Heinrich Rickert

Life

Rickert was born in Danzig, Prussia (now Gdańsk, Poland) to the journalist and later politician Heinrich Edwin Rickert and Annette née Stoddart. He was professor of philosophy at the University of Freiburg (1894–1915, succeeded by Edmund Husserl) and the University of Heidelberg (1915–1932, succeeding Wilhelm Windelband). He died in Heidelberg amid Nazi Germany.

Philosophy

Rickert is known for his discussion of a qualitative distinction between historical and scientific facts. Contrary to philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche and Henri Bergson, Rickert emphasized that values demand a distance from life and that what Bergson, Wilhelm Dilthey or Georg Simmel called "vital values" were not true values.

Rickert's philosophy was an important influence on the work of sociologist Max Weber, who borrowed much of his methodology, including the concept of the ideal type. Philosopher Martin Heidegger began his academic career as Rickert's assistant, graduating and writing his habilitation thesis under Rickert.

Charles R. Bambach writes:

In addition, Rickert's Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung was cited by the Kantian scholar Lewis White Beck as a major source of inspiration during his early studies as an undergraduate with Leroy Loemker.

Rickert and Windelband led the Baden school of neo-Kantians.

Works

• Zur Lehre von der Definition [On the Theory of Definition] (1888) (doctoral thesis). Center for Research libraries, crl.edu 2nd. ed., 1915. 3rd ed., 1929.
• Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis: ein Beitrag zum Problem der philosophischen Transcendenz (1892). Google (UCal)
  • 2nd ed., 1904: Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis: Einführung in die Transzendentalphilosophie. Google (UMich)
• Google (NYPL) 2nd ed., 1913.
• The Limits of Concept Formation in Natural Science (1986). (Tr. Guy Oakes.)
• Fichtes Atheismusstreit und die kantische Philosophie (1899). Google (UCal) IA (UToronto)

Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft (1899). 6th/7th revised and expanded ed., 1926.

Notes

References

References

References

1. Heinrich Rickert, "Knowing and Cognizing: Critical Remarks on Theoretical Intuitionism," in ''The Neo-Kantian Reader: An Anthology of Key Texts''. Edited by Sebastian Luft. New York/London: Routledge, 2012, pp. 384–395.
2. [[Sebastian Luft]] (ed.), ''The Neo-Kantian Reader'', Routledge 2015, p. 461.
3. Bambach, Charles R. ''Heidegger, Dilthey and the Crisis of Historicism''. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995. [https://books.google.com/books?id=gn2ugJyDHysC&pg=PA30 30]
4. [https://www.google.com/books/edition/Falling_in_Love_with_Wisdom/1MuuWezK7w8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=American+philosophy+Wisdom&printsec=frontcover ''Falling in Love With Wisdom'' Karnos, David D. Shoemaker, Robert G. Eds. Oxford University Press, New York, 1993 pp. 13-15 "How I became Almost A Philosopher" by Lewis White Beck on Google Books]