 In “Kritische oder genetische Methode?” [“Critical or genetic method?”] (1883) Windelband lays out in great detail the differences between the “explanatory” and “genetic” method of the empirical sciences, on the one hand, and the “teleological” or “critical” method of philosophy, on the other. And he warns of the devastating consequences that result if the two are conflated. He singles out two disciplines that might be thought to be relevant to philosophical questions about values: individual psychology and cultural history. He does not call into question the legitimacy of these disciplines or of the “genetic method” in general. He even thinks that the genetic method can be applied to values. That is, individual psychology and cultural history can yield valid genetic theories that explain the actual acceptance and development of values in an individual’s mental life and in cultural history. But actual acceptance is not the same as normative validity, and validity proper cannot be found by generalizing from the empirical. A firm boundary separates the genetic method and its approach toward actually accepted values from the critical method of philosophy which concerns values as normative.