Is a Diamond More Important Than a Lump of Coal?
A Lump of Coal and a Diamond
Imagine you’re holding a dusty chunk of coal in one hand and the famous Koh-i-noor diamond in the other. As far as physics is concerned, both are just carbon atoms arranged differently. Yet one could be tossed into a fire without a second thought; the other sits behind bulletproof glass in a museum. What makes the diamond important in a way the coal is not?
The German philosopher Heinrich Rickert (1863–1936) would say it’s not the coal or the diamond itself, but the value we connect to it. This idea was the heart of his philosophy. Rickert was a leading figure in a movement called Neo-Kantianism, which tried to figure out the rules that make any kind of knowledge possible, from physics to ethics to history. He believed that something isn’t “historical” just because it happened a long time ago. It becomes historical when it relates to values that people widely share. That insight reshaped how we think about the difference between science and history, and it’s still quietly shaping your school day.
The Copy Machine Theory of Knowledge (and Why It’s Wrong)
To understand Rickert’s view of history, you have to start with something bigger: his theory of knowledge, or epistemology. Many people assume that knowing something means taking a mental snapshot – your mind pictures reality the way a camera does. Rickert called this the copy theory of knowledge, and he thought it was completely wrong.
Think about saying “This piece of paper is white.” You’re not just reporting a color you saw. You’re making a judgment that puts the paper into a framework: things have properties, and “white” is the property you’re picking out. There’s a “yes” or “no” buried in that judgment – you’re taking a stand. For Rickert, every act of knowing is really an act of valuing. When you judge that something is true, you’re not copying reality. You’re answering a question, saying “yes” to a connection you think is correct. That “yes” is guided by the value of truth – something that isn’t a physical object at all, but an “ought”: you feel you ought to accept it as true. This was Rickert’s big move: the object of knowledge isn’t a thing you picture, but a transcendent value that your judgment responds to. Transcendent means it isn’t inside your mind, but it’s not a concrete chunk of the world either. It’s more like a rule that stands forever, regardless of who’s thinking about it.
Are History and Science the Same Kind of Knowing?
If knowing means relating facts to values, then different sciences relate to values in different ways. Rickert’s teacher, Wilhelm Windelband (1848–1915), had already drawn a line between two types of science. Some sciences, like physics and chemistry, look for general laws. They want to explain why all planets orbit the same way or why all acids react with bases. Windelband called these nomothetic (law-making) sciences. Others, like history and art history, care about a single, unrepeatable event: the exact moment of the storming of the Bastille, or what makes Rembrandt’s The Night Watch unlike any other painting. He called these idiographic (individual-describing) sciences. Windelband’s key point was that the same chunk of reality – say, a volcano – could be studied nomothetically (how volcanoes form) or idiographically (the unique history of Mount Vesuvius’s eruption in 79 CE). Rickert refined this idea. He argued that history doesn’t just describe something unique; it individualizes by latching onto value-relatedness. The natural sciences build generalizing concepts that strip away what’s peculiar about each lump of coal. The historical sciences build individualizing concepts that zoom in on exactly what makes one diamond, one person, or one event stand out as significant. That difference, Rickert insisted, is logical, not just about the subject matter. Both approaches are sciences – they just answer different questions.
What Makes Something ‘Historical’?
You might think a historian’s job is to write down everything that happened. But you’d never finish. Rickert pointed out that history has to select. Something becomes a historical individual – a person, event, or object worth studying – when it connects to a general value that people actually accepted. The Koh-i-noor diamond isn’t historically important because it’s sparkly; it’s important because it’s tied to centuries of power, colonial conquest, and cultural exchange. Those are values that large groups have genuinely cared about. Rickert gave the example of Martin Luther. You can think Luther was a hero or a troublemaker. That’s making a valuation, a personal thumbs-up or thumbs-down, and historians must avoid doing that in their work. What they can do is see that Luther’s actions are woven into widely acknowledged values like religious freedom or political authority. That’s value-relatedness – noticing that something mattered, not saying whether you like it or not. This is what separates a historical fact from a random diary entry: the fact points to a value bigger than any one person’s opinion.
Why Values Don’t Turn History Into Opinion
Wait – if history depends on values, isn’t history just made up? Rickert’s answer was no, and it’s one of his most careful ideas. He drew a sharp line between the value-relatedness that guides historical selection and the valuations that express personal feelings. A historian writing about the French Revolution doesn’t have to approve of the guillotine. But she does have to recognize that “political freedom” and “state terror” are values that shaped the entire event, and that these values were real forces for the people involved. Rickert believed that if philosophers could work out a system of valid values – truths, beauty, morality, and others – historians would have a steady compass. He even sketched such a system, complete with domains like logic, art, ethics, and even what he called “erotics” (the values of deep personal bonds). Though his attempts feel old-fashioned today, his deeper point still stands: history isn’t a random pile of facts. It’s a disciplined conversation about what matters, and that conversation can be trained, challenged, and improved – just like a scientific theory.
Why It Still Matters: Who Decides What’s Important?
Every time you open a history textbook, someone has already decided that the Battle of Gettysburg belongs in the book and your breakfast last Tuesday does not. Rickert’s philosophy lurks behind that decision. The natural sciences work well when they ignore what’s unique; that’s why your chemistry lab doesn’t ask whether this particular grain of salt has a personality. But when you want to understand human culture – why a certain painting moves people, why an old letter changes how we see a war – you need the individualizing logic of the historical sciences. Rickert’s ideas remind us that objectivity in history doesn’t mean pretending values don’t exist. It means being honest about which values frame the story, and then checking whether those values hold up across time and cultures. That’s a skill you use whenever you ask: whose story isn’t being told? or why do we remember this person and not that one? He would say that asking those questions is what makes you a thinker, not just a fact collector.
Think about it
- If a historian from another country picked the three most important events in your nation’s history, would they choose the same ones as your textbook? Why or why not?
- A scientist says a tree is just a collection of cells and chemical reactions. A poet says it’s a symbol of strength or change. Can both be right without one being more “real” than the other?
- If you had to write a history of your own life in one page, which moments would you leave out? What value guides your choices?
