Background
Windelband, Wilhelm was born on May 11, 1848 in Potsdam.
Historian of philosophy Neo-Kantian
Windelband, Wilhelm was born on May 11, 1848 in Potsdam.
First Medicine and Natural Sciences, then History and Philosophy at Berlin and Gottingen, /nfls. Rudolf Hermann. Lotzc and Otto Liebmann.
Professor first at Zürich, then at Freiburg and later at Strassburg and Heidelberg.
Windelband understood philosophy as a science of universally valid values. He offered a methodology of science in which he contrasted the natural sciences and the sciences of culture. claiming that in the natural sciences we are seeking universal laws, while in cultural or historical studies we are seeking to understand individual facts. Kant was important to him mainly because he saw him as having re-established the unity of science and philosophy. However, he criticized Kant for not having done sufficient justice to the historical sciences. His motto was 'to understand Kant is to go beyond Kant". His conception of a universal normative consciousness that makes valuing fundamental to the historical sciences is clearly inspired by Kant. However, it also owes a great deal to Kant's idealistic successors. In his later years Windelband openly pleaded for a greater emphasis on Hegel. Windelband laid the foundation for the Baden or Southwest German School of neoKantianism. He was its most important member. Heinrich Rickert was his most important student.