ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the contributions of the Southwest School to the methodological dispute in nineteenth-century Germany. Immanuel Kant turns David Hume's criticisms of metaphysics against both rationalism and empiricism as being one-sided and narrow formulations of epistemology. The Critique of Pure Reason begins with the Transcendental Aesthetic and the recognition that all knowledge is derived from two sources: sensibility and understanding. The natural and social sciences do not examine different realities, but constitute different conceptual realities formed by the logic and conceptual imperatives of their distinct disciplines. Heinrich Rickert's theory of history has moved from the logic of values to the substance of culture and real individuals. Heinrich Rickert undertakes a lull-blown critique of positivism in the form of empiricism, naturalism, and objectivism. He attempts to justify his theory of value and science by appealing to a universal and unchanging standard of value for concept formation in historical science.
