 The Marburg “theory” of history to which Natorp subscribes, and in light of which he writes Platos Ideenlehre, is this: Plato’s moment of insight into the truth of transcendental idealism (à la Cohen), is followed by millennia of dark irrelevance, punctuated by shining rings of recollection, epitomized by Galileo, Newton, and Kant. This picture of Marburg Philosophiegeschichtsphilosophie (cf. Lembeck 1994: 1–2) will strike many as surreal; still, it only seems right to note the following. Though we must understand the Marburg conception of history to grasp their motivation for reading and re-reading Plato, we need not accept that conception in order to appreciate either Natorp’s genetic logic of science or his reading of Plato. As Lembeck puts it in the introduction to his Platon in Marburg: