The critical method, on the other hand, begins with the assumption that there are universal, absolute values which all subjects ought to recognize and conform to. It postulates a “normal consciousness whose principles must be recognized, insofar as anything at all is to have universal validity” (Windelband 1883: 280). This normal consciousness,[18] inasmuch as it embodies a norm, is not an empirically real subject and cannot be investigated using the genetic method. The “axioms”, which form th