 And yet, while Windelband insists on the distinction between the empirical-genetic method of science and the critical-teleological method of philosophy, he takes his theory of “normal consciousness” to imply that empirical facts do play a role in philosophy. In particular, he wants to maintain that empirical facts about individual psychology and culture can provide the starting points for philosophical reflection. He therefore describes the philosophical method as a method of reflection [Selbstbesinnung], in which the empirical mind becomes aware of its own “normal consciousness”. Philosophy examines existing claims to validity in light of teleological considerations, and in this way reveals the “processual forms of psychic life that are necessary conditions for the realization of universal appraisal” (1883: 125). Put differently, teleological considerations allow the empirical consciousness to distinguish within itself between empirical and contingent contents, on the one hand, and the “contents and forms” that “have the value of normal consciousness”, on the other (1882b: 45–46; 1881: 139).