Heinrich Rickert


Heinrich John Rickert was a German philosopher, a leading neo-Kantian of the Baden school.

Life

Rickert was born in Danzig, Prussia to the journalist and later politician Heinrich Edwin Rickert and Annette née Stoddart. He was professor of philosophy at the University of Freiburg and the University of Heidelberg. 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 . 2nd. ed., 1915. 3rd ed., 1929.
  • Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis: ein Beitrag zum Problem der philosophischen Transcendenz.
  • * 2nd ed., 1904: Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis: Einführung in die Transzendentalphilosophie.
  • 2nd ed., 1913.
  • * The Limits of Concept Formation in Natural Science.
  • Fichtes Atheismusstreit und die kantische Philosophie.
  • Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft.
  • *
  • "Geschichtsphilosophie" in Die Philosophie im Beginn des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts. 2 volumes.
  • Die Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie: eine Einführung, 3rd ed., 1924. New ed.: Celtis Verlag, Berlin 2013,
  • Wilhelm Windelband.
  • Die Philosophie des Lebens: Darstellung und Kritik der philosophischen Modeströmungen unserer Zeit. 2nd ed., 1922.
  • Allgemeine Grundlegung der Philosophie.
  • Kant als Philosoph der modernen Kultur.
  • Über die Welt der Erfahrung.
  • Die Logik des Prädikats und das Problem der Ontologie.
  • Die Heidelberger Tradition in der Deutschen Philosophie.
  • Goethes Faust.
  • Grundprobleme der Philosophie: Methodologie, Ontologie, Anthropologie.
  • Unmittelbarkeit und Sinndeutung.