Cultural Science and Natural Science

Author: (German) H. Rickert, Zhu Jiliang
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2002-01-01
Features: Rickert (Heinrich Rickert) was born on May 25, 1863, in Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland). In 1888, he obtained a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Strasbourg, and in 1891, he became a lecturer at the University of Freiburg. In 1896, he was promoted to professor. Rickert was a key figure in the later phase of the Freiburg school of Neo-Kantianism. The Freiburg school emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was named after the University of Freiburg, where it was centered. The founder of the Freiburg school was Windelband, whose value philosophy and the opposing views between natural science and historical science laid the theoretical foundation for the school's ideology. Rickert was a student of Windelband. Rickert inherited Windelband's fundamental ideas, further elaborated them in more specific terms, and significantly developed them, bringing the historical philosophy theory of Neo-Kantianism to its completed form. In 1916, Rickert succeeded Windelband as a professor at the University of Heidelberg and became the leader of the Freiburg school until his death on July 28, 1936. His major works include Introduction to Transcendental Philosophy: The Object of Cognition (1892), The Limits of the Concept Formation of Natural Science (1892-1902), Culture Science and Natural Science (1899), Problems of Historical Philosophy (1905), Philosophy of Life (1920), Philosophical System (1921), Kant—A Modern Cultural Philosopher (1924), and Modal Logic and Ontological Problems (1930). Among the first three works, Rickert fully expressed his views on historical philosophy. Rickert's theory of historical philosophy and his research methods were widely disseminated in Germany and had an undeniable influence on Western historiography and philosophy at the time and in the future. Even today, his views remain influential. Sociologists, philosophers, historians, and historical logicians in the West continue to repeat Rickert's basic principles, although they have made certain modifications to some of his formulations. Nevertheless, they have retained Rickert's fundamental views on the principle of distinction between the methods of natural science and historical science, the impossibility of determining the laws of historical processes, and the non-existence of such laws, among others.