  While Rickert does not believe that significant progress in the historical sciences of culture can be expected from the development of psychology, he believes that a philosophy of history grounded in an unconditionally valid system of values (Rickert 1924a, 118) would be of paramount importance. If philosophy were able to identify and justify a formal set of values common to all cultures and historical constellations, then the historical sciences could employ such a formal set of values to orient their inquiries. In order to do this, however, philosophy cannot simply rely on empirical generalizations. Given the multiplicity of cultures and the complexity of human history, it would be impossible to adopt a generalizing procedure in order to identify a robust set of values common to all. “Rather, it would be appropriate to reflect (completely independently of the multiplicity of the historical material) on that which holds valid by necessity, that is, the formal presupposition of each value-judgment claiming more than individual validity. Only when such timelessly valid formal values are found will it be possible to relate them to the plenitude of empirically detectable values actually developed in history” (Rickert 1924a, 118). Rickert underscores in various places that such system, however, should be understood as completely “open” (Rickert 1913, 297; Rickert 1921b, 348–355; see Bohlken 2002, 124). This means that it is intended to provide merely the “most encompassing framework in which all meaningful cultural life plays itself out” (Rickert 1934b, 225). The areas of values identified in the system can be filled with the most diverse concrete historical values.