  Rickert defines the task of a logical/methodological investigation of the sciences in the following terms: “The logical distinctiveness of an empirical science is to be understood in terms of the relationship the content of its concepts bears to empirical reality in its unique and distinctive form” (Rickert 1986, 114). In other words, the task of a theory of science is to determine how the science under scrutiny forms its concepts and in so doing overcomes the unsurveyable, “immeasurable manifold” (Rickert 1962, 32) of empirical reality as it is given in intuition. Concept formation for Rickert indicates “the conclusion of an investigation” (Rickert 1986, 27), that is the fulfillment of the scientific task posed at the beginning of that investigation. In keeping with his general rejection of a pictorial theory of knowledge (see above), Rickert rejects the view that the empirical sciences would simply have to depict (abbilden) reality as it is in itself. Rather, the task of the empirical sciences is to re-mold (umbilden) immediately given reality and form concepts, in which only a small fraction of the original given is taken up. The criteria for such selections and re-molding activities culminating in the formation of a scientific concept are the specific preoccupation of the philosophy of science.