Value Theory and the Foundations of the Cultural Sciences. Remarks on Rickert

In the early 1880s, a series of disputes arose in German academia over the aims, subject matter, and methods of the social sciences. Although the Methodenstreit — the controversy over methods — began as a debate between historicists in German economics and marginal utility theorists in Vienna, by the eve of World War I, these disputes embraced philosophy, historiography, and sociology. The result was a crisis in the social sciences. Because of the privileged status enjoyed by the partisans in the debate, German university professors who were regarded as the stewards of the fundamental values of western civilization, it was translated into a crisis of modern culture.