rickert he formulates his diculty with this theorem which he labels
the negation problem (Negationsfrage). He repeats his objection formulated as a question three times with rather long intervals, which
indicates that he did not receive a satisfactory answer while the issue
keeps haunting him.9 In the first letter he formulates the negation
problem as follows: The abrogation of something existing, you say,
leaves behind a nothingness, but the negation of something valid,
would result in a positive nonsense. Now if I did understand you
correctly, the sentence A does not exist, means so much as the
sentence that A exists is false; the existence of A must not be acknowledged. And indeed, how could a thought abrogate an existence? It
can indeed only abrogate the thought of this existence, only the judgment that A exist.10 In that case, Simmel continues, there are the
following alternatives: (1) The judgment A exists is indeed false. But
9
See K. Gassen. M. Landmann (eds.), o.c., 8.IV.10, pp. 104106; 3.IV.16,
p. 115f.; 15.IV.17, pp. 117119.
10
Die Aufhebung einer Existenz, sagen Sie, hinterlasse ein Nichts, die eines
Gltigen hinterliesse positiven Unsinn. Wenn ich Sie nun richtig verstanden habe,
so bedeutet der Satz: A existiert nichtsoviel wie: der Satz, dass A nicht existiert,
ist falsch, die Existenz von A soll nicht anerkannt werden. Und in der Tat, wie
sollte auch ein Gedanke eine Existenz aufheben? Er kann allerdings nur den Gedanken
dieser Existenz, nur das Urteil, dass A existiert, aufheben. Ibid., p. 104f.

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then the only thing that happens is the simple fact that an error is
corrected. If the judgment refers to something valid, i.e. to a value,
the outcome is something non-valid and thus as non-existent as in
the case of the judgment that A as a fact does not exist. (2) The
judgment A exists is in fact true. In that case its negation reaps
the same nonsense as when we deny the truth of 2 + 2 = 4. The
same holds true for a statement about the truth of validity, i.e. of
a value: its denial is nonsensical. Simmel then asks Rickert, if he
made an error in calculation, and elaborates his argument in greater
detail.11
Rickerts reaction, if he wrote one, is not known but we may
assume that he has pointed out that the denial of a true statement
about a value, or its validity, would not be nonsensical but reap a
counter-value. In any case, six years later Simmel returns to the
problem of negation. He had read Gegenstand der Erkenntnis and agrees
now with Rickert, when he distinguishes being and value by saying
that the abrogation of being results in nothingness, while the denial
of value reaps a counter-value. Also that the abrogation of sense
(Sinn), results not in nothingness but in nonsense (Unsinn). But then
a new problem emerges: why would follow from this similarity of
formal structure, that sense was a value? Could they not be two categories which act in an analogous manner without the one being
subordinated to the other? Is it possible, Simmel asks, to draw conclusions about their mutual relationship, if two concepts demonstrate
the same structure with regard to a third concept (in this case the
denial, the abrogation)? Why would sense not be an autonomous
phenomenon that has much in common with value, without being
a kind of superior concept (Oberbegri ) which is superimposed on
value? Please, he adds, enlighten me.
Apparently Rickert did and Simmel refers to his answer one year
later. He begins by saying that on the negation issue still a lot could
be said back and forth, but he doubts if that would be very fruitful. He nevertheless goes on saying once more that he does agree
on the distinction of being and validity. Yet, he confesses that some
explanations Rickert gave in an answering letter are still not clear
to him. Rickert has answered, and Simmel quotes him verbatim,
that he had not doubted that the negation of sense could possibly

11

Ibid., pp. 104106.

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305

lead to nothingness, but on the next page, Simmel goes on, he wrote
that the connection with a meaningful configuration (Sinngebilde) results
never in a mere nothingness, but leads to another meaningful configuration which does belong to something. Simmel does not want
to engage in quibbling, but he is seized by the suspicion that Rickert
is quite ambiguous in his use of the notion of negation (abrogation).
It is as if the dierence of the nothingness in the case of being and
of something in the case of validity which the negation leaves behind
in facts and values respectively, is not only determined by the negated
(abrogated) content but also by the logical structure of the negation
(abrogation) itself. It is as if negation (abrogation) in the one case is
something else than in the other case. Regretfully, we do not know
how Rickert responded to this question which, as abstract as it is,
refers to a corner-stone of his philosophy of values. In fact, his
definition of the dierence of facts and values in terms of negation
or abrogation, remains rather questionable.
Like Windelband and Rickert, Simmel is not in favor of psychologism and shares their and Webers contempt of the historian
and philosopher Karl Lamprecht who based the philosophy of history on psychology.12 This notwithstanding Simmel too has a distinctly psychological view of the philosophy of history. He claims
right at the start of his Die Probleme der Geschichtswissenschaft that history is the history of psychic processes, i.e. of impulses, voluntaristic acts and emotional reflexes, otherwise it is just a play of puppets.
The object of history as a scientific discipline consists of the imagination, the will and the feeling of personalities. That is, the objects
of history are souls.13 Even such historical studies of seemingly material objects, like the building of the Saint Peters Cathedral or the
construction of the Gotthard tunnel are only of interest to the historian as investments of psychic events, as passage points of human

12
In a letter to Rickert, dated April 25, 1913, Simmel refers to an essay by
Lamprecht and exclaims: One really puts ones head in ones hands and asks oneself, if such a thing is at all possible or just a bad dream. (Man fasst sich wirklich an den Kopf und fragt sich, ob so etwas berhaupt mglich oder ein bser
Traum ist.), K. Gassen, M. Landmann (eds.), o.c., p. 111.
13
Georg Simmel, Die Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie (The Problems of the Philosophy
of History), o.c., p. 1. This book which he re-wrote many times is extremely hard
to read and to understand due to its very condensed and abstract style of arguing.
It is my experience that the book gets obscurer and abstruser the more intensively
and closer one reads and re-reads it.

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will, intellect and emotion.14 Rickert and certainly Weber would reject
this exclusive position of psychology within the domain of the historical discipline, since it strongly smacks of psychologism. The building of a cathedral and the construction of a tunnel are, of course,
as much economic processes, but it would be an inadmissible materialism to found the history of these phenomena exclusively on economics. It would be inadmissible because it would be an unscientific
metaphysics, as is illustrated by Marxist historical materialism. Indeed,
psychologism is as much metaphysical as is sociologism or economism.
Simmels psychological predisposition is also illustrated by his theory of understanding (Verstehen).15 He distinguishes three kinds of
understanding: psychological, factual and historical. Psychological
understanding is, according to Simmel, not a direct kind of empathy
by which one projects ones own inner feelings and thoughts on the
mind and soul of other human beings. This notion of understanding
as projection is a variant of the representational logic (Abbildungslogik)
which Simmel dismisses.16 Human beings are psychologically too
complex and volatile, they are in addition too individually unique
to be able to comprehend them adequately by means of such an
empathic understanding. Moreover, experience learns that we are
able to understand in others what we ourselves have not experienced. If this were not the case, history as a scientific discipline
would not be possible. One does not have to be Caesar or Luther
in order to understand Caesar and Luther.17 Simmel then argues
that psychological understanding is only possible because we are able
to experience ourselves and the others as coherent personalities. When
we encounter someone else we are able to construct from fragmentary elements like a word, a gesture, an emotional expression, a
coherent image of his or her personality. This image enables us to
understand the other psychologically, although it may not be forgotten that the image is a construction, a type which does not cover
Simmel, ibid., p. 4f.
On Simmels theory of Verstehen, see ibid., pp. 35. I made use of Bevers
lucid treatment of Simmels theory of understanding: Bevers, o.c., pp. 5662.
16
See Simmel, o.c., p. 39f., 53 where he dismisses the nave realism of representational epistemology.
17
Ibid., p. 84. Weber uses the same sentence in his Wissenschaftslehre, o.c., p. 100.
Simmel, it seems to me, contradicts himself on this point when he claims earlier
that someone who never loved someone, will never be able to understand a lover,
that a choleric person will never understand a phlegmatic one, that a weakling will
never understand a hero. Ibid., p. 39.
14
15

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307

the other as a unique individual. The interesting dimension of Simmels

psychological understanding by means of constructed types is the
combination of Rickerts generalization and individualization, because
the types represent general characteristics of personalities but enable
the understanding of human beings as individuals. This also comes
close to Webers ideal types, although Weber stays closer to Rickerts
logic than Simmel does, since he defines individual not as individual human being but as logical individuum. Rickerts and Webers
individua can be human beings, but are in principle all phenomena
stripped of generality. Simmels individuals in his theory of psychological understanding are historical, individual human beings. But he
adds collectivities like political parties which, like the individual personalities, must demonstrate a psychic unity comparable to the personal psychic unity. He calls it the social soul (Sozialseele) of groups,
but hastens to add that the historian will use them as constructed
types, as fictions which synthesize scattered realities. It is in this sense
that Theodor Mommsen in his book on Roman history writes a cry
of disturbance went through all of Italy, and the parties caught
their breath.18
Simmel discusses next factual understanding (sachliches Verstehen) and
historical understanding as follows. If a person speaks, we understand not only the speaker as a person, but also factually the words
he speaks. This factual understanding is not bound to person, place
or time. We can understand the law of gravity or the chorus mysticus in Goethes Faust II without having any knowledge or understanding of Newton, Goethe and the time and place they were living
in. There is in this factual understanding a formidable complication,
because there is an infinite range of interpretations of the facts concerned. We would only understand a natural-scientific law or a theatre play completely, if we comprehended all their objectively existing
possibilities of interpretation. Asking for their content of truth, a simple answer like true or false cannot be given. The answer to this
question depends on the comprehensibility of the various interpretations. Once more, Simmel comes close to relativism. As to historical understanding, it occurs when we not only understand factually
the words of a speaker, but also his motives, when we not only
understand the content of Goethes Faust, but also the poets motives

18

Simmel, ibid., p. 32.

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which have led to the creation of this play. This comes close to psychological understanding. In historical understanding we search for
certain psychological causes of historical phenomena. Or, in other
words, we do not have to identify with Goethe as an individual in
order to understand his Faust, but if we want to understand how
this play came about we will have to arrive at an understanding of
Goethes motives which, of course, are embedded in the cultural
environment he lived and worked in.
Thus, Simmel does not merely incorporate elements of Rickerts
logic, methodology and philosophy of values, but rather seems to
engage in an ongoing, critical debate with his intellectual and personal friend. The main dierences between the two are (a) Rickerts
dismissal of vitalism and its alleged irrationalism; Simmels incorporation of vitalism in his philosophy and dismissal of the alleged
intellectualism of the neo-Kantian logic; (b) Rickerts banishment of
psychology from philosophy, defining it as one of the empirical sciences, methodologically determined by the Natural-Scientific approach
to boot; Simmels incorporation of psychology in his philosophy of
history and theory of understanding; (c) both work with Kants distinction of form and content, but to Rickert forms are non-empirical,
transcendent realities; to Simmel forms are empirical components
of the content of life, as was demonstrated in his sociology of
forms. But there are distinct similarities also, two of which stand
out in particular: (a) both Rickert and Simmel stress the logical
dierence of theoretical concepts and empirical reality, of thought
and experience, of facts and values, and reject representational logic
(although it seems to return through the backdoor in Simmels philosophy); (b) there is a great similarity between Rickerts heterothesis and heterology on the one hand and Simmels logic of reciprocity
(Wechselwirkung) on the other.
LEGAL PHILOSOPHY
The most gifted and in his days generally respected student of
Windelband and Rickert was Emil Lask (18751915), who tragically
fell in battle at the beginning of the First World War.19 He studied
19
Lask was Rickerts favorite student, whom he acknowledged as an inspiring
colleague. See his exceptionally personal commemoration in the Preface of the third

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initially law and then philosophy in Freiburg (Rickert), Strasburg

(Windelband) and Heidelberg (Windelband). Upon his Habilitation
(19031904), supervised by Windelband he joined the seminars and
inner-circle of Max Weber and became a friend of Gustav Radbruch.
Weber and Radbruch inspired him in his thinking and writing on
the philosophy of law. Windelband and especially Rickert had a decisive influence on his prolific writing.
According to Lask, Rechtswissenschaft, i.e. the scientific study of law,
emancipated itself in the 19th century from the metaphysical speculations of former centuries, focusing primarily, and as it turned out
too one-sidedly, on the study of empirical legal practices and institutions. It led to an empiristic and positivistic philosophy of law
which presented a general theory of law, composed by compiling
empirical data into an incoherent and unsystematic whole. If one
dares to reject this approach and calls for a philosophical grounding of law in its absolute significance relating it to other absolute
values, one is in danger of being accused of defending a metaphysical Natural Law position. Lask then claims that this accusation would
be incorrect, if one were to base the philosophy of law upon the
neo-Kantian, critical theory of values, in which the focus is on empirical and historical reality which at the same time is the scene or substratum of trans-empirical values and of generally valid significances.
This is not, Lask hastens to add, a return to the Platonic two-worldstheory. There is but one sort of law: the empirical, historically developing legal reality of legal practices and institutions. Yet, in view of
the distinction of value and empirical value-substratum there is a
two-dimensionality of perspectives, i.e. a dualism of a philosophical
(value oriented) and an empirical (object oriented) method. There is,
in other words, a duality of an empirical (if you want: empiristic)
approach to the historical reality of law, which is free of philosophical

edition of Gegenstand der Erkenntnis, o.c., p. X f. Dated September 1915. In Lask,

Rickert confesses, he had always seen his scientific heir apparent who would continue where he would have to leave o. He dedicates his book to the memory of
his dear friend. For the first of the three volumes of the collected works of Lask
Rickert wrote a touching, yet not sentimental Personal Preface: Emil Lask, Gesammelte
Schriften, (Collected Papers), vol. I, E. Herrigel, ed., (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1923),
pp. VXVI. In a letter dated July 12, 1915 Georg Simmel oers his condolances
to Rickert, after he had learned that Lask had perished in the war. You will have
the experience, he adds, that a considerable part of your harvest has been burned
in the barn. K. Gassen, M. Landmann (eds.), o.c., p. 113.

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speculation on the one hand, and a critical theory of legal values

which does not engage in speculations about a trans-empirical (i.e.
metaphysical) law, but focuses exclusively on the trans-empirical
significance of the empirical, historical law, on the other hand. Thus,
philosophy of law investigates the Rechtswert (the value of law), whereas
the empirical study of law studies the Rechtswirklichkeit (the reality of
law).
By embracing the neo-Kantian distinction between reality and
value, Lask tries to avoid both a one-sided empiricism which neglects
the trans-empirical reality of values and the metaphysics of Natural
Law philosophies which hypostatizes (reifies) the values into an
autonomous reality which subjects empirical reality to an authoritarian rationalism.20 The influential Historical School that rejects onesided empiricism too, is in Lasks view the exact opposite of Natural
Law. It correctly castigated the adherents of Natural Law for their
neglect of the inexhaustible richness of historical particularities with
its contingencies and unpredictabilities, but it too slipped o into
metaphysics, the metaphysics of Historicism: Natural Law wants to
juggle the empirical substratum from the value absoluteness, while
Historicism wants to conjure up the value absoluteness from the
empirical substratum.21 It next pretends to be able to issue valuejudgments about empirical reality, allegedly presenting a true worldview (Weltanschauung). This, of course, Lask adds, is a misapprehension
of the value-relevance and value-relatedness of law and lawyers. As
Rickert pointed out, Lask argues, the focus on the values and cultural significance of a reality like the law is philosophically not a
normative value-judgment, but a theoretical value-relation, a theoretical relating of reality to values. Also, Lask could have added here,
Rickerts historical approach to reality is not a normative approach,
belonging to a normative historicist worldview, but a (cultural-)scientific
method in which there is no place for value-judgments.
When he turns to the methodology of legal science, Lask starts
with the statement that it is a branch of the cultural sciences and
20
This is, of course, not the place to discuss Lasks analysis of Natural Law as
a metaphysical approach rejected by neo-Kantian criticism. See Emil Lask, Rechtsphilosophie, 1905, in: Gesammelte Schriften, vol. I, o.c., pp. 277331. Also in: H.-L.
Ollig (ed.), o.c., pp. 186189.
21
Das Naturrecht will aus der Absolutheit des Wertes das empirische Substrat,
der Historismus aus dem empirischen Substrat die Absolutheit des wertes hervorzaubern. Ibid., p. 197.

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follows Rickert by saying that the cultural-scientifically conceived

world (to which law belongs) emerges by means of a purely theoretical relating of reality to values.22 He then expands on a theorem
of Rickert, namely the fact that Kants Copernican turn in which
reality is constructed by means of our categories, is not just restricted
to scientific concepts, but can be observed outside the world of science in everyday life knowledge. Rickert calls it a pre-scientific conceptualization which prepares scientific conceptualization. (We saw
this before, when we discussed Rickerts ideas about the concepts of
daily language.) Lask elaborates this idea, stating that the single cultural worlds in which we live can and should be seen as congealed
theoretical reason ( geronnene theoretische Vernunft), as incorporations of
pre-scientific conceptualizations. This, Lask concludes, thereby going
beyond Rickerts methodological position, results in the fact that
methodology may have a dierent object of investigation than the
forms of the sciences, such as Natural Science and Cultural Science.
In the case of cultural sciences, methodology will also need to focus
directly on cultural reality itself, e.g. on the world of law. In doing
so it will, even if it focuses on the same object, say the practice of
law, yet dier from the empirical-scientific approach, say the sociology of law, since it is primarily interested in the problems of conceptualization, not in the results of empirical research.
Lask then draws the interesting conclusion that one may not separate the methodology of the pre-scientific from that of the scientific
legal concepts.23 However, he adds a further observation: nowhere
does the pre-scientific conceptualization play such a dominant role
as in the legal area, because the legal norms laid down in formal
laws and enacted in jurisprudence are derived from societal demands,
unlike the norms of philosophy which spring from the world of formal values. It is in this sense that one ought to conceive of jurisprudence as a normative science, i.e. not as the opposite of the purely

Ibid., p. 209.
Ibid., p. 213. It is interesting to relate this view to the cognate theory of Josef
Esser, Vorverstndnis und Methodenwahl, (Pre-understanding and Choice of Methods),
1970, (Frankfurt a.M.: Athenum Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1972). Lasks view
also reminds one of the phenomenological view of Alfred Schutzs methodology.
See e.g. Alfred Schutz, Common-Sense and Scientific interpretation of Human
Action, in: Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers I. The Problem of Social Reality, (The Hague:
Martinus Nijho, 1962), pp. 348.
22
23

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empirical sciences but as the science which derives its normative concepts from the pre-scientific norms of daily life.24
The echoes of Windelband and in particular Rickert are obvious
by now. Lask would deserve more attention than this, but let us
transfer to the neo-Kantian tones and colors of the philosophy of
law of his friend Radbruch.
The philosopher of law, state minister of justice during the Weimar
Republic and university professor of criminal law and philosophy
(twice at Heidelberg) Gustav Radbruch (18781946), was strongly
influenced by the neo-Kantianism of the Baden School, in particular by Windelband, Rickert and Lask. He mentions these names in
his posthumously reprinted Rechtsphilosophie (1950), but in particular
Rickerts philosophy of values has had a heavier imprint on his ideas
than a brief footnote justifies.25
Radbruch opens the first chapter, headed Reality and Value, by
the statement that in reality, i.e. the shapeless raw material of our
experiences, reality and value are mixed up. We experience people
and things that are tied to values or unvalues, but we are not aware
of the fact that these values and unvalues stem from us the beholders, not from the things and people we behold. The first act of our
mind is to separate our I from reality, to confront it and to separate it from values. We are able to confront reality without relating
it to values which then present the realm of nature, because nature
is nothing else then reality stripped of values. Inversely, reality can be
24
Ibid., p. 217. Two critical annotations seem in order here. Lask should have
added at this point religion and theology as phenomena which are very similar to
jurisprudence and law in that they too derive their normative values (and thus their
significance) from empirical, pre-theological religious values and norms. Moreover,
these pre-scientific legal and religious norms and values suggest strongly the existence of natural law and natural religion.
25
Gustav Radbruch, Rechtsphilosophie, (Stuttgart: Koehler Verlag, 1950). This 4th
edition was edited by Erik Wolf who wrote an informative introductory essay on
Radbruchs life and work: Gustav Radbruchs Leben und Werk, ibid., pp. 1778.
In law and criminology adequate causal imputation is, of course, a crucial issue.
Radbruch wrote a brief monograph about it which influenced Max Webers thinking about the subject. See Gustav Radbruch, Die Lehre von der adquaten Verursachung,
(The Doctrine of Adequate Causal Imputation), (Berlin: J. Guttentag, Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1902). Cf. Max Weber, Objektive Mglichkeit und adquate Verursachung in der historischen Kausalbetrachtung, (Objective Possibility and Adequate
Causal Imputation in the Historical Observation of Causality), in: Max Weber,
Gesammelte Aufstze zur Wissenschaftslehre, (Collected Papers on the Logic of the
Sciences), 1920, (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1968, 3rd ed.), pp. 266290.

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313

valued and confronted by norms, which renders it into a realm of

values. If value-blind behavior is exerted methodically it is naturalscientific thought, if it is a valuating attitude it can be characterized
as a philosophy of values which consists of three branches: logic,
ethics and aesthetics.26
This is clearly an application of Rickerts theory of value-free
nature and evaluative culture. Radbruch adds two more attitudes
to these two (the value-blind and the valuating): the value-relating
(wertbeziehende) and the value-superseding (wertberwindende) attitudes.
The former is still part of Rickerts philosophy of values, but the latter is definitely not. As to the value-relating attitude, it is demonstrated by the scientist who searches for Truth, the artist who strives
for Beauty, the moralist who aims at the Good, yet in reality this
searching, striving and aiming will never be complete, because truth
and error, taste and tastelessness, beauty and ugliness, moral humanitarianism and barbarism will be mixed. Culture, in other words, is
a mixture of value-promotion and value-inhibition, value-realization
and value-missing. Culture, Radbruch argues, is not the realization
of culture, but the sort of reality which has the meaning, the sense
to realize values. This is what the value-related attitude is all about.
It is the methodical attitude of the cultural sciences.
This is, albeit in a dierent formulation, still very much akin to
Rickerts idea of value-relatedness. However, Radburch deviates from
Rickert decisively, when he adds a fourth attitude which he calls the
value-transcending or superseding attitude which is, he claims, the
religious attitude. To Rickert, religion is one of the atheoretical forms
of evaluation and value-relatedness, next to aestheticism, moralism
and eroticism. It may be defined as transcendence but one then
leaves the realm of empirical philosophy and enters the world of
metaphysics. Radbruch reserves a special, autonomous place for it
and defines it as the final approval of all being, a smiling positivism
which pronounces his yes and amen about all things, love without
consideration of the value or unvalue of the loved one, bliss beyond
happiness and unhappiness, grace beyond guilt and innocence.27 He

Radbruch, Rechtsphilosophie, o.c., p. 91f.

letztendige Bejahung alles Seienden, lchelnder Positivismus, der ber alle
Dinge sein Ja und Amen spricht, Liebe ohne Rcksicht auf Wert oder Unwert des
Geliebten, Seligkeit jenseits von Glck und Unglck, Gnade jenseits von Schuld
und Unschuld. Ibid., p. 93.
26

27

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even claims that religion manages to surmount the unvalues and

thereby also the values since they are intertwined. In religion everything is equally valuable or equally worthless. This means again that
the distinction between reality and value disappears. In religion reality transforms from being into essence. This is, of course, theologically speaking quite a mystic, if not Gnostic, and therefore rather
restricted conception of religion. Rickert would add that it is philosophically nonsensical, since it transforms the transcendental and a
priori conception of religion into a metaphysical non-reality which
is epistemologically useless.
Meanwhile, Radbruch returns to his neo-Kantian brand of philosophy of law. He defines law as a cultural phenomenon, i.e. as a
value-related fact. More precisely, law is the reality whose meaning
and sense it is to realize the value of law, the Rechtsidee, i.e. the idea
of law. This idea cannot be anything else, he claims, than justice.28
Methodologically, Radbruch employs in his philosophy of law two
strategies which he called methodical dualism and relativism. The
former is the neo-Kantian distinction between Sein and Sollen which
means that statements about what one should do or ought to do
cannot be derived from statements about facts but only deductively
from other statements of what one should do or ought to do. This,
however, Radbruch warns in line with Rickerts neo-Kantianism, is
not an issue of causality but a logical issue. Of course, evaluations
and value-judgments are influenced by facts. Radbruch refers to Karl
Mannheims sociology of knowledge in which the positional determination of knowledge (die soziale Standortgebundenheit des Erkennens) is
explicated. Yes, knowledge, ideologies, value-judgments are embedded in and in this sense causally influenced by historically relative,
social circumstances, but that is something else than being logically
justified by them: It is not claimed that value-judgments cannot be
caused by empirical facts, rather that they cannot by them be justified.29

28
Ibid., p. 123f. Although he claims to have constructed this theory in the spirit
of Kants philosophy, John Rawls does not mention Radbruchs crucial idea of justice in his A Theory of Justice, 1971, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University
Press, 1977).
29
Nicht dies wird behauptet, dass Wertungen nicht durch Seinstatsachen verursacht, vielmehr dass sie aus ihnen nicht begrndet werden knnen. Ibid., p. 99. Karl
Mannheim, Historicism, in: Karl Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge,
translated by Paul Kecskemeti, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952), p. 125
and passim.

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315

It is at this point that Radbruch introduces the quite hazardous

concept of relativism as a method rather than a worldview. The relativist method states that the correctness of a value-judgment is ascertained in relation to a certain view of the world and its values, but
it is not the task of this method to ascertain the correctness of this
worldview and its values. In a footnote Radbruch adds the alternative concept of perspectivism which is, I think better, than relativism
which in the history of philosophy carries a too negatively loaded
connotation.30 Relationism was coined by Mannheim as a felicitous
alternative concept. A simple examplenot given by Radbruch
thoughmay illustrate this relativist (perspectivist, relationist) method.
If a historian tries to reconstruct the ideology of a leading nationalsocialist in the 1930s and early 1940s he will locate his values and
value-judgments within the context of National Socialism and draw
conclusions as to their correctness. This, however, does not mean
that he expresses a positive or negative value-judgment about the
national-socialist ideology as a whole. If he were to do so, he would
transfer his arguments from history as an empirical cultural-science
within the university to politics as a normative practice within the
arena of power. This is, of course, identical with Rickerts vision.
HISTORY
The Dutch historian Johan Huizinga (18721945) studied initially
Sanskrit and philology, wrote a PhD-thesis on the fool in classical
Indian theatre,31 but transferred at the beginning of the 20th century to history. He was appointed professor of history at the University
of Groningen in 1905 and ten years later into the same position at
the University of Leiden. In his inaugural address of 1905, entitled
The Aesthetic Component of Historical Imaginations,32 he presented
his methodological view of the historical discipline. The neo-Kantian
philosophies of history, as unfolded by Simmel, Windelband and in

Radbruch, o.c., p. 102.

Johan Huizinga, De Vidusaka in het Indisch Tooneel, (Groningen: Noordho, 1897).
Cf. my Reality in a Looking-Glass. Rationality through an Analysis of Traditional Folly,
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982), p. 151.
32
Johan Huizinga, Het aesthetische bestanddeel van geschiedkundige voorstellingen, in: Johan Huizinga, Verzamelde Werken VII, (Collected Works, vol. VII),
pp. 318.
30
31

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particular Rickert, functioned as a starting point. However, he used

them in this lecture as well as in some other methodological treatises quite eclectically, adopting only those points of view that fitted
his aesthetic, and sometimes quite romantic opinions about the historians task.
He is in total agreement with his three colleagues in the rejection
of what he labeled the suzerainty of natural science33 which, upon
the successful developments of the natural sciences in the 19th century, had a heavy impact on the humanities, the historical discipline
in the first place. He joins their criticism of Karl Lamprecht who,
as we saw before, was the whipping boy of Simmel, Rickert and
Weber. To their and Huizingas dismay Lamprecht believed that history should be modeled after the exact natural sciences and be transformed into an experimental social psychology. If historical research
could not yield general concepts in which everything particular and
individual is being neutralized, it would not be worthy, Lamprecht
thought, to be called science and rather be categorized as art.34 As
the title of his inaugural address indicates, Huizinga is quite averse
to abstract conceptualizations, and as a historian rather driven by a
more aesthetic than logical preference for imaginations and expressive images. Rickert would strongly take exception to this aesthetic
approach, but one must admit that his arguments in some instances
did lead up to it. Huizinga is an illustration of that.
He is particularly fond of the following passage from Rickerts theory of historical concept formation which indeed seems to nourish
aesthetic and even vitalistic desires: The historian [therefore] tries
to represent for us in a graphic manner the past in its individuality.
He can only do so, if he enables us in a sense to re-live the unique
event in its individual course. Sure enough, in his presentation he
is, as is the case with all sciences, dependent on words with general
meanings. Through them there will never emerge a direct, graphic
picture of reality. But he will indeed sometimes call upon the listener

33
Johan Huizinga, De taak der cultuurgeschiedenis, (The Task of Cultural
History), ibid., pp. 3595. Quotation on p. 69.
34
Cf. his short but very critical review of Karl Lamprecht, Einfhrung in das historische Denken, (Introduction to Historical Thought), (Leipzig: Voigtlnder, 1912),
in: Ibid., p. 233f. He sees Lamprecht as the representative of the opinion that history ought to be vindicated by the suzerainty of natural science which claims that
its norms of exactness represent the only test of true science. Ibid., p. 69.

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317

or the reader to imagine something by means of his power of imagination.35 In quoting these sentences, Huizinga omits the two sentences about the words (i.e. concepts) which carry general meanings
and are not suitable to forge aesthetic images of reality.36 He would
probably range this under the concept of concepticity.37 Moreover,
Huizinga does obviously not notice the little word bisweilen, i.e. at
times, or sometimes. This indicates that it is sometimes unavoidable
for the historian to call upon the power of imagination of his audience, but he should not make a habit out of it.
Huizinga then elaborates his idea of imagination and calls it quite
romantically historical sensation or historical contact.38 It is a kind
of emotional connection with the past, a sentiment which is similar
to but not identical to the enjoyment of art, or a religious experience, or a shiveriness in nature, or a metaphysical sensation. The
object of this historical sensation does not consist of human figures,
or human lives, or human thoughts which one believes to perceive.
There are no clear pictures, everything is vague. Streets, houses,
fields, sounds and colors, moving and moved peopleit can all be
summoned in this historical sensation. This contact with the past is
accompanied by an absolute conviction of truth and authenticity. It
can be aroused by a line from a charter or a chronicle, by an
engraving, some sounds from an old song. It is not an element which
the author deposits in his work by distinct words. It lies behind not
within the history book. The reader carries it towards the author, it
is his response to his call.39 Huizinga then comes close to aesthetic
impressionism when he concludes that the historical sensation is
carried out in the sphere of the dream, a seeing of elusive figures,
a hearing of words half understood.40 Rickert would label all this
Der Historiker sucht daher die Vergangenheit in ihrer Individualitt uns
anschaulich wieder zu vergegenwrtigen, und das kann er nur dadurch tun, dass
er es uns ermglicht, das einmalige Geschehen in seinem individuellen Verlauf
gewissermassen nachzuerleben. Zwar ist er bei seiner Darstellung, wie alle Wissenschaft,
auf Worte angewiesen, die allgemeine Bedeutungen haben, und durch die daher
niemals direkt ein anschauliches Bild der Wirklichkeit entsteht. Aber er wird in der
Tat den Hrer oder Leser bisweilen auordern, durch seine Einbildungskraft sich
etwas anschaulich vorzustellen. Rickert, Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschafi, o.c.,
p. 95.
36
Huizinga, l.c., p. 70.
37
This is also in Dutch a neologism: begrippelijkheid. Cf. Huizinga, ibid., p. 73.
38
Ibid., p. 71.
39
Ibid., p. 71f.
40
Ibid., p. 72.
35

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CHAPTER SIX

intuition and, as we have seen, he was not averse to it, but rather
saw it as a precondition instead of, as Huizinga seems to view it, as
an essential component of the historians methodology.
But then, suddenly, Huizinga turns around and returns to a more
Rickertian style and content of thinking and writing. He admits that
historical imagination and sensation are just parts of historical understanding and knowing. The aim of the historian, he writes, is not
subjecting to moods, but making understandable connections.41 He
formulates it as in a programme: Each work of history constructs
connections, designs forms in which reality of the past can be understood. History creates the sense of understanding mainly through the
meaningful arrangement of facticity, and only in a very restricted
sense by the determination of strict causalities. The knowledge it
brings about gives answer to questions as what? and how? and
only exceptionally to questions as through what? and why?.42
History then is, according to him, always the designing of the past,
and at the same time a comprehending and understanding of a
meaning which one searches in the past. But then, he adds, history
itself is like philosophy, or literature, or law, or natural science a
spiritual form by means of which we try to understand the world.
The main dierence with the other spiritual forms is its focus on
the past. It tries to understand the world in and by the past.43 He
then formulates his famous definition of history: History is the spiritual form by which a culture takes stock of its past.44
The distinction of form and content is constitutive to Kants philosophy and to the philosophy of Rickert. Without referring to this
source, Huizinga too applies it to the study of history. In order to
understand the past, he argues, the historian must try to see its forms
and its functions.45 He does not refer to him at this point, but his
theory of historical design by means of a continuous focus on forms
and functions (which he not very felicitously calls morphology)
reminds one strongly also of Georg Simmel. Each event, Huizinga
argues, which is conceived of by the historian presupposes a certain design of the material of the past, a cognitive summarizing of

41
42
43
44
45

Ibid.,
Idem.
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
This

p. 73.
p. 99.
p. 102.
is elaborated on ibid., pp. 7578, 98103.

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319

some data from the chaotic reality into a conception.46 Just like
Rickert, he grounds these conceptions in everyday life experience:
Historical thought is but a continuation of the general thought-life
itself.47 It leads him to an anti-nominalistic conclusion: each pristine
reflection about history applies ideas which in fact shape the past.
The historian can from the start possess vernacular concepts like
parliament, world war, capitalism, religious faith, etc.
Cultural history in particular is in possession of such formal concepts, and the great cultural historians have, often unconsciously,
always been great historical morphologists. Huizinga mentions
Burckhardt as an example. His celebrated study of Renaissance culture, Huizinga comments, may have been too vague, simply because
Renaissance cannot be understood as a clear form, but the single
forms which he discussed and analyzed, such as fame, mockery, wittiness, family life, etc. maintain the value of a masterpiece beyond
praise. It testifies to an unequalled sense of Forms.48 His own famous
study of the waning of the Middle Ages has in the meantime equaled
the fame of Burckhardts book on Renaissance culture. It testifies to
the very same sense of forms, which, incidentally, is expressed explicitly by its subtitle.49
Thus, there is not a direct and substantial impact of Rickerts philosophy on Huizingas methodological reflections. Their aestheticism
is alien to Rickerts transcendentalism and reminds one more of
Benedetto Croces philosophy of history than of Rickerts highly rational ideas. Yet, Huizingas ideas do reverberate with several of Rickerts
methodological conceptions and of those of Windelband and Simmel
as well. But then, Huizinga does not excel in logical and methodological virtuosity, to phrase it mildly, and at some points he distinctly misunderstands and misinterprets Rickerts philosophy. This
is the case, as we saw, when he injects vitalistic and romantic notions
in Rickerts texts. In a book review, to give another example, he
remarks en passant, that Rickert defends a cleavage between the natural and the cultural sciences which in the mean time has allegedly

Ibid., p. 76.
Idem.
48
Ibid., p. 77.
49
Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages. A study in the Forms of Life and
Thought and Art in France and the Netherlands in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, 1929,
transl by F. Hopman, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1954).
46
47

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been bridged.50 This misinterprets the logically constructed and reciprocal (heterological) nature of Natural Science and Cultural Science.
As we have seen in the former chapter the two types of scientific
conceptualization function in Rickerts view as the heterologically
correlated extremes of an analytic continuum. This is not a cleavage at all. On the contrary, Rickert opens a way out of the fruitless opposition of Naturwissenschaft and Geisteswissenschaft and its equally
fruitless methodological quarrel.
SOCIOLOGY
Karl Mannheim (18931947) acquired fame as one of the founders
of the sociology of knowledge,51 but was, certainly in his younger
days in Budapest, also a general philosopher who was mainly interested in the role of values and in epistemological, logical and methodological problems. As a young man he belonged to a group of
philosophers around Georg Lukcs (18851971) who to the surprise
of his friends changed in December 1918 in one week from a rather
conservative, Hegelian Saul into a radical Marxist Paul.52 He even
served in 1919 as peoples commissar for education in the soviet
republic of Bela Kun (18861939) which was only in power for three
months. The group around Lukcs met monthly before the Kunrevolution, discussing mainly issues of culture and cultural sciences.
They were mockingly called Szellemkek which literally means Spirits.
This referred to their focus on Geist and Geisteswissenschaft, in opposition to the neo-positivistic sociologists who rather put nature and
the natural sciences on a pedestal.53 After all, Lukcs studied in

Johan Huizinga, Boekbesprekingen (Book Reviews), ibid., p. 233.

See for a systematic treatment of this part of Mannheims theories A. P.
Simonds, Karl Mannheims Sociology of Knowledge, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978). It
contains a helpful bibliography which registers the English translations of his publications: ibid., pp. 188192.
52
See David Kettler, Marxismus und Kultur. Mannheim und Lukcs in den ungarischen
Revolutionen 1918/19, (Marxism and Culture. Mannheim and Lukcs in the Hungarian
Revolutions 1918/19), (Neuwied, Berlin: Luchterhand, 1967), p. 64.
53
Lukcs and his small band of followers, including Mannheim, founded the
Free School for the Humanities (Freie Schule fr Geisteswissenschaften) which
provided free courses for students and laymen and functioned as a kind of Folk
College (Volkshochschule). See the concise but very informative account of David
Kettler, o.c. The motto of Kettlers book is a statement by Lukcs: Die Politik ist
bloss Mittel, die Kultur ist das Ziel. (Politics ist just a means, culture is the aim.),
50

51

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321

Heidelberg and belonged to the inner-circle of Max Weber. But also

as a Marxist and politician Lukcs believed that culture was the aim
and politics its means of realization. In other words, he was and
remained an avid defender of the autonomy of the super-structure
(Ueberbau) and rejected the vulgar-Marxist position of the causal predominance of the infra-structure (Unterbau).54
Although Mannheim was not a Marxist or member of the communist party, once in power Lukcs saw to it that he, despite his
youth of just 25 years, was appointed professor of philosophy at the
university in Budapest. After the early end of the Bela Kun regime,
on the first day of August 1919, Lukcs fled to Vienna and from
there to Moscow. Mannheim took o to Frankfurt a.M., where he
engaged in further sociological studies and was appointed professor
of philosophy ten years later.55 As a Jew he had to flee again in
1933, ending his life in intellectual loneliness in London January 9,
1947.
Although this has, as far as I know, not been documented, we
may assume that Mannheim got thoroughly acquainted in Heidelberg
with the neo-Kantian theories of Windelband and Rickert. In fact,
the neo-Kantianism of Windelband and Rickert, and at times also
the philosophy of Simmel, recur in his philosophical writings. However, as we shall see, he deviated strongly and argumentatively from

Kettler, ibid., p. 5 and p. 43. It explains, Kettler argues, Lukcss on first sight
strange cross-over from a rather conservative Hegelian and partly neo-Kantian position to a radical Marxism. In their conservatism the Spirits rejected the capitalist
culture of the bourgeoisie they belonged to by origin.
54
This standpoint, remarkable for a politically rather orthodox Marxist, was in
all probability inspired by Max Weber who in his Wissenschaftslehre once called Marx
a great thinker (den grossen Denker), but the model of an infra-structure versus
a dependent super-structure this fundamentally wrong and scientifically completely
worthless analogy (diese grundschiefe und wissenschaftlich ganz wertlose Analogie).
Max Weber, Wissenschaftslehre, p. 204 and p. 316. See also p. 253. Politically, this
emphasis upon culture is not without danger, in particular when it is linked to the
culture of an historical culture. As we have seen in the Introduction, Rickert claimed
in 1934 that after World War I Germanys entire culture was once more in danger and that therefore no German who wanted to work within Germanys culture,
should resist the main direction of the national-political cultural aims. Cf. Heinrich
Rickert, Grundprobleme der Philosophie, o.c., pp. 222224.
55
In view of Mannheims rejection of the separation of science and value-judgments of the neo-Kantians and his project to unify socio-political, socio-ethical and
sociological studies which he further elaborated in Frankfurt, it is safe to see him
as one of the founding fathers of the Frankfurt School, next to Max Horkheimer
and Theodor Adorno.

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Rickerts methodological demand to abstain from normative, evaluative judgments.

In a review of a book in which Rickerts demarcation of the natural and cultural sciences was attacked fiercely, Mannheim discusses
the question how the various sciences can be classified adequately.56
One always classifies objects by means of a certain point of view,
or perspectivea methodological standpoint which is, of course, in
concordance with Rickerts thesis of value-relevance or value-relatedness. But such a perspective, the reviewed author argues, is only
adequate, if it is grounded ontologically in the inner structuring of
the objective reality. There is, in other words, an inherent, ontological order in reality, a structured essence. This point, the author
argues, is missed or consciously neglected by Kant and the neoKantians who stick to the idea that the thing-in-itself cannot be
known and therefore is irrational and chaotic. Order, the neoKantian epistemologists believe, is in the end imposed by human
reason and its a priori categories. However, Mannheims reviewed
philosopher admits, there is not just one but a plurality of perspectives and this must, of course, result in various conflicting classifications.
These conflicts cannot be resolved epistemologically by formal logic.
One must mentally enter into the objective reality, arrive at an inner
understanding of its structured essence and from there determine
which perspective is more and which is less adequately equipped to
classify the objects. In short, as to classification in general and to
the demarcation of the natural sciences and the humanities in particular, ontology has a primacy over epistemology and logic. In other
words, Mannheim summarizes, if one believes that the adequacy or
inadequacy of various viewpoints is ontologically based in objective
reality, one must necessarily also believe that the essence of the reality which one wants to classify is somehow given by a direct mental act (i.e. intuition) before we approach reality cognitively, logically
and methodologically by means of abstract concepts.
Mannheim then raises a question which Rickert would have formulated as a statement. If we allowed the idea that the essence of
Erich Becher, Geisteswissenschaften und Naturwissenschaften, (Sciences of the Mind
and Natural Sciences), (Mnmchen, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1921). Karl
Mannheim, Zum Problem einer Klassifikation der Wissenschaften, (On the Problem
of a Classification of Sciences), in: Karl Mannheim, Wissenssoziologie. Auswahl aus
dem Werk, (Sociology of Knowledge. Selection from his Work), Kurt. H. Wol, ed.,
(Berlin, Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1964, pp. 155165.
56

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323

reality can be determined directly through an intrusive act of the

mind, we would still have to acknowledge that this essence can only
be caught theoretically from one or the other point of view. This,
Mannheim points out, is not insignificant. After all, if one realizes
that the classification must take place on the theoretical level, we
can never comprehend theoretically the essence in its allegedly ontological directness and totality, but always only from a certain point
of view.57 What Mannheim says is, of course, that in the business
of knowing reality epistemology has always a primacy over ontology, which is, of course, precisely Rickerts position.
However, Mannheim has a strong reservation with regard to
Rickerts epistemologically determined methodology and its, in his
view, rather formalistic standpoint regarding the demarcation of the
two main groups of sciences, the natural and the cultural ones.
Rickert starts, Mannheim points out, this classification on the level
of conceptualization and methodology, and thereby transfers the
essence of science from research and the comprehension of objective reality to the level of the methodical representation and formation of what has been epistemologically comprehended. Mannheim
calls it an extremely formalistic methodologism which must end up
in relativism, since it is unable to establish a hierarchy of standpoints
or perspectives.58 This invites one, he continues, to embrace again
the pre-theoretical, ontological approach which he, however, dismissed before. It is, I think, indicative that he cannot solve this
dilemma, and chooses for an acceptance of both. He proposes,
namely, to reject the position which denies the importance of methodology by defending the intuitive connection to the essence of objective reality, yet to allow still for a minimum of ontological relevance,
since we have to admit that in the end the adequacy of theoretical
work, in particular that of classification, depends on something nontheoretical, something ontological which stands over against us, outside us.59 This, of course, would be fiercely (and probably ironically)

wenn man bedenkt, dass die Klassifikation sich in der theoretischen Ebene
abzuspielen hat, dass wir also das Wesen niemals in seiner angenommenen ontischen
Unmittelbarkeit und Totalitt, sondern stets nur von einem gewissen Gesichtspunkte
aus theoretisch erfasssen knnen. Mannheim, ibid., p. 157.
58
extrem formalistische Methodologismus, ibid., p. 159.
59
Ibid., p. 159f.
57

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criticized and rejected by Rickert. Indeed, does Mannheim not try

to haver his cake and and yet eat it?60
How then does the philosopher under review classify the sciences
and how does this classification dier from Rickerts? He aspires, of
course, to an ontological classification, i.e. one that starts with alleged
ontological essences, not as Rickert does with logical and methodological points of view. He too arrives at a dual classification, namely
ideal and real sciences, which actually concurs with the traditional
distinction of Geistes- and Naturwissenschaften. Mannheim discusses the
ontological definition of the humanities (Geisteswissenschaften). What is,
from this point of view, the ontological foundation of the humanities? The author under review believes that the ontological ground
of the humanities is the human soul (Seele) plus the spiritual content
which is intended by the soul. This spiritual content is, the author
explicates, intended meaning (Sinn). This leads, Mannheim argues,
to a considerable problem because both Husserl and Rickert have
demonstrated that any mental or spiritual content, e.g. the content
of a theoretical statement which is its intended meaning, diers essentially from the psychological act which intends it. In other words,
Seele and Sinn are two dierent phenomena. The psychological act
of intention occurs in an experiential stream within a specific moment
of time, but the result of this act, the intended content or meaning,
is meta-psychological and transcends the experiential and temporal
stream. Mannheim does not phrase it this way, but what he means
is, of course, that the intended meaning is non-empirical and transcendent in the neo-Kantian sense of the word. The author under
review, Mannheim notes with some irritation, tries to get out of this
logical problem by simply stating that intended meaning is just the
abstract side of the psyche and its processes. It is, he believes, an
inherent component of the objective, psychic reality because it becomes
60
Mannheim, nevertheless, tries to defend Rickerts methodological approach
against the fierce ontological attack of the philosopher under review. Even if the
methodological classification of sciences by Rickert is false, we should remember,
he says, that also inadequate classifications can still have a positive function in the
process of knowledge acquisition. In fact, he continues, this is true of all inadequate
knowledge, as it can foster new insights. Moreover, is not the specific fullness of
theoretical comprehension a constant circling around pre-theoretical objects from
dierent conceptual levels, a moving back-and-forth and transiting from one level
to the other by the dierent points of view? Consequently, Mannheim concludes,
there cannot be any absolute cognitive adequacy, but only a larger of smaller kind
of adequacy. Ibid., p. 160f. This, of course, is a return to Rickerts alleged relativism!

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only empirically apparent in psychic realities. This abstract side of ,

Mannheim counters, is a word play which the author uses in order
to avoid the real ontological dierences between soul and meaning. Moreover, if content of meaning were just the abstract side of
the soul, then one must conclude also that soul is an abstract side
of the body which would demolish the ontological classification of
bodily and psychic objects which again is the basis for the classification
of the sciences in Natur- and Geisteswissenschaften. And indeed, Mannheim
concludes, the leap which separates soul and body is not at all smaller
than the one which separates the psychic act from the mental content, the meaning, intended by this act.61 He comes to the conclusion once more that the ontological primacy in matters of cognition
in general and classification in particular cannot be maintained as
radically as the reviewed opponent of Rickert pretends.
In general Mannheims theory of knowledge remains in accordance with Rickerts philosophy. However, there is one component
of Rickerts philosophy of values and methodology of the cultural
sciences with which Weber, as we shall see instantly, agrees but
Mannheim strongly and expressedly disagrees. That is the doctrine
of the freedom from normative value-judgments (Wertungsfreiheit) which
is explicated in particular in his theory of ideology and utopia,62 but
of course also in his social-political and social-ethical works, respectively the monumental Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction (1935)
and Diagnosis of Our Time (1943).63 In this normative approach to
sociology Mannheim was definitely influenced by Lukcs who in this
respect exerted a greater and stronger influence on him than Max
Weber or Heinrich Rickert whose thinking he had absorbed as a
student in Heidelberg. However, it is my contention that the quality of his philosophical and in particular his epistemological and

Ibid., p. 153f.
Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia. An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge,
translated and edited by Louis Wirth and Edward Shils, 1936, (New York: Harcourt,
Brace & World. A Harvest Book, n.d.). The book was first published in German
in 1929, but the English edition of 1936 was substantially enlarged by Mannheim
with the assistance of Wirth and Shils.
63
Karl Mannheim, Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction. Studies in Modern Social
Structure, 1940, transl. by Edward Shils, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960,
10th ed.). This is an enlarged edition of an earlier German one, published in
Holland in 1935. It should be noted that the reconstruction referred to in the title
pertains to the period after World War I. Karl Mannheim, Diagnosis of Our Time.
Wartime Eassays of a Sociologist, 1943, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1947).
61
62

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methodological thinking declined in inverse proportion to the rise of

his socio-political and socio-ethical theories.
In contrast to Max Weber who has emphasized the professional,
non-political function of the sciences in general and sociology in particular,64 Mannheim assigned an almost prophetic task to this discipline. He phrased this lucidly in his introductory course of sociology
at the London School of Economics, 19341935. What are values?
he starts one lecture on the philosophical and sociological interpretation of values. Both the idealist philosopher and the man in the
street believe values present themselves as eternal qualities, as gifts
or commands from Heaven, as transcendental forces.65 But the sociologist sees them rather as functions of society, not as abstract entities which would exist independent of the valuating subject or the
group in which they function. There is a deep resistance to this sociological view of values since we are used to believing that they are
eternal, presented by some sort of superhuman or super historical
power. We hesitate to leave this habitual attitude, Mannheim continues, because we fear the relativism which may follow the realization that values are created by society and vary in dierent societies,
and that our own values are also dependent on our social system.66
It is as in the Copernican change which had to break the thought
habit that the sun turned around the earth, even though it endangered the religious and moral order of those days. We must today
accept the sociological fact that values are socially generated which
is not to say that their relevance is diminished. On the contrary,
they are not dictated by some transcendental command, but by our
rational insight in the needs of our social order. It sounds like an
echo of Auguste Comte, when he states that the theological and
philosophical obligation will be replaced by a sociological one.67
Mannheim adds a political dimension to this. The traditional theological and philosophical legitimations of values appealed to the
thought habits of people who were accustomed to act under authority, whereas the sociological approach to values is a democratic one

See in particular his lecture Wissenschaft als Beruf (Science as a Profession),

1919, in: Max Weber, Gesammelte Aufstze zur Wissenschaftslehre, o.c., pp. 582613.
65
Karl Mannheim, Systematic Sociology. An Introduction to the Study of Society, J. S.
Ers, W. A. C. Stewart, eds., (New York: Grove Press, 1957), pp. 131135.
66
Ibid., p. 132.
67
Idem.
64

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since the social obligation can now be reasonably tested. An additional advantage is that the sociological conception opens the door
to reforms, while the traditional absolute and authoritarian conception hampers reform.68
It stands to reason that regarding social policy and social ethics
Mannheim feels intellectually more at home in Marxs philosophy
than in Rickerts and Webers neo-Kantian logic and methodology.
In his view there is a double advantage to the Marxian view of man
and society. First, it places knowledge and reality in historical dimensions, and second, it posits, as a methodological a priori, the unity
of theory and praxis, i.e. of science and politics. Although Mannheim
never converted to Marxism and his political convictions gradually
developed in the direction of a liberal type of social democracy, as
is documented among others by Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction,
his sociology of knowledge departed gradually from a neo-Kantian
to a Marxist position. This was apparent in particular in his wellknown doctrine of the Seinsverbundenheit des Wissens which meant the
basing of all knowledge in the surrounding social circumstances and
groups of men. They are, in a sense, the infra-structure to which
the super-structure of knowledge is causally related.69 He added to
this social determination of knowledge the ongoing influence of history, calling for a historicist interpretation of history and society.70

Idem.
It is probably a remnant of the preoccupation with mind and culture of the
Budapest group around Lukcs, when Mannheim defines the infra-structure of knowledge, c.q. culture, primarily in sociological not in economic terms.
70
Cf. Karl Mannheim, Historicism, 1924, transl. by P. Keckskemeti, (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952), pp. 84133. Mannheims historicism was criticized
by Karl R. Popper, The Poverty of Historicism, 1957, (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1969). He singled out Mannheims alleged holism regarding societal reform
by means of utopian planning, opposing it by his own anti-holistic idea of piecemeal engineering. Cf. Piecemeal versus Utopian Engineering: ibid., pp. 6470. For
a sociological critique see Robert K. Merton, Karl Mannheim and the Sociology
of Knowledge, in: Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure, 1949, (New
York: The Free Press of Glencoe; London: Collier-Macmillan, 1964, 9th ed.), pp.
489508. He remarks with some latent irritation that Mannheim never clarifies how
this determining relationship between knowledge and social structure ought to be
conceived precisely. And he adds: This lacuna leads to vagueness and obscurity at
the very heart of his central thesis concerning the existential determination of
knowledge. Merton, ibid., p. 498. This is, of course, not the place to elaborate all
this in more details. See my De relativiteit van kennis en werkelijkheid, Inleiding tot de kennissociologie, (The Relativity of Knowledge and Reality. An Introduction to the
Sociology of Knowledge), (Amsterdam: Boom Meppel, 1974), pp. 145150.
68
69

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Needless to add that it is a long way from Rickerts methodological

Wertverbundenheit to Mannheims sociological Seinsverbundenheit.
A corner stone of his sociology of knowledge is the dynamics of
two types of worldview which he labeled ideology and utopia. In
(Western) history these two thought-systems which are not just methodological (ideal-typical) constructions but hypostasized (ontologized)
ways of acting, thinking and feeling, function as in a reciprocal relationship. Both of them are conscious distortions of reality, of the
facts, of an existing status quo, the former in order to maintain the
existing power structure, the other, on the contrary, to burst asunder the bonds of the existing order. That is, ideology is conservative, if not reactionary, utopia is progressive and the motor of
reform or revolutionary change.71 This juxtaposition has a manicheistic, dualistic character: ideologies represent the dark sides of human
knowledge, utopias the forces of light. In any case, the status quo is
in Mannheims view a functional social order, which does not exist
only in the imagination of certain individuals but according to which
people really act.72 Rickert and Weber would observe that this is a
remarkably positivistic and ontological, or even metaphysical point
of view, because it seems to contend that there exists independent
of common and sociological interpretations of human behavior and
social reality an objectively social reality according to which people really act. This opinion may well be true, the problem however
is that it remains unclear how and what objective reality, this socalled functioning order, is apart from interpretations which in the
terms of Mannheims sociology of knowledge are in their turn historical and socially determined and thus non-objective in the positivistic and ontological/metaphysical sense of this word. Once more,
Mannheim wavers between the epistemological and ontological primacy of common and scientific knowledge.
What then is the role of sociology in the dynamics of ideology
and utopia? Briefly formulated, it is the separating of the wheat of
utopias from the cha of ideologies. In historical and empirical reality, ideological and utopian ideas will be mixed and only rarely occur
blatantly in the social and political structure. He singles out, for
example the medieval chiliastic movements as an example of utopia,

71
72

Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, o.c., p. 194.

Ibid., p. 194.

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329

and the Nazi movement as a specimen of ideology, but emphasizes

that elements of the opposite worldview are present in such movements. It is the task of the historically educated sociologist to search
for the utopian components of knowledge systems, even in the case
of authoritarian and dictatorial systems predominated by a totalitarian ideology, and to synthesize them into a progressive, future oriented new worldview. This task, Mannheim believes, is essential in
an age of reconstruction in which there is a dire need for a utopian
planning, which he defined as a planning for freedom.73 This task
can, of course, only be performed by people who themselves are not
completely committed to a utopian or an ideological worldview. In
his view the intelligentsia, consisting of academics, artists, journalists,
and other people who are not directly bound by the political and
economic interests of one or the other group, are the ideal persons
to perform this critical role. He labeled them the relatively (!) socially
and politically free intelligentsia. They embody an ethos which is,
Mannheim believes, crucial for a democratic system because it contains rules of the socio-political game in which people act as honntes hommes who are prepared to give way to reasonableness above
private or collective interests.74
In conclusion, Mannheim drifts away from his initial philosophical position which is still influenced by the rational neo-Kantianism
of Windelband and Rickert, to a rather irrational sociology of knowledge which aims at a merger and integration of science, politics and
ethics. It is what logicians call a metabasis eis allo genos, a transition
to a dierent sort, namely an admittedly impressive social philosophy which is, however, based upon scores of ontological and metaphysical presuppositions. In the terms of Rickerts philosophy, this
type of sociology of knowledge remains strictly speakingand Rickerts

73
Mannheim, Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction, Part V: Planning for
Freedom, o.c., pp. 239368.
74
See my De relativiteit van kennis en werkelijkheid, o.c., pp. 143155, where I also
discuss Theodor Geigers impressive critique as laid down in his Aufgaben und Stellung
der Intelligenz in der Gesellschaft, (Tasks and Position of the Intelligentsia in Society),
(Stuttgart: Enke Verlag, 1949), chapter three: The social task of the intelligentsia.
The Polish-American sociologist Florian Znaniecki takes exception to Mannheims
relatively socially free-floating intelligentsia by arguing that intellectuals are only
freed from productive labor because they cater ideas and theoretical reflections to
specific social circles which are willing to support them. In other words, they play
social roles which in society are considered to be relevant. See his The Social Role
of the Man of Knowledge, 1940, (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1968).

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philosophy aims at a very strict way of arguing and judgingneither

logically, nor epistemologically and methodologically sound. As we
shall see below, Max Weber manages to avoid at least the metaphysical pitfall, and remains within the borders of science and scientific
philosophy. His dependence on Rickert is, at least in his logic of the
social sciences, strong, yet at decisive points, particularly in his celebrated theory of the ideal types, he testifies to the power of his own
philosophical imagination.
Of the philosophers and social scientists discussed in this chapter
Max Weber (18641920) was personally and intellectually closest to
Rickert. The latters philosophy of values and his logical and methodological demarcation of Natural Science and Cultural Science exerted
a decisive impact on Webers methodological essays, but also on his
cultural-sociological studies in the area of the sociology of religion,
the sociology of law, and economic history. At the same time, Weber
definitely managed to both modify and amplify Rickerts philosophy
and methodology. He certainly was not a passive receptor of the
ideas of his friend and colleague.
It is not the intention of this last section to present an integral
discussion of Webers methodology, substantial sociology and socioeconomic history. This has been done by others in an exemplary
manner.75 It is not even the aim to analyze in details the similarities and dierences of the theories of Rickert and Weber. This has
also been done by others.76 Moreover, the literature on Weber has
meanwhile grown into an ocean of books and articles which cannot
be covered in a small section as the present one.
However, Weber, a trained legal scholar, a dominant figure in
economic history, an autodidact in philosophy and the comparative
study of religion, and above all the inventor of an idiosyncratic sociology which he called verstehende Soziologie, was, as is well known, a

75
An early and well-nigh classic survey is Alexander von Schelting, Max Webers
Wissenschaftslehre, (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1934). Cf. Talcott Parsonss Review of
Alexander von Scheltings Max Webers Wissenschaftslehre , in: American Sociological
Review, 1 (1936), pp. 675681. Also Thomas Burger, Max Webers Theory of Concept
Formation. History, Laws, and Ideal Types, (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University
Press, 1976).
76
Cf. Guy Oakes, Weber and Rickert. Concept Formation in the Cultural Sciences,
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1988). Peter-Ulrich Merz, Max Weber
und Heinrich Rickert, (Knigshausen: Neumann, 1997).

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331

towering figure in the socio-cultural sciences of Germany at the end

of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. It stands to reason that there is also an echo of his work in the thinking and writing of Rickert.
Six years after Webers death, the first publication of Webers collected
works and Marianne Webers biography of her husband,77 Rickert publishes an article in which he first tells about his personal and intellectual
friendship with Weber, and then points out that Weber was not and never
pretended to be a philosopher. Weber was both a scientific specialist and
a politician, and never managed to unify the scientific theoretician and the
political practitioner in his impressive personality. In fact, Rickert argues,
he kept these two talents apart consciously and systematically. That would
not have satisfied him, if he had been a philosopher, because a philosopher wants to arrive in the end at an integrated Weltanschauung, i.e. at an
overall and systematic view of the world-in-toto. Weber, Rickert claims, never
had any such truly philosophical urge. His emphasis on the combination
of value-relevance and the conscious abstention from value-judgments was
correct, but his solution to distinguish theoretical contemplation and political activity is philosophically unsatisfactory.78
In other words, Rickert is not prepared to acknowledge the philosophical status of his friend, despite his philosophically very profound and complex essays in the logic of the social sciences.79 He assigns to him the dual
77
Marianne Weber, Max Weber. Ein Lebensbild, (Max Weber. A Picture of his
Life), (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1926). She relates that in Heildelberg she was
Rickerts diligent student and kept her husband abreast of the things she had
learned from Rickert: ibid., p. 216.
78
Heinrich Rickert, Max Weber und seine Stellung zur Wissenschaft, in: Logos,
15 (1926), pp. 222237.
79
Rickert disagreed with Karl Jaspers who after Webers death had referred to
him as a great philosopher. They had a rather unpleasant exchange of words about
this over the phone. Jaspers allegedly concluded their squabble, which was not the
first nor the last one, by telling Rickert that he would in the future at the most be
remembered in footnotes of studies on Webers work. Cf. Hermann Glockner,
Heidelberger Bilderbuch, (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 1969), p. 103f.; Hans Saner, Jaspers,
1970, (Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1984), p. 36f, 140f.; Guy Oakes,
o.c., p. 9f. Oakes, American translator of (portions of ) the Grenzen, agrees with
Jasperss harsh judgment which meanwhile may be quite wrong in view of the fact
that the recently erected Rickert Research Institute at the University of Dsseldorf
is in the process of publishing Rickerts collected works in fifteen volumes. For
Jaspers view of Weber see his elegantly written Max Weber. Politiker. Forscher. Philosoph,
(Max Weber. Politician. Researcher. Philosopher), (Mnchen: Piper, 1958). See
also Gustav Ramming, Karl Jaspers und Heinrich Rickert. Existenzialismus und Wertphilosophie,
(Bern: Francke Verlag, 1948). See in particular Rickerts sound and fair critique of
Jaspers book on the psychology of worldviews: Psychologie der Weltanschauungen und
Philosophie der Werte, (Psychology of Worldviews and Philosophy of Values), 1920,
in: Hans Saner, ed., Karl Jaspers in der Diskussion, (The Discussion about Karl Jaspers),
(Mnchen: Piper Verlag, 1973), pp. 3570.

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status of theoretical scientific specialist (legal scholar, social and economic

historian, sociologist, researcher of comparative religion) and active politician. The latter is rather questionable. Weber was a political theoretician
and commentator as is demonstrated by the collected political papers, but
not at any time in his life a practicing politician.80 He engaged in normativepolitical value-judgments and participated as an adviser in the German delegation to the peace conference at Versailles after World War I. Yet, this
was still not really political practice. After the war Weber was allegedly
asked to be a candidate for the election of the national president of the
Weimar Republic, but he refused because he felt he should stick to his
scientific work at the university. One may also not forget that Weber was
academically trained as a lawyer, law being of course a normative science.
But his endeavors in the field of law too were primarily theoretical and
scientific. He only once practised as a barrister, helping a lady friend who
had an extra-marital aair with an anarchist from Northern Italy who was
incarcerated in Zrich.81 That is, of course, not enough to call him a practicing lawyer. Yet he was an accomplished legal scholar and did make use
of legal arguments, particularly in his political papers.
Moreover, in two public lectures Weber used the concept Beruf, applying it to science and to politics.82 This conceptvocationhas a double
meaning which Weber used consciously. It means profession but also calling. Weber emphasized a double precondition for both vocations: it demands
training, hard, ascetic work, and the ability to obey what Goethe had called
the demand of the day (die Forderung des Tages). But it also needs passion
and pathos, i.e. being driven by the irrational demon which for each of us
holds the fibers of our lives together.83 In view of this conception of vocation it is strange that Rickert criticizes Webers lecture for its allegedly
rather gloomy vision of scientific work. He praises Weber when he decidedly dismissed contemporary fashionable follies, such as the preoccupation
with sensation and personality and scores of romantic feelings. They are
inimical to serious scientific work. In science only he has personality, Weber
told his students in his last lecture Science as a Vocation, who serves the
business of science, and he added that if one wants to experience visions,
one should go to the cinema, not to the university. But he warned them

80
Max Weber, Gesammelte Politische Schriften, (Collected Political Papers), 1958,
(Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1971).
81
Marianne Weber, o.c., pp. 494502. See also on this legal aair Arthur Mitzman,
The Iron Cage. An Historical Interpretation of Max Weber, (New York: Alfred Knopf,
1970), pp. 287290 which is, however, based on Marianne Webers account.
82
Max Weber, Politik als Beruf , 1918, ibid., pp. 505560; Wissenschaft als
Beruf , Wissenschaftslehre, pp. 582613. See Politics as a Vocation and Science as
a Vocation, in: H. H. Gerth, C. Wright Mills, translators and editors, From Max
Weber. Essays in Sociology, 1946, (New York: Oxford University Press. A Galaxy Book,
1962), pp. 77156.
83
This is a paraphrase of the exceptionally rare metaphysical exclamation in the
last sentence of Webers swan-song Science as a Vocation, l.c., p. 613.

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in addition that engulfing oneself in science will have a disenchanting eect.

The enchantments of the past and the present lose their attraction and
legitimacy. Disenchantment of the world is the fate of everyone who seriously sets out to do scientific research, to eat from the tree of knowledge.
Rickert objects to this idea because it is, he thinks, cheerless and gloomy.
What about the joy and, yes in a sense the enchantment too, of the Platonic
mania, the Socratic Logosfreudigkeit, i.e. the joy of discovering concepts which
help us to understand the world around us? Sure enough, Rickert admits,
Weber knew this joy of discovering heuristic concepts and he was certainly
driven by the Platonic mania which causes a restless search for truth. But
he repressed them, framed them in the awareness of duty, of the demand
of the day. Rickert does obviously not realize this, but we, of course,
encounter here Webers Puritanical ethos, whose rationality stands intrinsically in opposition to any mania or joy.
Rickerts commemorative article on Webers position regarding science
throws an interesting light on his own scientific ethos. As abstract and at
times even warped as his ideas and theories have been, Rickerts philosophy lacks indeed the melancholy of Webers writings of the period shortly
before his death in 1920. In the mirror of Webers picture Rickert provides a rare insight into his own essence as a philosopher. Equally remarkable is the emotional tone with which he writes about their friendship. As
the sons of befriended liberal politicians in Berlin they were friends in their
early youth, although their encounters were rare due to the considerable
distance between the two houses. But Rickert tells the touching story of
the young, healthy, cheerful Max Weber84 who possessed a large collection of coins and exhibited such a comprehensive historical knowledge about
them that it almost frightened him. Later, during their days together at the
university, Weber impressed his friend with his extremely wide range of
interests and knowledge. Rickert already realized then that Weber would
achieve extraordinary things in the future, particularly in the field of history. After an interval of several years, they met again as teachers at the
University of Freiburg, where Weber, just thirty years old, was appointed
professor of economics, and Rickert functioned as a philosophical Privatdozent,
which is comparable to a guest professorship. Their contacts were then and
later in Heidelberg regular and intensive. Rickert saw his friend primarily
as researcher and politician, not as philosopher. Yet, he claims, this double talent compelled Weber to engage in logical issues and they brought
him into the center of his own interests: the logical structure of the historical science.85 This is, of course, an interesting and very questionable
conclusion: Weber was not a professional philosopher, but was compelled
to engage in Wissenschaftslehre, resulting in a large volume of dierent essays,
because he had to clarify logically his double talent of being both a politician and a specialized, mainly historical researcher.

84
85

den jungen, gesunden und frohen Max Weber, Rickert, ibid., p. 225.
See ibid., p. 226.

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This is not a convincing explanation of Webers rather intensive exertions in the logic and methodology of the social sciences, nor does it explain
the obvious duality in his substantive sociological studies. The essays in the
sociology of religion, namely, are distinctively based on an individualizing
Cultural-Scientific mode of conceptualization, whereas the chapters of the
unfinished General Sociology, as compiled posthumously in the two volumes of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft were intended as exercises in a generalizing, ahistorical Natural-Scientific mode of concept formation. Rickert misses
this point, and refers recurrently to Weber as the representative of a generalizing Natural-Scientific sociology, as if he were a kind of German Comte.
Moreover, as I shall argue below, Weber provides a considerable addition
to Rickerts logic, when he introduces the ideal types (Idealtypen) as generalizing (Natural-Scientific) concepts as a means to arrive at an understanding
and causal explanation of historical, meaningful social interactions and institutions. That is, on Rickerts continuum Weber operates not just at the
Natural-Scientific, generalizing pole, but also at the Cultural-Scientific, individualizing one. In his sociology, Kulturwissenschaft and Naturwissenschaft, a
heterological dualism which Weber adopted from Rickert, are successfully
and impressively integrated.

Weber, as is well known, adopts Rickerts distinction of value-relevance, or value-relatedness (Wertbeziehung, Wertbezogenheit) and the
scientific norm to abstain from normative value-judgments (Werturteile).
He puts it in position in his famous essay on the meaning of the
so-called value-freedom of sociology and economics, which actually
means abstaining from value-judgments.86 Consequently, both Rickert
and Weber do in their philosophy and methodology leave no room
for a normative worldview (Weltanschauung). Rickert emphatically
defines his own systemic philosophy of values, aiming at a theoretical (scientific) conceptualization of reality-in-toto, not as a worldview
but rather as a worldview theory (Weltanschauungslehre). The equivalent
of the latter is, in Webers methodology, the value-analysis (Wertanalyse)
which is a theoretical analysis of the values to which the scientist is

86
Max Weber, Der Sinn der Wertfreiheit der soziologischen und konomischen Wissenschaften, (The Meaning of the Value-freedom of the Sociological
and Economical Sciences): Wissenschaftslehre, o.c., pp. 475526. The concept Wertfreiheit
(value-freedom), which is put between quotation marks, means in fact Wertungsfreiheit,
i.e. conscious abstaining from normative value-judgments. It is unfortunate that
Weber used value-freedom in the title of this essay, because it has led to numerous, yet unnecessary misunderstandings. Again, the cultural sciences are, due to the
fact of value-relevance, never free from values. But given this fact it is, in Webers
and Rickerts view, a scientific norm (and thus value!) to abstain from normative
value-judgments for the duration of ones scientific research and teaching.

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related. Yet, both realize that human beings do livethink, feel and
actin terms of a normative worldview, or in vernacular terms a
personal philosophy of life (Lebensanschauung) which must have a prescientific impact on their thinking and writing. It is my contention
that this implicit view of life and the world can be reconstructed
more easily from Webers writings than from Rickerts. The reason
for that is that Rickert has, as we saw in Chapter Two, a stronger
aversion to vitalism (Lebensphilosophie) than Max Weber. On the other
hand, as we saw also, Rickert does object to vitalism philosophically,
but obviously in a sense also sympathizes with it. He would, in all
probability, have agreed with his friends implicit worldview, although
he might have deemed it too gloomy in its tragic conception.
Epistemologically, Weber is in many respects a neo-Kantian and
is as averse to easy metaphysical reflections as Rickert. However,
there is in Weber, stronger than in Rickert, an implicit influence of
Nietzsches vitalistic and tragic worldview.87 As is well known, Nietzsche
viewed life primarily as an irrational, directionless, absurd stream in
which human beings try to create some sense and order by means
of reason and consciousness. It is a tragic worldview which however
is, unlike Schopenhauers view of life and the world, not gloomy and
fatalistic, but light-hearted, though at times rather cynical. There is
no hope in life since history and the universe are aimlessly driven
by biologically-blind impulses which embody a fate which the ancient
Greeks called Moira.
Weber is too rational and level-headed to participate in Nietzsches
pathos, but stands in closer connection to Nietzsches worldview than
Rickert does. One Nietzschean element in particular recurs in his
methodological and sociological theories: human history and life in
all their complexitiesi.e. cultureconstitute, if measured by the
standards of scientific rationality, an irrational chaos of convictions,
emotions, subjective experiences of meaning, subjective values and
norms. It is, as if he assigns to culture the characteristics of Kants
thing-in-itself. But he combines it with Rickerts definition of cultural
significance in terms of particularity, or better individuality. At times,
he even slips o into quite dramatic reflections, for example when
87
In what follows now I make use of an earlier, Dutch publication: De relativiteit
van kennis en werkelijkheid. Inleiding tot de kennissociologie, (The Relativity of Knowledge
and Reality. Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge), (Amsterdam: Boom
Meppel, 1973), pp. 120126.

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he writes: The stream of immeasurable events rolls endlessly towards

eternity. The cultural problems which move men, form themselves
always anew and in dierent colors. Because of that, the area remains
liquid which renders historically individual everything that acquires
for us, from that always similarly endless stream, individual sense
and meaning. The interrelations between thoughts by which this
historical individual is being contemplated and scientifically conceived, alternate. The starting points of the cultural sciences remain
thereby changeable into the limitless future, as long as Chinese petrifaction of intellectual life weans humanity from posing new questions to the always equally inexhaustible life.88 Reading these words,
Rickert must undoubtedly have wrinkled his brow!
The echo of Rickerts philosophy of values resounds in Webers
accounts of culture, meaning, evaluations, etc. Yet, his implicit
worldview is far more vitalistic and even romantic. Men search for
objective meaning, for existential truth and redemption. This is,
according to him, an a priori for each cultural science, namely not
that we roughly deem a distinct or one or the other culture valuable, but that we are cultural men, gifted with the ability and desire
to adopt a conscious position with regard to it and to provide it with
meaning.89 Rickert can agree with this, but then follows a relativistic
reflection which he could not have accepted. Defining culture not
just as valuable, but also in the light of values as meaningful is,
according to Weber, in the end a tragic enterprise, because in the

88
Endlos wlzt sich der Strom des unermesslichen Geschehens der Ewigkeit entgegen. Immer neu und anders gefrbt bilden sich die Kulturprobleme, welche die
Menschen bewegen, flssig bleibt damit der Umkreis dessen, was aus jenem stets
gleich unendlichen Strome des Individuellen Sinn und Bedeutung fr uns enthlt,
historisches Individuum wird. Es wechseln die Gedankenzusammenhnge, unter
denen es betrachtet und wissenschaftlich erfasst wird. Die Ausgangspunkte der
Kulturwissenschaften bleiben damit wandelbar in die grenzenlose Zukunft hinein,
solange nicht chinesische Erstarrung des Geistesleben die Menschheit entwhnt neue
Fragen an das immer gleich unerschpfliche Leben zu stellen. Ibid., p. 184. English
translation by E. A. Shils, H. A. Finch: Max Weber, The Methodology of the Social
Sciences, (New York: The Free Press, 1949), p. 84f. This volume, which contains
only three essays from Webers Wissenschaftslehre, should be used with care, as its
translations are not always correct. In a few instances printing errors distort the
arguments, as in those instances, where causal is printed as casual.
89
nicht etwas, dass wir eine bestimmte oder berhaupt irgend eine Kultur
wertvoll finden, sondern dass wir Kulturmenschen sind, begabt mit der Fhigkeit und
dem Willen, bewusst zur Welt Stellung zu nehmen und ihr einen Sinn zu verleihen.
Weber, ibid., p. 180.

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337

realm of values the eternal war of the gods reignsa well-nigh

Wagnerian Kampf der Gtter, which could only be solved by a superior, absolute value, if at all. But such an absolute value, i.e. superior God, no longer exists. (Here we hear, of course, the echo of
Nietzsches death of God.) We saw how Rickert too formulates the
logical rule that the denial of a value would not result in nothingness but in a counter-value, and how he thinks to be able to avoid
relativism by positing the formal, transcendent values, like Truth,
Beauty, Justice, Lust, etc. They are ahistorical and eternal but become
real, empirical and pluralistic in judgments which apply these
forms to the contents (substances) of empirical, experienced reality.
There is therefore no insoluble war of the gods in the transcendent realm of absolute and formal values. But Weber cannot operate at this abstract level and sticks in his implicit worldview to the
empirical disciplines of sociology and history.
The tragedy of the war of the gods is, Weber continues, the most
apparent in Western culture where due to rationalization and disenchantment each hierarchy of values is being debated and thereby
rendered implausible. There is, in other words, in Webers implicit
worldview no room for objective truth or objective meaning. There
is only subjectively intended meaning in a context of subjectively
adhered to values and norms. Beyond that there is only the war of
the gods in which men participate because they are consciously
interpreting and searching individuals. But this culture war can not
be solved because fate and definitely not science rules over these
gods and in their war.90 Rickert would never have surrendered in
this relativistic manner to Moira. But Weber goes one step further
still, when he argues that man chooses from all the possible values
those he deems relevant in given circumstances and he does so from
an inexplicable, irrational and subjective sourcei.e. the demon
which holds the threads of his life together.91 Equally ambiguous and
even somewhat mysterious is what he says about scientific truth. It
is applicable to each truth: Scientific truth is just what wants to be
valid for all, who want the truth.92 Rickert, needless to add, would

90
ber diesen Gtter und in ihrem Kampf waltet das Schicksal, aber ganz gewiss
keine Wissenschaft. Ibid., p. 604.
91
Ibid., p. 613.
92
Denn wissenschaftliche Wahrheit ist nur, was fr alle gelten will, die Wahrheit
wollen. Ibid., p. 184. Italics by MW.

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see in such a definition of truth a clear evidence of his opinion

that Weber is not really a philosopher. A true philosopher would
never, he would say, come up with such a voluntaristic and relativistic description of the outstanding theoretical value Truth!
Yet, Weber does not capitulate in this war of the gods, as Nietzsche
in his nihilism and Schopenhauer in his pessimism have done. He
must have realized, among other things, that the resigned acceptance of the absurdity of life may well end up in pathetic and unheroic
lamentations. A distinct part of his worldview was an almost Prussian
sense of honor and dignity which he apparently inherited from his
father. It was closely connected to an equally deep-seated Protestant
rationality which he probably adopted from his mother.93 Both elements of Webers view of life and the world keep him from embracing the Nietzschean or Schopenhauerean philosophy. Referring to
Schopenhauer and Nietzsche William James once remarked: The
sallies of the two German authors remind one, half the time, of the
sick shrieking of two dying rats.94 Weber would have agreed with
James, albeit that he probably would have remarked that James
underestimated Nietzsches humor and heroic cynicism. But Weber
realizes, as James did, that religion has in principle the ability to
transcend the tragic worldview, although he knows that he himself
has eaten too much of the tree of knowledge, and is as a result too
much of a disenchanted agnostic, to be able to surrender to one
or the other religion of salvation. He calls himself religiously unmusical but is fascinated by the phenomenon of religion, as is testified
by his voluminous studies in the sociology of religion. Thus, although
he objects to relativism as a worldview, in particular in its 19th century appearance as historicism, his view of life and values was, unlike
Rickerts, deeply relativistic. It is an heroic kind of relativism which
dares to face the absurdity of life, the insoluble conflict of values,
the subjectivity of sense and meaning, yet keeps trying to draw rational lines through irrationality by the help of constructed concepts,
called ideal types. These rational conceptual lines or structures create

See for such psychoanalytic conclusions which, of course, ought to be used

with great care, Arthur Mitzman, The Iron Cage. An Historical Interpretation of Max
Weber, (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1970). Mitzmans arguments are in fact more psychological and psychoanalytical than historical.
94
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1900, (New York: Collier
Books, 1961), p. 47.
93

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339

a conceptual order which cannot compete with metaphysical or religious orders, but remain strictly analytical and framed by scientific
insights and theories. But as meager as this rationality may be,
if one compares it to metaphysical worldviews like Marxism, or
vitalism, or existentialism, it is in principle able to avoid both cynical resignation and religious surrender. It is on purpose a minimal
worldview.
This minimal worldview comes closest to scientism, although it
lacks the self-confident attitude of most scientists. After all, Weber
believes that science and scientific concept formation constitute the
appropriate forms of knowledge for such a minimal worldview. Science
is unable to provide objective meaning and can never promise to
arrive at the definitive truth about objective reality. Actually science itself is not a worldview or prophecy, but a profession. It can
not tell us how to live, what to think, what to do and what to feel.
It can also not tell us, as for instance Marxism does, what the good
direction of history could be. Weber would not believe in Mannheims
utopia and planning for freedom. But science can help us to master irrationality by means of analytical concepts and empirical research,
creating an analytical order and a logical meaning. What is needed
are not utopian visions or prophetic statements but a pragmatic vocational ethos. It sounds like Kants kategorischer Imperativ, combined with
the Puritanical Berufsethik and Goethes Forderung des Tages (Demand
of the Day): We want to draw the following lesson: that yearning
and awaiting alone leads to nothing, and that we do it dierently:
go to work and do justice to the Demand of the Dayhumanly
as well as vocationally.95
Finally, in Webers concept formation the category of chance or
possibility plays a dominant role. Sociological phenomena are often
defined in terms of the chance that. Power, for example, is the
chance some person or group of persons can realize his or its own
will, if need be against the will of others.96 It is not improbable that
he applies such a probabilism also to his philosophical thought. There

Ibid., p. 613.
Cf. Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundriss der verstehenden Soziologie,
(Economy nad Society. Outline of the Understanding Sociology), chapter III, Typen
der Herrschaft (Types of Rule), 1956, J. Winckelmann, ed., (Kln. Berlin:
Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1964), vol. I, pp. 157222. Definition first sentence on
p. 157.
95

96

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is no text which can prove this, but it is quite feasible that Weber
consciously or unconsciously believes or hopes that the rational,
scientific order imposed on the irrationality of realitythat is the
order of the artificial, constructed ideal typesapproaches possibly an
objective and absolute order and truth. Or, is it, after all, not possible that there exists an elective anity (Wahlverwandtschaft) between
this transcendental Order and Truth on the one hand and the
humanly constructed, rational, analytical order and truth of science?
Weber, it must be noted, does not argue in Platonic terms and consequently will not view empirical truths and orders as emanations of
a metaphysical Truth and Order. In any case, he remains loyal to
the philosophy of Kant, who after all viewed the categories God,
freedom and immortality of the soul as possibilities and chances, as
ideas rather than metaphysical realities.
Weber is in agreement with Rickert (and Simmel) when he rejects
the realism (or naturalism) of the so-called representational logic
(Abbildlogik) which measures the adequacy or truth of concepts and
theories by their capacity to provide a picture which resembles reality. Weber in particular emphasizes the fact that it is the business
of science to understand and explain reality by means of rational
concepts. Scientific rationality stands in opposition to the irrationality of reality. If the scientific concepts represented irrational realities
they would be irrational which is unscientific. However, it is obvious that common-sense experience indicates that realitythe thoughts,
emotions, actions and interactions, the institutions and organizationsis not totally irrational. This piece of ontology is important
in order to understand the logic of Webers ideal types. Reality is,
ontologically speaking, a mixture of rationality and irrationality, a
kind of ball of wool in which the rational and irrational threads are
entangled. A simple introspection can illustrate this point: our thoughts
and emotions are often indissolubly entangled. It is the purpose of
science to disentangle the rational and the irrational threads. Weber
introduces for that purpose his well-known (and often misunderstood)
idea of the Idealtypen, the ideal types, or reine Typen, the pure types,
which are ideal in the Kantian sense of pure, i.e. analytic, rationally constructed, if one wants artificial. They are, to formulate it
somewhat bluntly, not pictures of reality, but conscious distortions
of it. Yet, they are not the ideological or utopian distortions of
Mannheim because these are normative concepts, whereas Webers
ideal types are analytical concepts. The basic idea of which is that

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341

ideal types are constructed by (over)emphasizing certain dimensions

of empirical reality (human interactions, institutions) and omitting
from the ideal types other dimensions. This is done with the help
of the (Rickertean) value-relevance which assists in deciding what is
relevant and what is irrelevant. Now the crux of this methodology
is that empirical reality as it is experienced in daily life is to be compared with these ideal types. By doing this one can separate in reality the rational from the irrational. The rational elements of reality
will, as it were, slide into the one-sidedly rational ideal types. This
is a partial representation. But the epistemologically important thing
is that the irrational components of reality, now being separated from
the rational ones, become rationally understandable because of their deviation from the ideal types!
Ideal types are therefore methodological means towards an epistemological end, namely rational understanding. In other words,
Webers Verstehen as the result of the comparison of ideal types and
reality is neither an irrational intuition, nor a method.97 The analytical ideal types and their comparison with empirical reality are
the method, Verstehen is the hoped for result which due to this comparison may emerge as a sort of Aha-Erlebnis, i.e. as the sense that
one suddenly understands reality. That leads to another conclusion
still. The adequacy, let alone the truth of ideal types consists of their
heuristic profit, not by their eventual verification or falsification.
If he had had intimate knowledge of Webers theory of ideal types, Karl
Popper would certainly have castigated it on this point, since he sees
falsification as the proper test for the scientific content of a theory. But the
interesting thing is that he comes quite close to Webers theory at the end
of his book on the poverty of historicism. For instance when he says: For
in most social situations, if not in all, there is an element of rationality.
Admittedly, human beings hardly ever act quite rationally (. . .), but they
act, none the less, more or less rationally; and this makes it possible to
construct comparatively simple models of their actions and inter-actions, and
to use these models as approximations.98 Despite his well-known emphasis

97
Weber distinguishes rational evidential Verstehen (rational evidentes Verstehen)
and intuitive experiential Verstehen (einfhlend nacherlebendes Verstehen): Begri
der Soziologie und des Sinns sozialen Handelns, (Concept of Sociology and of
the Meaning of social action), in: Wissenschaftslehre, o.c., p. 543f. This is not the
place to elaborate more extensively on Webers conception of Verstehen.
98
Karl R. Popper, The Poverty of Historicism, 1957, (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1969), p. 140f. The last point, Popper continues without referring to Weber,
indicates that there is, despite his emphasis upon the unity of method, a dierence

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upon the unity of the scientific method which does not allow for a distinction between Natural Science and Cultural Science, Popper introduces
surprisingly a methodological dierence which is very similar to the one
Rickert introduced and Weber adopted. There are important dierences
between the natural and the social sciences, Popper argues, such as the
diculty to conduct experiments or apply quantitative methods, but they
are only dierences of degree rather than of kind. He then suddenly introduces an important dierence, referring to the possibility of adopting, in
the social sciences, what may be called the method of logical or rational
construction, or perhaps the zero method. By this I mean the method
of constructing a model on the assumption of complete rationality (. . . .)
on the part of all the individuals concerned, and of estimating the deviation of the actual behavior of people from the model behavior, using the
latter as a kind of zero co-ordinate.99 Popper does not mention Weber,
although his formulation would be identical to that of Weber, if one substituted ideal type for zero method. Rickert and Weber would also be
happy to learn that Popper emphasizes that neither the principle of methodological individualism, nor that of the zero method of constructing rational models, implies in my opinion the adoption of a psychological method.
On the contrary, I believe that these principles can be combined with the
view that the social sciences are comparatively independent of psychological assumptions, and that psychology can be treated, not as the basis of all
social sciences, but as one social science among others.100 And: The zero
method of constructing rational models is not a psychological but rather a
logical method.101
Popper then also comes close to the neo-Kantian position of Windelband
and Rickert regarding the dierence between generalizing sciences and individualizing history, when he writes: I wish to defend the view, so often
attacked as old-fashioned by historicists, that history is characterized by its interests in actual, singular, or specific events, rather than in laws or generalizations. (. . . .)
The situation is simply this: while the theoretical sciences (what are meant
are sociology, economic theory, political theory as distinct from social, economic and political history, ACZ) are mainly interested in finding and testing universal laws, the historical sciences take all kinds of universal laws
for granted and are mainly interested in finding and testing singular statements.102 Like Rickert, but unlike Weber, Popper identifies sociology and

between the natural and the social sciences. Popper apparently had read Webers
Wissenschaftslehre, since he mentions the book in a footnote on p. 145. It is therefore the more remarkable that he does not refer to Webers theory of the idealtypes at all.
99
Ibid., p. 141.
100
Ibid., p. 142.
101
Ibid., p. 158. See for Poppers anti-psychologism also his The Open Society and
Its Enemies, 2 vols., 1945, (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1966), vol. 2, chapter
14, The Autonomy of Sociology, pp. 8999.
102
Ibid., p. 143f. Italics by KP. For a comparison of Popper, Rickert and Weber

RICKERTS ECHO

343

economics with ahistorical Natural Science, and fails to see that these and
other social sciences can also be conducted historically as Cultural Sciences.
Cultural sociology is not social history, nor is cultural (institutional) economics economic history.

Ideal types are, of course, abstract, ahistorical generalizations and

therefore in the terms of Rickerts continuum Natural-Scientific concepts. But the interesting things is that according to Weber, the ideal
typical concept formation enables the sociologist, or economist, or
historian to separate not only the rational from the irrational, but
also in socio-economic reality the general from the individual! To
phrase it in a somewhat blunt manner, ideal types enable the social
scientist to focus on the empirical and historical Cultural-Scientific
dimensions of reality by means of artificial and ahistorical NaturalScientific concepts. In addition Weber thus integrates what remains
separate in Rickerts (and Simmels) methodology, namely meaningful understanding (sinnhaftes Verstehen) and causal explanation (kausales
Erklren). Weber, for example, defines sociology as follows: Sociology
(. . .) should mean: a science which wants to understand social action
interpretatively and thereby explain it causally in its course and workings.103 All this demonstrates that Webers verstehende sociology does
full justice to the Rickertean idea of the gliding scale or continuum
between the two (ideal typical) poles of Natural Science and Cultural
Science, because it moves back and forth on the continuum, sometimes closer to the Natural Scientific end of the continuum, as in
the chapters of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, then closer to the Cultural
Scientific pole, as in the essays on the sociology of religion, sometimes integrating the two as in his definition of sociology as an heuristically understanding and causally explaining discipline. This is in

see Malachi Haim Hacohen, Karl Popper. The Formative Years 19021945, 2000,
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 471476.
103
Max Weber, o.c., p. 542. He continues this definition by defining action as
human behavior which carries a subjectively intended meaning. It is social action
when it is related to the behavior of others. One may draw the conclusion that
Weber views verstehende sociology as Symbolic Interactionism. There are indeed
similarities between Weber and George-Herbert Mead. Cf. my De theorie van het
Symbolisch Interactionisme, o.c., pp. 172219. It is in this context also interesting to pay
attention to the humanistic coecient of Florian Znaniecki: On Humanistic Sociology.
Selected Papers, edited by R. Bierstedt, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1969), pp. 135171. Rickerts value-relevance also plays a dominant role in Znanieckis
theorem of the humanistic coecient. See also my De theorie van het symbolisch interactionisme, o.c., pp. 9698.

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agreement with Rickert who in his book on the demarcation of ahistorical Natural Science and historical Cultural Science writes: Individualizing or historical social science is certainly also possible as
generalizing or natural-scientific social science.104 But he adds, as we
have seen before, that a Natural-Scientific history (historical science)
is impossible, which we criticized, since the continuum would logically leave room for such a history, as paradoxical as a ahistorical
history may be. We mentioned cliometrics as an example of such a
Natural-Scientific historical endeavor.
Although Rickert mentioned Webers sociology several times as an
example of a generalizing, natural-scientific discipline, he suddenly
retreats from that position in a footnote and acknowledges the double logical nature of Webers approach. He sees Webers essays on
the sociology of religion as examples of an individualizing, historical sociology which dier logically from the generalizing, ahistorical
chapters in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft:
The economy and the societal institutions and powers are presented
(in Economy and Society, ACZ) on purpose not historically but in a
generalizing manner. (. . . .) The same scholar thus presents scientifically
the same material in logically dierent ways. In that respect Max
Webers sociological work demonstrates in its totality the conceivably
best confirmation of our methodology. Not only Webers methodological
investigations which consciously link up with my book (i.e. die Grenzen,
ACZ), but also the factual treatment of societal life demonstrates, why
only along the road which we have followed, an insight into the logical structure of the really existing empirical sciences can be acquired.
If one starts from factual distinctions in the material, or if one sticks
to the distinction of nature and mind, one will never come to terms
with the logical problems of the social sciences.105

Individualisierende oder historische Gesellschaftswissenschaft ist um nichts

weniger mglich wie generalisierende oder naturwissenschaftliche. Die Grenzen der
naturwissenschaftlichen Begrisbildung, o.c., p. 263.
105
Die Wirtschaft und die gesellschaftlichen Ordnungen und Mchte werden
darin, der Absicht nach, nicht geschichtlich, sondern generalisierend dargestellt. (. . . .)
Derselbe Forscher bringt also denselben Sto in logisch verschiedener Weise zur
wissenschaftlichen Darstellung. Insofern bildet das soziologische Werk Max Webers
in seiner Gesamtheit die denkbar beste Besttigung fr unsere Wissenschaftslehre.
Nicht allein die methodologischen Untersuchungen Webers, die sich bewusst an
mein Buch anschliessen, sondern auch seine sachliche Behandlung des Gesellschaftslebens zeigt, warum allein auf dem von uns eingeschlagenen Wege ein Einblick
in die logische Struktur der wirklich vorhandenen empirischen Wissenschaften zu
gewinnen ist. Geht man von sachlichen Unterschieden im Material aus, oder bleibt
man gar bei Natur und Geist stehen, so bekommt man die logischen Probleme
104

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345

Once more, the conclusion is clearly that there is no logical reason

for a conflict of methods, a Methodenstreit in which natural sciences
are played o against cultural sciences, and vice versa. There is
indeed a unity of sciences, albeit in a logically dualistic manner.
Rickerts continuum presents a logical space in which scientists, social
scientists in the first place, can operate in an open and flexible manner, sometimes closer to the Natural Scientific pole, at other times
closer to the Cultural Scientific end of the continuum, depending on
the problem at hand that needs investigation, interpretation and
explanation. Max Webers substantive sociology was a perfect example of this logical and methodological flexibility.

der Gesellschaftswissenschaft berhaupt nicht zu Gesicht. Ibid., p. 263. See also

ibid., p. 267.

CONCLUSION
Weber once distinguished two types of intellectuals: Stohuber and
Sinnhuber, i.e. the collector of material data and the collector of meaning.1 The data collector is like an intellectual bookkeeper who collects and organizes data mindlessly, the meaning collector searches
restlessly for understandable meaning and significance. Rickert, remaining even in this respect loyal to his heterological habitude, is in a
sense indeed a Stohuber, the data being primarily theoretical concepts, but one misreads and misinterprets his work, if one fails to
discover that he certainly was also, and in my view predominantly,
a Sinnhuber! He is indeed an at times irritating collector of concepts,
in particular when he tries to catch intellectually the world-in-toto by
means of a philosophical system built up diligently and consistently
by logical, abstract, formal, and thus empty categories. His systematic philosophy ending in the metaphysics of an allegedly full-filled
totality does not carry the pretensions of the Hegelian grandiloquent
philosophy which claimed to represent the end of history, and the
fulfillment of the good direction of it. Rickerts metaphysical end station is not much more than a postulate, a possibility, consisting of
symbols, metaphors, or even allegories, not of solidly scientific concepts. It is actually just a philosophical dream with the features of
a surrealistic painting. However, despite his emphasis upon the openness and flexibility of his system, it still carries all the characteristics
of a product of material collecting.
But he is at the same time a Sinnhuber, and a virtuoso at that. He
is permanently and restlessly in search of meaningful and significant
concepts which help us to grasp cognitively and to understand emotionally the world we live in. In fact he is driven by what he once
called, as we have seen in the last chapter, the Socratic Logosfreudigkeit,
the joy of rational thinking, the sheer pleasure of forging meaningful and significant theories. And he does so in a playful, heterological manner. Paul Hazard once wrote about Pierre Bayle (16471706),
the play of pro and con was for him a supreme pleasure.2 It takes
1
2

Weber, Wissenschaftslehre, o.c., p. 214.

Le jeu du pour et du contre tait pour lui le suprme plaisir. Paul Hazard,

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CONCLUSION

a while, it is my experience, but sooner or later one begins to sense

the same pleasure in Rickerts often playful conceptualizations.
Copernicus, it is asserted, introduced two criteria for the appraising
of a scientific theory, and it is only the combination of these two,
he claimed, which constituted the so-called Copernican revolution,
which put an end to the medieval faith in tradition and dogmatic
scholasticism: first of all, theories should conform to empirical observations, and second, they should be pleasing to the mind, i.e. elegantly phrased.3 It has been my experience that, after one has become
familiar with Rickerts style of thinking and writing, one discovers
his Logosfreudigkeit. Indeed, his theories which he keeps in touch with
empirical experiences, i.e. with reality, are indeed pleasing to the
mind.
But Rickert would dismiss such appraisals as atheoretical, more
pertaining to aesthetic than to scientific norms. His philosophical relevance must transcend the level of aesthetics. We must now try to
come to an appraisal of his work which naturally consists of a set
of value-judgments. In other words, in accordance with his philosophy we must now try to perform a meaning-bestowing act in which
we confront Rickerts concept formation, methodology and philosophy of values, with values. The two basic values, as far as the sciences and philosophy are concerned, are reality and truth. Can
we attribute reality and truth to Rickerts philosophy?
As to reality, since his philosophy is not meant to be a specialized, empirical science, it does not make sense to apply an empiricist conception of reality to his brand of philosophy. The question
is rather how realistic, in the sense of understandable within the context of our present socio-cultural situation, his philosophy really is.
Or phrased negatively as a question: is his neo-Kantian style and
content of thinking and writing not hopelessly old-fashioned and outof-date? Should we not bury Rickerts books and articles in the cellars of the history of philosophy, or, store them in the footnotes of
the history of ideas? In fact, that has happened since his death, but
the question is, whether that has been correct, legitimate and fair.4

La crise de la conscience europenne 16801715, (The Crisis of European Consciousness

16801715), (Paris: Librairie Arthme Fayard, 1961), p. 103.
3
Cf. Jerzy Neyman, ed. Theories More Pleasing to the Mind, (Cambridge,
Massachusetts, London, UK: The MIT Press, 1974), p. 9.
4
Raymond Aron is a telling example. After a rather sympathetic summary of

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349

As to the judgment that neo-Kantianism in general, and Rickerts

epistemology, philosophy of values and methodology in particular
are old-fashioned and out-of-date, one should ask, if a discipline like
philosophy should aspire to be up-to-date and fashionable. It is a
sociological fact that, certainly in this day and age, fashions come
and go in a rapid succession, not only in the world of consumer
goods, but also in the cultural world of the arts, literature and music,
and in the world of ideas, views and convictions as well. Weber
always stressed the sociological fact that ideas and concepts, even his
non-empirical, ahistorical and constructed ideal types, will change in
accordance with the transformations of society and culture.5 Rickert
has, as far as I know, not responded to this observation, but would
certainly have emphasized that empirical (natural and cultural) sciences, necessarily caught in a nave sort of empiricism, are indeed
susceptible to such permanent changes. And indeed, they should
always be up-to-date. However, he would add, although philosophy
is a scientific (i.e. logically correct and empirically oriented) discipline, it is and ought to be dierent from the (natural and cultural)
sciences in one respect: it should argue relentlessly in terms of transcendental, a priori (non-empirical) categories and then impose its
systematic view on reality, including the various sciences. This transcendental approach necessitates a ruthless transcending of fashions
and dominant currents of thought. The human value-judgments,
incorporated in goods like scientific statements and scores of sociocultural institutions, are indeed relative, because bound to time and
(socio-cultural) space. They are subjected to changes and transformations. But the values, such as beauty, truth, justice, the ethical
Rickerts philosophy of history he sentences him to intellectual death: his thought
is dead, much more so than that of Dilthey or even Simmel. After having been
the object of a long quarrel, his doctrine (sic! ACZ) is no longer discussed, and
begins to be ignored. (sa pense est morte, bien plus que celle de Dilthey ou mme
de Simmel. Aprs avoir t lobjet dune longue querelle, sa doctrine nest plus discute, elle commence tre ignore.) Raymond Aron, La philosophie critique de lhistoire. Essai sur une thorie allemande de lhistoire, (The Critical Philosophy of History.
Essay on a German Theory of History), (Paris: Librairie philosophique, J. Vrin,
1969), p. 139. The book discusses Dilthey, Rickert, Simmel and Weber.
5
Cf. Weber, Gesammelte Aufstze zur Wissenschaftslehre, o.c., p. 207, where he argues
that in the sciences of human culture the formation of concepts depends on the
position of the problems, and that the latter is changeable with the content of culture. (dass in den Wissenschaften von der menschlichen Kultur die Bildung der
Begrie von der Stellung der Probleme abhngt, und dass diese letztere wandelbar
ist mit dem Inhalt der Kultur.)

350

CONCLUSION

good (and their counterparts) are formal, abstract and absolute. They
constitute the object, the Gegenstand, of knowledge and the proper
aim of philosophical concept formation. If the verdict is that this is
old-fashioned, so be it. Yet, the criterion should rather be, if it is
realistic to define philosophy as a science which transcends the empirical (natural and cultural) sciences, and places them in a systematic
conceptual order.
This answers another critical question. Rickert, we have seen in
the foregoing chapters, defends the statement that philosophy should
be systematic. In the former century it has become fashionable to
deny the possibility and even the need of a philosophical discipline
which aims at an overarching, theoretical system. Particularly vitalism (Philosophie des Lebens) in all its variations has claimed that systems render thoughts and theories abstract and lifeless. The real
reality, according to this view, is life, vitalitywhatever that may
be. This position is rather questionable, because it would be strange
to call for a lively mathematics or a vitally relevant astrophysics,
chemistry, or physics of particles. But the moment we focus on the
socio-cultural sciences the call for vitalistic realism arises loudly and
clearly. As we have seen in the second chapter, Rickert dismisses
this rather irrational approach as being scientifically worthless. It may
satisfy emotions, but does not enlighten our minds and contribute
to our knowledge and understanding of socio-cultural reality. Vitalism,
in other words, feels realistic and may indeed be aesthetically relevant and gratifying, but in terms of a structured knowledge and
rational understanding of reality, it is rather counterproductive and
thus not at all realistic.
As to the argument that philosophy cannot and should not even
try to be systematic, this has become a fashionable clich with
a doubtful content. In the former century we have witnessed the
linguistic turn in philosophy, which has admittedly brought an
impressive innovation in the philosophical discipline. However, this
Wittgensteinean innovation, which has been the main cause of the
emergence and distribution of analytic philosophy, has by now grown
rather stale and even dogmatic, which is, incidentally, the ultimate
fate of most socio-cultural and intellectual innovations. Certainly in
the Anglo-Saxon world analytic philosophy has deteriorated into a
dominant paradigm which carries the features of a well-nigh medieval
scholasticism, although the latter was highly systematic, whereas most
analytic philosophers abhor the idea of a philosophical system.

CONCLUSION

351

Wittgenstein was still the virtuoso of the condensed, aphoristic statements. But his followers generally lacked his virtuosity and often
excelled in seemingly profound, yet in reality often superficial observations. Nevertheless, analytic philosophy often determines paradigmatically, what is philosophically acceptable and sound, thus
fashionable, and what is not. One thing in particular is characteristic of this philosophical current, namely its anti-systematic animus.
The production consists predominantly of articles and, though hesitantly, of essays, not of systematic treatises.
Meanwhile, however, many former adherents of analytic philosophy have turned away from its scholastic rationalism and embraced
one or the other European philosophical trend, such as French deconstructionism, phenomenology, or the neo-vitalism of Heideggers ontology. Richard Rorty is a telling example. His often brilliantly formulated
observations, made public in essays on, among others, Nietzsche,
Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Derrida, Foucault and writers like Kundera
and Dickens, are not meant any longer to enlighten our minds, but
to gratify aesthetically our moods.6 In any case, there is now a bewildering array of currents and fashions which have one thing in common: the anti-systematic animus based on concept formations which
are more aesthetic than cognitive, more ontological (if not metaphysical) than epistemological. It is often labeled loosely and therefore inadequately as post-modernism. This is actually a label for
dieremt currents of thought which have one thing in common: the
aspiration to render philosophy lively, emotionally gratifying. In
view of these currents of thought outside analytic philosophy, Rickerts
treatise on vitalism is still very much up-to-date.
Nietzsche is once more the towering model-philosopher for many
today. Rickert and certainly Weber admired this great thinker who
excelled above all in intellectually sharp and often witty aphorisms.
But Rickert in particular believes that philosophy should be more
than an rhapsodic accumulation of aphorisms. It should try to formulate a systematic view of reality. As we have seen, he finds it the
task of the (natural and cultural) sciences to analyze and scrutinize

6
Cf. Richard Rorty, Essays on Heidegger and Others. Philosophical Papers, (Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991). For his aesthetic approach in which irony
plays a dominant role and literature is deemed more valuable than (traditional) philosophy: Contingency, irony, and solidarity, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
1989).

352

CONCLUSION

specialized portions of reality, whereas philosophy should aim at a

systematic knowledge of reality-in-toto. This cannot be realized by
merely adding up rhapsodically all the compartmentalized philosophies and methodologies of the dierent sciences. In the former century most philosophers abandoned this systematic task and almost
slavishly followed the scientific compartmentalization of reality by
the dierent scientific disciplines. In their view philosophy is only
possible as an accumulation of the methodologies of the dierent
scientific specializations: philosophy of (natural) science, philosophy
of law, philosophy of art, philosophy of religion, philosophy of history, socio-economic philosophy, etc. Such philosophical specialisms
are, of course, legitimate, useful and thus necessary, but the question still remains, what it is that justifies their categorization as philosophy. What is the specific philosophical nature of all these specialized
philosophies? Or, in logical terms, what is the generic concept of all
these individual specimens? What is general philosophy? This question begs for a systematic answer. Is such an answer old-fashioned
and out-of-date, or is it in view of the current, disintegrated position of philosophy still adequate and necessary? To ask the question
is to answer it.
As we have seen, Rickert wants to keep metaphysics out of his
epistemology, ontology and philosophy of values. He does so up to
the point where he finalizes his system by adding the Fourth Realm
which is dominated by the concept of full-fillment. As we remember, he distinguishes within reality-in-toto three correlated domains:
the First Realm of empirical sense-data, the Second Realm of nonempirical (non-sensual) values, and the Third Realm of judgments
which impose the (formal) values on the (material) sense-data in terms
of the heterological concepts ethically good/evil, aesthetically beautiful/ugly, erotically lustful/painful, and scientifically real/unreal,
true/false. But, as we have seen, this does not yet conclude his system since it still does not present a unitary vision of total reality.
He adds a Fourth Realm which overarches, as it were, the mentioned three domains in terms of a metaphysical view of human life
(Lebensanschauung). This domain, however, is not just unreal like the
values are, but supra-real, i.e. metaphysical. It cannot be formulated
by means of theoretical (scientific) concepts, since these pertain to
empirical reality. This metaphysical domain can only be indicated,
or surmised, by means of symbols, metaphors, or allegories, and its
theory is more of a tale of possibilities than a scientific theory of

CONCLUSION

353

facts. Rickert sees it indeed as a virtual reality that has sur-real features. This surreal reality can only be thought as a postulate, or
maybe even only be dreamed as a dream. It is, of course, hard to
fathom, if one sticks to the empiricism which is natural and legitimate in the empirical (natural and cultural) sciences. But if one
searches for a systematic philosophy that transcends the specialized
compartmentalization of reality, it stands to reason, Rickert believes,
to complete the system by such a virtual and surreal Fourth Realm.
Can Rickerts philosophy also be rendered meaningful by attributing the formal value of truth to it? Rickert, as we have seen, ties
the value of truth to that of reality. A statement about reality is true,
if it demonstrably pertains to realityi.e. the reality of the experienced and perceived sense-data. This is, of course, a distinctly positivistic position. A statement about an allegedly existing unicorn is
not true, because no human being has ever experienced (seen,
heared, smelled, touched) a unicorn. It simply is not a real sensedatum and thus is the statement about the existence of the unicorn
false. This identification of reality and truth poses a considerable
problem, because it is correct in the case of theoretical (scientific)
statements, but cannot be applied to atheoretical (non-scientific) statements, such as the statements of mythology or the doctrines of theology. In medieval legends and myths the unicorn did exist, and it
did function in the medieval mythological view of the world. We
may trust that those who narrated the unicorn myths, knew perfectly well that this mythological animal did not really exist, but it
occupied a functional, heuristic position in the contemporary mythological view of the world. Or, to give another example, Socrates and
Plato knew, of course, that Poseidon, god of the seas, did not really,
in the flesh, live and roam around in the surrounding seas. Poseidon
was a mythological symbol, not an empirical fact. We encounter
here Freges previously discussed distinction between meaning (Sinn)
and significance (Bedeutung). The medieval unicorn or the Greek god
Poseidon were meaningful, but scientifically speaking insignificant.
There is, in other words, a theoretical truth which ties the idea of
truth to that of reality and renders statements about reality significant.
However, there is also an atheoretical truth as in the case of mythological or theological statements. The atheoretical truth is not significant
but it is meaningful. Theoretical truth can be proven or disproved
empirically, and is a matter of rational knowledge. A-theoretical truth,
on the other hand, is a matter of belief and not of rational knowledge.

354

CONCLUSION

Genesis 1 which tells the story of creation, is scientifically insignificant

but to the believing Jew and Christian it is highly meaningful. It
tells the story of Yahwehs dealings with history, man and the world.
Darwins evolution theory, on the other hand, is significant and
scientifically true, but it is in the metaphysical terms of a view of
history and the world meaningless.
This then poses a problem to Rickerts residual metaphysics of a
virtual, full-filled sur-reality. It cannot be true in the sense of significance
(Bedeutung). It can only be true in the sense of meaning (Sinn). But
that conclusion leads necessarily to the next conclusion, namely that
Rickerts Fourth Realm as a philosophically insignificant surreality
cannot occupy any place whatsoever in a philosophical system that
claims to be theoretical and scientific. The Fourth Realm is a balloon which is too fully filled and must explode in the face of its
author and of its readers. Yet, another, more graceful conclusion is also
possible: by the conceptual formation of the Fourth Realm, Rickerts
philosophy changes rather radically from a theoretical (scientific) into
an a-theoretical system, comparable to religion, literature and the arts.
This full-filled, metaphysical reality reminds the religious reader
of the phantasmagoric world of the Apocalypse in the New Testament,
a world filled with symbolical, metaphorical and allegorical meaning.
Still, theoretically (scientifically) it is a totally insignificant world. The
more aesthetically inclined reader of Rickerts metaphysical sur-reality will be reminded of surrealism, more specifically of the magical,
fascinating paintings of Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dal or Yves
Tanguy. They are, so to say, loaded with symbols and allegories and
present a phantasmagoric reality. However, strictly logically argued,
this metaphysical turn to a full-filled surreality at the conclusion of
Rickerts philosophical system is an inadmissible metabasis eis allo genos.
Inadmissible, but not the less fascinating.
Now, is there still any solid reason for a book like the present
which makes an attempt to re-introduce as completely as possible
Rickerts transcendental philosophy, logic and methodology? To my
mind there is, otherwise I would, of course, not have travailed for
at least two decades in order to begin to understand what neoKantianism in general and Rickerts thinking and writing in particular are all about. Why should we not leave this philosopher in the
footnotes of the history of philosophy, why should we try to bring
him back into the center of attention where he once, around the
turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century, has been?

CONCLUSION

355

There are several reasons for a renewed interest in Rickerts brand

of neo-Kantianism. The most important one is, in my mind, the
ongoing attempt of Rickert to bridge the old and never really solved
antitheses of philosophy without neutralizing them in an Hegelian,
metaphysical synthesisrationality versus irrationality, subjective concepts versus objective facts, non-empirical values versus empirical
objects, culture versus nature, cultural science versus natural science,
liberty versus causality, etc. He does not solve the tensions of these
dilemmas by means of the dialectical method but tries to bridge
them conceptually while maintaining their respective autonomies. He
thereby rejects the rationalism of what he called intellectualism
which is an attempt to impose conceptual schemes on a reality which
is in and of itself non-rational and often very irrational. Intellectualism
usually ends up in metaphysics, as in the case of scientism which
is the normative belief that the rationality of (natural) science should
and in the end does pervade all of reality, including our minds and
actions. If there are realities which do not fit this belief, as is the
case of values and meanings, they must be discarded as scientifically
irrelevant. However, Rickert, as we have seen in the second chapter, opposes vehemently also the irrationalism of the so-called vitalists who define not reason (Vernunft) but life (Leben) as the leading
concept of an encompassing worldview which normatively evaluates
everythinghuman minds and actions, culture and even nature
in vitalistic terms.
The problem with intellectualism is, to summarize and paraphrase
Rickerts position, its abstractness, its lack of intuitive understanding
of the non-rational and irrational dimensions of reality. It is a basic
misunderstanding of Kant and the neo-Kantians, if their fundamental
thesis that the thing-in-itself (das Ding-an-sich), or, in Rickertean terms,
the heterogeneous continuum, cannot be known, is declared to represent an hypertrophically rationalistic view of human reason (Vernunft).
This autonomously (objectively) existing reality is experienced by
means of the sense-organs in a non-rational and often irrational manner. And it is these non-rational or irrational sense-data which are
the content being put into a rational shape by the a priori categories. Knowledge is not, as the intellectualists have it, a one-sidedly
rational aair of the Verstand and the Vernunft, but an intricate interplay of Verstand, Vernunft and Anschauung. After all, Kant claimed that
it needs Einbildungskraft, imaginative power, to acquire rational knowledge of an in itself irrational reality.

356

CONCLUSION

Rickert was worried in particular by the onslaught of the irrationalists in philosophy, the vitalists who following Kierkegaard and
Nietzsche put Life on a metaphysical pedestal, or declared Being or
Dasein as the prima causa of all that exists. Today he would certainly
point at the intellectualism of analytic philosophy which elevated
Language to a metaphysical level, where philosophers turn around
and around in rather dogmatic and highly abstract circles. A closely
related fashion, he certainly would add, is French deconstructionism
which has lifted the Text to a well-nigh metaphysical status, from
where it absorbs meanings, values, and the human subject into intellectual obscurantism. And there are, of course, also the structuralists which have proclaimed Structure as the definitive phenomenon
absorbing and neutralizing in particular the changes and transformations of history and human culture. Life, Being, Language, Text,
Structurethey embodied the fashions of philosophical thought in
the twentieth century. But as is the fate of fashions, they come, they
rule, they grow stale and they just fade away, leaving their true
believers in confusion, despair, or fits of ironic laughter.
The most sensible reaction may be to bury oneself intellectually
in one of the philosophical specializations, and to forget the original task of philosophy, formulated in Ancient Greece, namely to try
to understand reality, i.e. the world as it is experienced by us human
beings. It may be sensible, but it hardly testifies to intellectual courage.
It is also rather despondent, since it lacks what Rickert calls
Logosfreudigkeit, the joy of rational thinking and concept formation.
Most of such philosophical specialists are Stohuber, intellectual bookkeepers who may well be virtuosos in their craft, yet totally miss
the features of the Sinnhuber, the philosopher who searches for meaningful knowledge of the world we live and work in. Maybe the most
attractive element of Rickerts philosophical endeavors is the heterological interplay within his mind and mood of the Stohuber and
the Sinnhuber. Rickerts philosophy has not been and will never become
the core of a fashionable school of thought. He will not emotionally warm the moods of young people, and it needs hard work and
concentration to catch his thoughts, concepts and theories cognitively. But it is my experience that a confrontation with Rickert does
in the end enlighten the mind. He even warms ones mood because
of his Logosfreudigkeit. His joy of concentrated and consequent thinking, his pleasure in forging meaningful concepts and theories, has a

CONCLUSION

357

catching impact on the one who seriously sets out to read and understand him.
However, there remains one great fault in Rickerts philosophical
system. It is in a sense a magnificently planned building with a solid,
epistemological foundation and maybe a groundfloor and a first floor,
consisting of the formal values and the meaning bestowing acts. But
after the completion of the first volume of his General Philosophy,
he got stuck. In the planned second and third volume he wanted to
complete the system with a grand cultural philosophy. His death in
1936 prevented him from executing this plan. But reading the basic
ideas which he published in a summarizing manner at the end of
his life, it is questionable whether we miss much by this intellectual
abortion. As we have seen before, at the end of his life Rickerts
philosophical thought drifted o in a rancunous and reactionary
direction which was intensified upon the fateful events in Germany
after 1933. This stands in sharp contrast to the transition from neoKantian transcendentalism to an interdisciplinary cultural philosophy
by Ernst Cassirer who, as we have seen in the Introduction, designed
an indeed grand and impressive cultural philosophy in his justly
famous philosophy of symbolic forms and his essays on man and on
the state. Cassirers twenty five volumes of collected works present
a towering building of epistemological, cultural philosophical and
even political thoughts and theories. Rickerts books and articles
which in the coming years will be re-published in fifteen volumes
by the Rickert Research Intstitute at the University of Duesseldorf,
present an equally impressive, yet unfinished intellectual construction. However, the conclusion must be that in all probability Rickert
has been unable to finish his philosophical system in an acceptable
manner due to the reactionary and rancorous mood that sadly overshadowed his brilliant mind at the end of his life.
In which direction should Rickerts unfinished system have been
completed? It should have been, I think, a combination of constructivism and institutionalism. In neo-Kantian philosophy in general and
Rickerts transcendental philosophy in particular there is the basic
idea at work that the world we live in is not a reality-in-and-of-itself
which reveals itself to us and next directs and controls our cognitive
and active interventions. This reality is, on the contrary, in a sense
made by us, constructed by our structured sensations and perceptions,
by our formal concepts, and through them by our value-oriented

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CONCLUSION

and value-directed judgments. Moreover, these constructions are social

and meaningful events, symbolic interactions which occur in a context of traditional, historical institutions, which, as we have seen, were
labeled cultural goods by Rickert. It is in this direction of institutional constructivism that Rickerts philosophical system should have
been completeda completion, by the way, which in the end would
resemble Cassirers system.
This completion of transcendentalist philosophy in an interdisciplinary ontology has been initiated in and outside philosophy already,
albeit without any reference to and knowledge of Rickerts transcendental philosophy. In the sociology of knowledge, for example,
the treatise The Social Construction of Reality (1966) by Peter L. Berger
and Thomas Luckmann presents a systematic ontology of the world
we live in. It was inspired by theorists like Emile Durkheim, Max
Weber, Georg Simmel, George Herbert Mead and in particular
Alfred Schutz.7 The pivotal concept in this essay is that of institutions
which should not be interpreted in terms of organizations. An institution is a traditional, historical Sinngebilde (Rickert, Weber), a meaningful configuration within which human beings interact in a meaningful
manner, conducted by values and norms.8 It is but a small step to
elaborate this trend of institutionalist and constructivist ontology into
a more general and critical cultural philosophy which I have tried
to do in my The Abstract Society (1970) and On Clichs (1979).9
In the frame of reference of analytic philosophy such a constructivist and institutionalist approach was elaborated by John R. Searle
in his treatise The Construction of Social Reality (1995). Although he
defends a rather traditional brand of realism and thus defends the
correpondence theory of truth, he does argue in a Kantian vein,
when he describes the world we live in as a social world which is
constructed by interacting men within institutional contexts. As I
argued before, Searle is mistaken when he claims in the introduction

7
Peter L. Berger, Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality. A Treatise
in the Sociology of Knowledge, (New York: Doubleday, 1966).
8
I elaborated these ideas in greater detail in my The Institutional Imperative. The
Interface of Institutions and Networks, (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2000).
9
Anton C. Zijderveld, The Abstract Society. A Cultural Analysis of Our Time, (New
York: Doubleday, 1970; Harmondsworth, Middleses: Penguin Books, 1972); On
Clichs. The Supersedure of Meaning by Function, (London, Boston: Routledge & kegan
Paul, 1979). For a brief methodological explanation see: Appendix, ibid., pp.
106113.

CONCLUSION

359

of his book that the great philosopher-sociologists of the nineteenth

and early twentieth centuriesone thinks especially of Weber, Simmel,
and Durkheim(. . .) lacked an adequate theory of speech acts, of
performances, of intentionality, of collective intentionality, or rulegoverned behavior, etc.10 All of these issues are at the heart of the
theories of not just the three mentioned masters of sociological thought,
but have been discussed broadly and intensively also by such philosopher-sociologists as George Herbert Mead, Arnold Gehlen, Helmuth
Plessner, e.t.q. It is possible, as I tried to demonstrate in my The
Institutional Imperative (2000) to destill an adequate and coherent institutional and constructivist theory from these dierent philosophical
and sociological theories. Yet, the basic ideas of Searles treatise
demonstrate in my view the still relevant dimensions of neo-Kantian
ontology and epistemology to which Rickert has contributed a great
deal.
Finally, there is nowadays a strong resistance against the sincere
study of dead philosophers. It is part of the contemporary vitalist
prejudice that we should focus our attention on the lively here-andnow and on the immediate gratification of our metaphysical yearnings.11 It is often believed also that progress of our knowledge can
only be acquired through the specialized approach of a compartmentalized reality. I have always believed in the importance of the
history of ideas. Particularly, the study of the great masters of philosophy and the socio-cultural sciences are intellectually edifying and
gratifying. Yet, the sincere and intensive study of their texts should,
of course, not end up in scholastic and doctrinarian exegeses of their
texts. It does therefore make sense to remind one another of two
quotes. The first one is derived from Latin and has meanwhile
acquired the status of a time-honored clich: Pigmies placed on the
shoulders of giants see more than the giants themselves.12 Compared

10
John R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality, (New York: The Free Press,
1995), p. XII.
11
I have once called this our staccato culture, i.e. a culture which lacks an
ongoing legato, and is caught in compartmentalizations, driven predominantly by
emotions, moods, senses. Anton C. Zijderveld, Staccato cultuur, flexibele maatschappij en
verzorgende staat, (Staccato Culture, Flexible Society and Caring State), (Utrecht:
Lemma, 1991).
12
Pigmei Gigantum humeris impositi plusquam ipsi Gigantes vident. Robert K.
Merton, On the Shoulders of Giants. A Shandean Postscript, (New York: A Harbinger
Book; Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965), p. 3.

360

CONCLUSION

to the profound thinkers of the neo-Kantian schools, we may well

be philosophical pygmies today. Yet, standing on their shoulders, we
are able to see more and farther than they did. It makes sense to
read and study their works intensively, yet we should not remain
stuck in the exegesis of their writings but rather use them in order
to look ahead. That after all is the essence of progress. This was
phrased nicely by the second quote which allegedly stems from
Guiseppe Verdi: Back to the old masters and that will be progress!13
Despite his faults and weaknesses, if read and studied carefully Rickert
was and remains one of those philosophical masters to whom we
should return in order to progress.

13
Torniamo allantiche e ser un progresso. I found this quote in a brochure
about a contemporary Dutch composer: Emile Wennekes, Tristan Keuris, (Amsterdam:
Donemus, 1995), p. 2.

INDEX OF NAMES
Adorno, Theodor W. 8, 19,197, 228,
321
Angelelli, Ignazio 97
Anscombe, G. E. M. 19
Apollinaire, Guillaume 50f
Arendt, Hannah 195
Aristotle, 88, 252
Aron, Raymond 348f
Ayer, A. J. 92f, 135, 150
Baer, Karl E. von, 232
Bacon, Francis 221
Barnard, F. M. 224
Barnes, Harry 254
Barth, Karl 186
Bast, Rainer A. 10, 166, 198
Bauch, Bruno 8, 51
Bayle, Pierre 347
Becher, Erich 227f, 322
Bendix, Reinhard 302
Benjamin, Walter 8
Benn, Gottfried 45, 72, 85
Berg, J. H. van den 292
Berger, Peter L. 196, 235, 276, 358
Bergson, Henri 13, 15f, 36, 45, 49,
54, 65, 68f, 71, 79, 225, 300
Berkeley,George 88, 90f, 104, 109,
111
Berlin, Isaiah 205, 222224
Berman, L. 239
Berns, E. 135
Bevers, Anton M. 59, 298, 300, 302,
306
Bierstedt, Robert 343
Bismarck, Otto von 3
Blackmore, Susan 62
Blcher, Gebhard L. von 253
Blumer, Herbert 211
Bohr, Niels 291
Bois-Reymond, Emil 233f
Bos, T. 99
Bourdieu, Pierre 16
Boyle, Robert 88, 90, 278f
Brahe, Tycho 221
Brecht, Bertolt 206f
Brentano, Franz 23, 95, 128, 202,
235

Breton, Andr 50
Brouwer, L. E. J. 208
Buckle, Henry T. 253f
Burckhardt, Jacob 260f, 319
Burger, Thomas 13, 330
Caesar, Julius 259, 306
Calvin, Jean 258
Carnap, Rudolf 18, 150f, 169172,
181, 234, 240
Carr, H. Wilson 225
Cassirer, Ernst 24f, 93, 118f, 127,
357f
Chekhov, Anton 206
Chirico, Giorgio de 354
Cioran, E. M. 176
Cohen, Hermann 24f
Cohn, Jonas 9
Collingwood, R. G. 27, 222, 224f
Copernicus, Nicolaus 88, 219, 221,
348
Coser, Lewis 60
Croce, Benedetto 225f, 248, 250, 319
Curtius, Ernst R. 12
Dahrendorf, Ralph 239
Dalen, Dirk van 208
Dal, Salvador 354
Danto, A. 163
Darwin, Charles 16, 6065, 67f, 79,
193, 354
Dawkins, Richard 62
Democritus 89
Denker, Alfred 17
Derrida, Jacques 135f, 351
Descartes, Ren 88f, 91, 99, 106,
222f, 247
Dickens, Charles 351
Dilthey, Wilhelm 13, 15, 23f, 45f, 47,
129, 181, 225f, 230, 235, 248251,
262265, 267f, 271, 349
Durkheim, Emile 358f
Einstein, Albert 60, 79, 291
Eliade, Mircea 186
Elias, Norbert 188, 293
Engerman, Stanley L. 256, 292

362

INDEX OF NAMES

Epicurus, 89
Ers, J. S. 326
Esser, Josef 311
Eucken, H. 8
Farias, Victor 16
Faust, August 7f, 12
Feitzer, James H. 234
Fetzer, J. H. 26
Fichte, Johann G. 1, 8
Finch, H. A. 336
Flach, W. 24
Fogel, Robert W. 256, 292
Foucault, Michel 135f, 351
Frege, Gottlob 8, 18, 23, 95, 97,
127, 147, 155, 161f, 164, 166, 168,
194, 353
Freud, Sigmund 16, 36, 152
Friedrich, Otto 9, 51
Fukuyama, Francis 198
Galilei, Galileo 88, 219, 221
Gassen, K. 300303, 305, 309
Gay, Peter 50
Geertz, Cliord 223
Gehlen, Arnold 82f, 103, 359
Geiger, Theodor 173, 329
George III, King 257
Gerth, H. H. 332
Gianturco, Elio 222f
Gibbons, Julie 7
Glockner, Hermann 79, 12, 117,
331
Goethe, Johann W. 1, 147, 149, 204,
224, 287f, 332, 339
Goretti, Maria 222
Grevenstein-Kruse, Anne 152
Groethuysen, Bernhard 46, 249, 262
Habermas, Jrgen 17f, 229
Hacohen, Malachi H. 342
Haeckel, Ernst 231
Hahn, H. 150
Harnack, Adolf von 186
Hartmann, Nicolai 15, 85
Harvey, J. W. 186
Hazard, Paul 347f
Hegel, G. W. F. 5, 21, 27, 58, 94,
147, 157, 166, 172, 182f, 198, 247,
298
Heidegger, Martin 6, 9, 16f, 27, 36,
47, 50, 58, 61, 82, 147149, 298,
351
Heimsoeth, H. 26

Heisenberg, Werner 291

Held, M. and K. 164
Hellmann, S. 293
Hempel, Carl G. 26, 234
Herder, Johann G. 223f
Herrigel, E. 309
Hessen, Sergius 157, 297, 300
Hinneberg, Paul 63
Hobbes, Thomas 278f
He, Otfried 99
Hofstadter, Richard 61
Holzhey, H. 24
Homer 194
Hopman, F. 319
Horkheimer, Max 321
Huizinga, Johan 29, 231, 298,
315320
Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2f
Hume, David 88f, 9194, 103
Husserl, Edmund 23, 27, 89, 94,
107, 115, 133, 229, 324
Irmscher, Hans D. 224
Jaspers, Karl 6, 331
James, William 45, 338
Kant, Immanuel passim
Keckskemeti, Paul 275, 327
Kennedy, Paul 64, 254
Kepler, Johannes 88, 219, 221
Kettler, David 320f
Keuris, Tristan 360
Kierkegaard, Sren 35f, 49, 82, 356
Klibanski, R. 25
Knij, R. 293
Kohl, Helmuth 9
Khler, Wolfgang 141f
Krijnen, Christian 10, 21, 183
Kuhn, Thomas S. 254
Kun, Bela 320f
Kundera, Milan 351
Lamprecht, Karl 305, 316
Landmann, M. 300303, 305, 309
Lask, Emil 7, 14, 24, 29, 298,
308312
Latour, Bruno 278
Leenmans, H. A. 23
Leeuw, Gerard van der 186
Lewin, Kurt 141f
Litt, Theodor 3, 181
Locke, John 8891, 109111
Loen, A. E. 99

INDEX OF NAMES
Lotze, Hermann 147
Luckmann, Thomas 196, 235, 276,
358
Lundberg, George A. 239
Luther, Martin 306
Mach, Ernst 123, 209
Mahler, Gustav 76
Malthus, Thomas R. 61
Mandelbaum, Maurice 49
Mann, Golo 2, 6, 11, 13
Mann, Thomas 67, 252
Mannheim, Karl 14, 29, 160 235,
241, 275f, 298, 314, 320330, 339f
Marx, Karl 321
Matthiae, K. 162
Mead, George Herbert 114f, 210f,
224, 269, 343, 358f
Meinong, Alexius 8, 180, 235
Merton, Robert K. 189, 327, 359
Merz, Peter-Ulrich 330
Mill, John Stuart 155f, 177
Mills, C. Wright 332
Mitzman, Arthur 332, 338
Mommsen, Theodor, 307
Mondrian, Piet, 191
Morgenbesser, S. 163
Morgenstern, Christian 59
Moyaert, P. 135
Mul, Jos de 23f, 249f, 262f
Musil, Robert 139, 144
Nagel, Ernest 156, 205
Napoleon 253, 259f, 272f
Natorp, Paul 8, 24f, 94
Neurath, Otto 18, 150
Newton, Isaac 88, 90, 222f
Neyman, Jerzy 348
Nietzsche, Friedrich 9, 13, 15f, 35f,
45, 47f, 49, 55, 6669, 76, 79f, 153,
157, 173, 183, 205, 300, 335, 337f,
351, 356
Oakes, Guy 10, 13, 27, 275, 297,
330f
Ollig, H.-L. 24, 31, 310
Ostwald, Wilhelm 63
Otto, Rudolf 8f, 186
Paetzold, H. 25
Palyi, M. 293
Parsons, Talcott 330
Paton, H. J. 25
Pawlow, Iwan 238f

363

Pfeier, Frau 12
Philipse, Herman 95
Plato 7, 8688, 147, 164, 172, 177,
252, 353
Plessner, Helmuth 82f, 359
Popkin, Richard H. 159
Popper, Karl R. 143, 151, 177, 199,
276, 281, 327, 341343
Puccini, Giacomo 76
Pyrrhus of Elis 159
Quine, Willard Van Ormen 234f
Radbruch, Gustav 8, 14, 29, 187,
298, 309, 312315
Ramming, Gustav 331
Ranke, Leopold von 232
Rawls, John 314
Rehberg, K.-S. 82
Rickert, Franz 79, 11f, 208
Rickert, Heinrich J. passim
Rickert Verburg, Marianne 8, 17,
5869, 117, 180
Ristow, H. 162
Rodin, Gustave 76
Romein, Jan 254
Rntgen, Wilhelm C. 284
Rorty, Richard, 10, 17f, 135, 351
Rothacker, Ernst 8
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 66
Ruiter, W. de 123
Russell, Bertrand 18, 163, 216
Safranski, Rdiger 2, 16
Saner, Hans 331
Sasse, H. 45
Schaer, Simon 278f
Scheler, Max 8, 13, 15, 45, 59, 69,
82f, 269f
Schelling, Friedrich W. J. von 1, 247
Schelsky, Helmuth 3
Schiller, Friedrich 1f, 224
Schleiermacher, Friedrich 1
Scholem, Gershom 8
Schnberg, Arnold 191
Schopenhauer, Arthur 9, 13, 15f, 54f,
62, 68f, 106, 155, 170, 176, 300,
335, 338
Schumpeter, Joseph A. 294
Schutz, Alfred 172, 198, 229, 240,
276, 311
Scruton, Roger 99
Searle, John R. 136, 358f
Seidel, Hermann 10

364

INDEX OF NAMES

Shapin, Steven 221, 278f

Shaw, Bernard 239
Shils, Edward 325, 336
Sibelius, Jean 76
Silesius, Angelus 147f
Simmel, Georg 7, 14, 29, 45, 47, 55,
59f, 68, 279f, 298309, 315f, 318f,
320f, 340, 343, 349, 358f
Skinner, Burrhus F. 238f
Sluga, Hans 9, 50f
Smuts, Jan C. 141f
Snow, C. P. 197, 251
Socrates 353
Sombart, Werner 294
Spann, Othmar 8
Spencer, Herbert 61, 66f
Spengler, Oswald 199, 201, 231,
253f, 256, 292
Spinoza, Benedict de 222, 247
Stammler, R. 8
Stanislawski, Konstantin 206
Stegmller, W. 95, 128
Stein, Frau von 287f
Stewart, W. A. P. 326
Strawinski, Igor 191
Sumner, William G. 187
Sutcli, F. E. 88
Swaan, Abram de 293
Tanguy, Yves 354
Taylor, Charles 58
Thomas, William Isaac 189
Tillich, Paul 186
Toennies, Ferdinand 3

Toynbee, Arnold J. 253f, 292

Trask, W. R. 186
Troeltsch, Ernst 275
Turner, J. E. 186
Urmson, J. O. 90f
Verdi, Guiseppe 360
Vico, Giambattista 222226, 249, 271
Vleeschauer, H. J. de 99
Warburg, Aby M. 25
Warnack, G. J. 90f
Watson, J. B. 238f
Weber, Marianne 331f
Weber, Max passim
Wellington, Arthur Wellesley Count of
253
Wells, H. G. 253f
Wennekes, Emile 360
Wilde, Oscar 49, 173, 190, 192
Wilhelm IV, Friedrich 277
Winckelmann, J. F. 293, 339
Windelband, Wilhelm 7, 2426, 222,
226f, 246251, 284, 298300, 305,
308f, 312, 315, 319, 321, 329, 342
Winkler, R. 45
Wittgenstein, Ludwig 18f, 83f, 134f,
351
Wolf, Erik 312
Wol, Kurt H. 280, 302
Wundt, Wilhelm 24
IJsseling, S. 135