Philosophy as Rigorous Science * [289]

From its first beginnings philosophy has claimed to be rigorous science, and in fact to be the science that satisfies the highest theoretical needs and enables, in an ethico-religious respect, a life governed by pure rational norms. This claim has been made sometimes with more, at others with less energy, but has never been completely abandoned. Not even at those times when interests in and capacities for pure theory were in danger of atrophying, or religious powers stifled the freedom of theoretical inquiry.