Heinrich Rickert

Heinrich Rickert (1863 to 1936) was a German philosopher and a leading neo-Kantian of the Baden school, which he led with Wilhelm Windelband. Born in Danzig in Prussia, he was professor of philosophy at the University of Freiburg from 1894 to 1915, where Edmund Husserl succeeded him, and at the University of Heidelberg from 1915 to 1932, succeeding Windelband. He is known for his discussion of a qualitative distinction between historical and scientific facts, and he argued against Wilhelm Dilthey, Georg Simmel and the philosophers of life that only a purely theoretical standpoint can reflect on the world as a whole. His philosophy strongly influenced the sociologist Max Weber, who borrowed much of his methodology, including the concept of the ideal type, and Martin Heidegger began his academic career as his assistant. He later embraced National Socialism.