German philosopher, 1848-1915

Wilhelm Windelband (/ˈvɪndəlbænd/; German: ; 11 May 1848 – 22 October 1915) was a German philosopher of the Baden School.

His grave in Heidelberg

Contents

• 1 Biography
• 2 Philosophical work
• 3 Bibliography
• 4 See also
• 5 References
• 6 Further reading
• 7 External links

Biography

Windelband was born the son of a Prussian official in Potsdam. He studied at Jena, Berlin, and Göttingen.

Philosophical work

Windelband is now mainly remembered for the terms nomothetic and idiographic, which he introduced. These have currency in psychology and other areas, though not necessarily in line with his original meanings. Windelband was a neo-Kantian who argued against other contemporary neo-Kantians, maintaining that "to understand Kant rightly means to go beyond him". Against his positivist contemporaries, Windelband argued that philosophy should engage in humanistic dialogue with the natural sciences rather than uncritically appropriating its methodologies. His interests in psychology and cultural sciences represented an opposition to psychologism and historicism schools by a critical philosophic system.

Windelband relied in his effort to reach beyond Kant on such philosophers as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Johann Friedrich Herbart and Hermann Lotze. Closely *ociated with Windelband was Heinrich Rickert. Windelband's disciples were not only noted philosophers, but sociologists like Max Weber and theologians like Ernst Troeltsch and Albert Schweitzer.

Bibliography

The following works by Windelband are available in English translations:

Books

• History of Philosophy (1893) (two volumes) reprinted 1901, 1938 and 1979 by Macmillan
• History of Ancient Philosophy (1899)
• An Introduction to Philosophy (1895)
• Theories in Logic (1912)

Articles

• "History and Natural Science" (J. T. Lamiell, transl.). Theory and Psychology 8, 1998, 6–22.

See also

• Heinz Heimsoeth

References

Further reading

• Rickert, Heinrich (1929) . Wilhelm Windelband (2nd:ed.). Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr.
• Mayeda, Graham (2008). "Is there a Method to Chance? Contrasting Kuki Shūzō's Phenomenological Methodology in The Problem of Contingency with that of his Contemporaries Wilhelm Windelband and Heinrich Rickert". In Hori, Victor S; Curley, Melissa Anne-Marie (eds.). Frontiers of *anese Philosophy II: Neglected Themes and Hidden Variations. Nagoya, *an: Nanzan Ins*ute for Religion and Culture.

External links

• A History of Philosophy—With especial reference to the formation and development of its problems and conceptions (1901) on archive.org
• An Introduction to Philosophy on archive.org

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