Beiser's Neo Kantians (8): Windelband

Let’s turn to Wilhelm Windelband, another major figure in the neo-Kantian story as framed by top philosopher Frederick C. Beiser. His work reveals how the neo-Kantian movement shifted from pure epistemology and science toward values, culture and the human sciences. His book was the book Sam Beckett made loads of notes about philosophy from and so we might have a good thought and say Beckett was responding to neo-Kanteanism. Not many people have had that thought until now so whew! It's a bit heady. We might even have the thought that Beckett is doing a kind of Windelbandian neo-Kantian thing! That might be going too far but Woah! It's a good thought so I'm going to keep thinking it for a little while.

Anyway, Windelband was born in 1848 and taught at Jena and later Heidelberg. He belongs to what is often called the Baden (or Southwest) school of neo-Kantianism. He picks up the revival of Kant’s philosophy at a time when German philosophy was searching for renewed identity in the face of scientific success, rising materialism and the decline of speculative idealism. Beiser argues that the early neo-Kantians (e.g., Fries, Herbart, Beneke) already laid the groundwork: they stressed Kant’s limits to knowledge, the role of experience, the need for philosophy to clarify conditions of cognition rather than build metaphysical systems. Windelband inherits this critical spirit, but with a distinct twist: he emphasises values, culture and the human sciences rather than focussing solely on the logic of science. Windelband’s central move is to ask: if the natural sciences have their methods, categories and ideals, what about the human sciences (history, ethics, culture)? He argues that philosophy must recognise that knowledge of nature and knowledge of culture operate under different forms, and we must bring clarity to the conditions under which cultural knowledge (values, meaning, interpretation) becomes possible. In Beiser’s telling, Windelband plays the role of philosopher who broadens neo-Kantianism from the logic of natural science to the logic of value and culture.

One of Windelband’s notable contributions is his distinction between the nomothetic and the idiographic. “Nomothetic” refers to the approach of the natural sciences: looking for general laws, predicting, explaining many cases by a few principles. “Idiographic” refers to the approach of the human sciences: studying individual, unique events, interpreting meaning rather than subsuming under law. Windelband holds that human science disciplines (history, biography, cultural studies) must not be forced into the model of law-governed science. Their objects are not simply “more data for physics” but human phenomena understood in their uniqueness. That position reflects a neo-Kantian commitment to the idea that knowledge requires conditions of possibility, but it also reflects a special concern with values and meaning. Beiser emphasises that Windelband keeps faith with Kant’s distinction between theoretical reason (knowing what is) and practical reason (knowing what ought to be). He insists that philosophy must defend the autonomy of the moral and value realm against attempts to reduce everything to nature. In Windelband’s view, the human sciences reveal dimensions of human life (culture, value, meaning) that cannot be captured simply by the concepts and methods of natural science. The task is to clarify how value judgments, historical interpretation and human expression are possible, not to collapse them into the same mould as causal-law explanation.

Imagine two researchers. One studies falling stones and derives a law of gravity: that is nomothetic. The other studies the diary of a single person living through a war, trying to interpret what happened in their experience: that is idiographic. Windelband says both are legitimate but different in kind. Philosophy must attend to the conditions under which both kinds of knowledge make sense. That means reflecting on what it is to interpret a person's motivations, culture, values, not simply what it is to measure velocity or mass. In Beiser’s broader map, Windelband marks a shift in neo-Kantianism. The early phase emphasised psychology and the anthropology of cognition; the Marburg school emphasised the logic of science and anti-psychologism (e.g., Cohen). Windelband’s Baden school emphasises values, cultural science, and the autonomy of the human world of interpretation. In a sense Windelband completes the neo-Kantian turn from science-centrism toward human-science and value-theory while still holding Kant’s critical method of reflecting on the conditions of knowledge. Windelband’s position also helps answer the identity crisis of philosophy that Beiser sees as motivating the movement. The natural sciences are powerful and increasingly successful. Philosophy must not try to command them but must also not disappear. Windelband shows that philosophy has a role in clarifying the conditions of interpretation, meaning and value, areas that sciences typically leave aside. In doing so, neo-Kantianism becomes not simply a philosophy of science but a philosophy of culture and value.

That also means that for Windelband, the normative dimension of philosophy is central: philosophy does not just describe how we do think or how nature behaves. It offers criteria of value and interpretation, explaining how judgments of meaning, value and moral worth are possible and justified. He holds that we cannot reduce “what ought to be” to “what is”. That distinction echoes Kant’s separation of theoretical and practical. Windelband uses it to argue for the legitimacy of the human sciences and value theory. So according to Beiser, Wilhelm Windelband is the neo-Kantian who brings the tradition into contact with culture, values, interpretation and the human sciences. He keeps Kant’s critical spirit: the task is to reflect on the conditions of knowledge and avoid speculative metaphysics. But he modifies the direction: instead of focussing only on conditions of scientific knowledge, he turns to conditions of meaning, values, and human life in time. If earlier neo-Kantians looked at the conditions under which a physicist can measure a law, Windelband looks at the conditions under which a historian can interpret meaning or a moral agent can make a judgment. Philosophy for him is not just the logic of science but the logic of culture. Windelband shows that philosophy retains its dignity and task even when the grand metaphysical dreams of the nineteenth century have receded and when science is dominant.

In Beiser’s account of the growth of the South West neo Kantian school, the most revealing conflict is the argument between Wilhelm Windelband and his student Heinrich Rickert. It is not a quarrel in the dramatic sense, because both men respect each other and both remain loyal to Kant’s basic insight that philosophy must clarify the conditions of knowledge rather than construct speculative systems. Yet the disagreement between them shows how a philosophical movement can divide into two different paths even while it remains within the same critical framework. It is a dispute that helps define the identity of the Baden tradition and gives it a distinct voice in the larger neo Kantian revival.

Windelband’s position begins from a simple observation. Not all knowledge works in the same way. The natural sciences explain events by tracing general laws. A physicist studies falling bodies, derives a law that applies to all bodies in relevant conditions, and predicts future cases. A historian, by contrast, studies a unique event, perhaps the life of an individual or the character of a particular culture. The historian does not seek a law that covers all human lives in the way the physicist seeks a law that covers all falling stones. The historian seeks understanding of a singular case. To capture this difference, Windelband introduces the terms nomothetic and idiographic. The nomothetic attitude seeks generality. The idiographic attitude seeks the unique. His point is not that one is superior. His point is that the two belong to different kinds of inquiry, and philosophy must not force them into the same mould. Rickert agrees with this distinction. Beiser emphasises, however, that he thinks Windelband’s explanation of it is incomplete. Windelband says that historians pursue unique phenomena. Rickert replies that the human sciences do not stop at uniqueness. They do not study any random detail. Instead they select what is significant. They choose events, actions and expressions because these have cultural meaning or value. Rickert therefore tries to supply what he takes to be missing in Windelband’s account: a clear theory of the conditions under which cultural meaning is possible. His argument is that the human sciences do not form their concepts by looking for natural laws. They form them by relating facts to values. The concept of a revolution, for example, is not simply a description of events. It is a judgement that certain events matter for a culture. The concept is tied to value.

Imagine a child watching a busy street and trying to draw what is happening. One approach would be to look for what always happens when cars move. That is like the natural sciences seeking laws. Another approach would be to focus on a particular person crossing the road and explain why that moment matters, perhaps because it reveals something about the person’s life or the meaning of the scene. That is like the historian. Windelband says that the second kind of attention is legitimate knowledge, but it follows a different method from the first. Rickert says that we must go further, because choosing which moments matter already presupposes a standard of relevance. That standard is supplied by values. Beiser treats the debate as a hinge in the whole movement. Windelband had already helped move neo Kantianism from the logic of the natural sciences toward the logic of culture. Rickert sharpens that move. For him the key distinction is not only between law based sciences and meaning based sciences. The deeper distinction is between judgments that describe what exists and judgments that establish what has significance. Natural sciences deal with existence. Human sciences deal with significance, and significance cannot be reduced to existence. Values therefore become a central concern of epistemology. Without them, cultural knowledge would have no foundation.

Philosophically, this raises the question of objectivity. Windelband says that the human sciences produce objective knowledge even though they are idiographic rather than nomothetic. Rickert asks how this objectivity is possible. If historians and cultural scholars select material according to value, one might worry that the result is subjective preference dressed up as scholarship. Rickert’s answer is that values, properly understood, have a kind of universality. They are not mere feelings or private opinions. They are conditions for the possibility of meaningful experience. Just as the natural sciences presuppose certain formal conditions that make law based knowledge possible, so the human sciences presuppose certain value conditions that make cultural meaning possible. Values, in this sense, provide the criterion that secures objectivity.

In Beiser’s narrative this is the moment when the Baden school establishes its specific identity. Windelband introduces the distinction between two types of science. Rickert transforms that insight into a full account of how cultural knowledge is grounded. He argues that value relations guide the formation of concepts in history, sociology and the study of culture. This gives the South West movement its distinctive interest in value theory. It also marks a contrast with the Marburg school, which focuses instead on the logic of scientific concepts. Both remain neo Kantian in spirit, because both ask about conditions of knowledge. They simply attend to different domains. Marburg investigates conditions of scientific objectivity. Baden investigates conditions of cultural objectivity. 

The Windelband–Rickert dispute therefore becomes emblematic of a choice every neo Kantian faces. Should philosophy define itself primarily by reflecting on the natural sciences, or should it also reflect on the human sciences and the realm of value? Windelband opens the door to the latter. Rickert walks through it and builds an entire structure inside. Beiser presents this not as a victory of one thinker over another, but as an evolution within the shared framework. Windelband provides the diagram. Rickert draws the details.

Imagine a scientist testing objects in a laboratory. Second, imagine a historian interpreting a single event from the past. Third, imagine a philosopher asking what allows the historian to choose that event as meaningful. Windelband stays with the first two. Rickert insists on the third. Windelband says that different methods are needed. Rickert replies that different kinds of objectivity are grounded by different kinds of norms, and the norms for meaning are values. Beiser’s lesson is that the neo Kantian revival is never a single, unified project. It develops through questions about what counts as knowledge, what counts as objectivity, and what role philosophy must play in clarifying both. The argument between Windelband and Rickert gives the Baden school a clear direction. It shows how the Kantian idea of critique can be extended from nature to culture and from law based explanation to value based interpretation.