 4. The object of the transcendental method, for the Neo-Kantians, is culture. Often, they approached human culture using Kant’s three-fold distinction between knowledge, ethics, aesthetics. Because they saw the achievements of science as one of the most significant aspects of modern culture, a good portion of their writings concern the philosophy of science. As Kant applied the transcendental method to Newtonian science, they sought to apply the method to the best science of their day. Typically (not exclusively), the Marburg philosophers were concerned with the physics and mathematics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, which (they emphasized) differed fundamentally from that of Kant’s own day. The Southwest Neo-Kantians, on the other hand, were more concerned with the so-called “Geisteswissenschaften” (the “human sciences”), which had come into their own in the nineteenth century and now deserved (they argued) to be recognized as autonomous and fully scientific (despite the fact that Kant himself had sharply distinguished history from science (Kant 1786: Ak 4:468)).