Study On Rickert’s Concept Of Cultural Sciences

Rickert is the key representative of south-west school of Neo-Kantianism. With the conceptualization theory of heterogeneity principle and homogeneity principle and starting from material opposition between culture and nature, he put forward the concept of cultural sciences which is contrary to the the concept of natural sciences based on the value and idea of science classification inherited from Kant, Dilthey and Windelband, and elaborated on the differences between sciences of culture and sciences of nature, method of sciences of culture and that of sciences of nature logically, and formed a comparatively perfect system of sciences of culture covering philosophy of value, philosophy of history, science classification and theory of understanding. Although Richert’s idea on sciences of culture was criticized and opposed by logical positivists such as Moritz Schlick, Otto Neurath, Redolf Carnap and Marxists such as Georgi Plekhanov and Georg Lukacs, and was indeed exposing such problems as apriority of value, absolutizing the differences between value and evaluation, enlarging the opposition between individualizing method and generalizing method, and criticizing historical materialism in a way of idealism, its rich connotation influenced his contemporaries such as Max Weber, Friedrich Meinecke, and promoted further development of sociology, history and philosophy through them. Moreover, Richert’s idea on sciences of culture broke logical positivists’ cognitive deviation to the work of sciences of culture and established a comparatively independent status for sciences of culture, and initiated the turning of axiology in the study of historical sciences of culture and established world view status for sciences of culture, and highlighted characteristics of uniqueness and un-repeatability of historical sciences of culture and established individualizing way of understanding for history causality. In addition, his idea on sciences of culture also lent reference and inspiration to the contemporary reconstruction of sciences of culture and today’s ongoing socialist cultural construction with Chinese characteristics.