Karl Leonhard Reinhold (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) Cite this entry Search the SEP • Advanced Search • Tools • RSS FeedTable of Contents• What's New• Archives• Projected ContentsEditorial Information• About the SEP• Editorial Board• How to Cite the SEP• Special CharactersSupport the SEPContact the SEP ©Metaphysics Research Lab,CSLI,Stanford University  Open access to the SEP is made possible by a world-wide funding initiative. Please Read How You Can Help Keep the Encyclopedia FreeKarl Leonhard ReinholdFirst published Wed Apr 30, 2003; substantive revision Mon Oct 6, 2008Karl Leonhard Reinhold (1757–1823), Austrian philosopher and firstoccupant of the chair on Critical Philosophy established at theUniversity of Jena in 1787, first achieved fame as a proponent ofpopular Enlightenment and as an early and effective popularizer of theKantian philosophy. During his period at the University of Jena(1787–94), Reinhold proclaimed the need for a more“scientific” and systematic presentation of the Criticalphilosophy, one based upon a single, self-evident first principle. Inan effort to satisfy this need, he expounded his own “ElementaryPhilosophy” in a series of influential works between 1789 and1791. Though Reinhold's Elementary Philosophy was much criticized, hiscall for a more coherent and systematic exposition of transcendentalidealism exercised a profound influence upon the subsequent developmentof post-Kantian idealism and spurred others (such as J. G. Fichte) toseek a philosophical first principle even more“fundamental” than Reinhold's own “Principle ofConsciousness.” After moving to the University of Kiel, Reinholdbecame an adherent, first of Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre andthen of C. G. Bardili's “rational realism,” before finallyproposing a novel “linguistic” approach to philosophicalproblems.1. Reinhold's Life and Work2. The "Elementary Philosophy"3. Reception of Reinhold's PhilosophyBibliography Reinhold's Works in German and English in Chronological OrderSelected Secondary Literature about ReinholdOther Internet ResourcesRelated Entries1. Reinhold's Life and WorkKarl Leonhard Reinhold was born in Vienna October 26, 1757 (thoughmany older sources erroneously give 1758 as his year of his birth). Hestudied at the Jesuit Seminary in Vienna for a year, until the orderwas suppressed in 1773, at which time he entered the Barnabiteseminary. Following his ordination, he became a Barnabite monk andserved for several years as a parish priest and teacher of philosophy.Reinhold's first publications were book reviews and short essays inpopular newspapers, in which he showed himself to be a zealous advocateof Josephite reforms and an enthusiastic exponent of radicalEnlightenment and religious toleration.In 1783 Reinhold moved to Leipzig and converted to Protestantism. Healso became a Freemason and a member of the Illuminati, and heremained an active Freemason until the end of his life. Possessed of arestless, inquiring spirit, Reinhold's early intellectual trajectoryled him from orthodox Catholicism, to reformed Catholicism, tomaterialism and atheism, and then to Leibnizianism and to Humeanskepticism. Yet he always remained true to the ideal of“Enlightenment,” at least as he understood that ideal, andhe never ceased to insist that philosophy ought to make a practicaldifference in the world. For all of his forays into the most technicaland arcane philosophical debates and issues, he never wavered in hisinsistence that true “popularity” must remain the goal ofphilosophy, and that the ultimate test of any system is its capacityfor convincing everyone of its truth. Enlightenment, for Reinhold, wasno abstract pursuit of truth, but a program of religious, moral,social, and political reform. Coupled with this commitment topopularity, was a pedagogic zeal to do everything in his power tospread the message of popular Enlightenment — whether in itsmaterialist, its neo-Leibnizian, its skeptical, its Kantian, itsFichtean, its Bardilian, or its distinctively “Reinholdian”form — as widely and as effectively as possible.In 1784, after studying philosophy for a semester in Leipzig,Reinhold moved to Weimar, where he became a confidant (and son-in-law)of C. M. Wieland and a regular contributor to Wieland's widely readDer Teutsche Merkur. It was in this journal that his famousseries of “Letters on the Kantian Philosophy” began toappear in 1786. It is with these “Letters,” which weresubsequently published in revised and expanded form in two volumes,that Reinhold's name enters the history of philosophy. What Reinholdfound in Kant is clearly expressed in the first of his many privateletters to the latter: namely, a way to resolve the debilitatingconflict between faith and reason, “superstition” and“disbelief,” “heart” and “head.”And this is precisely the aspect of the new, Critical philosophy thatis emphasized in his Letters on the Kantian Philosophy: notKant's radical new account of space and time, nor his audacious effortto provide a transcendental deduction of the pure categories of theunderstanding, but rather the conclusions and implications of the“transcendental dialectic.”Kantianism was recommended by Reinhold, above all, for its allegedlysalubrious and enlightened practical consequences, particularwith respect to religion and morality. It was not for nothing thatReinhold described this new philosophy to readers of Die TeutscherMerkur as “the gospel of pure reason.” Rational beliefin God, in the immortality of the soul, in the reality of free will:such are the articles of this new “gospel” — a gospelpromulgated, everyone agreed, far more effectively and popularly byReinhold than by Kant himself. Even Kant professed to be charmed byReinhold's effort and gratified by his success.On the strength of his newfound fame as author of theLetters, Reinhold was invited to be the inaugural occupant ofthe first professorial chair devoted exclusively to the new Kantianphilosophy, and thus he began lecturing at the University of Jena in1787. First at Jena, and then later at the University of Kiel, Reinholdproved to be an immensely popular and influential teacher, much belovedby his students. (Of the approximately 860 students enrolled in Jena inthe Spring Semester of 1794, 600 were enrolled in Reinhold's threelecture courses.) Indeed, Reinhold was largely responsible for makingJena the center of German philosophy, which it remained for the nextseveral decades.In his published Letters on the Kantian Philosophy Reinholdhad excused himself from the task of presenting and examining thetheoretical foundations of Kant's Critical philosophy, in order toconcentrate instead upon the practical consequences of the same. Butonce he arrived at Jena he set himself to the former task, thesurprising result of which was not so much the popularization ofanother aspect of Kant's thought as a first, historically momentouseffort to revise and recast the theoreticalfoundations of the new transcendental idealism in a new, allegedly morecoherent and systematic form. The fruit of this revisionist effort wasReinhold's own “Elementary Philosophy” (see below), which,though only a passing phase in Reinhold's own development as aphilosopher, remains his most substantial and effective contribution tothe historical development of German Idealism.Reinhold's Elementary Philosophy is most fully expounded in threeworks he published in rapid succession during his tenure at theUniversity of Jena: Versuch einer neuen Theorie des menschlichenVorstellungsvermögens [Attempt a New Theory of the HumanPower of Representation] (1789), Beyträge zurBerichtigung bisheriger Missverständnisse der Philosophen,Erster Band [Contributions toward Correcting the PreviousMisunderstandings of Philosophers, Vol. I] (1790), and Ueberdas Fundament des philosophischen Wissens [On the Foundationof Philosophical Knowledge] (1791).Reinhold's radical revision and implicit critique of orthodoxKantianism exercised an immediate and immense influence upon hiscontemporaries, and particularly upon the philosopher who followed himat Jena in 1794, namely Johann Gottlieb Fichte. But though Fichte wasthoroughly convinced by Reinhold's arguments for the incompleteness ofKant's own presentation of the Critical philosophy and by his demandfor an immediately certain “first principle” of the same,he was not satisfied with Reinhold's own efforts to satisfy thesedemands and, in the Aenesidemus review and elsewhere, madepublic his own criticisms of the Elementary Philosophy and ofReinhold's “Principle of Consciousness.” For a few yearsfollowing Fichte's arrival in Jena and Reinhold's transfer to Kiel, thetwo men engaged in a wide-ranging and stimulating philosophicalcorrespondence, though they never met.The final upshot of Reinhold's Auseinandersetzung withFichte was the former's recantation of his own Elementary Philosophyand transference of his allegiance to the standpoint of Fichte'sWissenschaftslehre. This conversion was made public in early1798, in a lengthy review essay in the AllgemeineLiteratur-Zeitung of Fichte's recent writings, and it waselaborated the following year in Reinhold's Ueber die Paradoxiender neuesten Philosophie [Concerning the Paradoxes of the mostrecent Philosophy], in which he explicitly acknowledged theinadequacy of his own Principle of Consciousness as the foundation ofphilosophy as a whole and endorsed Fichte's proposal for a more“active” first principle (the Tathandlung, or“fact-act” of the I's self-positing), which would becapable of fully integrating theoretical with practical reason, as wellas uniting theoretical and practical philosophy.As his contribution to the Atheism Controversy of 1798/99, which ledto Fichte's departure from Jena, Reinhold published a pamphlet inFichte's defense. However, it was not long before he grew dissatisfiedwith what he perceived to be the “one-sidedness” ofFichte's philosophy — and indeed, of transcendental idealism as awhole — and publicly sought some “third way,” which couldreconcile the opposing positions of Fichte and Jacobi (whosecontribution to the Atheism Controversy was an influential “Openletter,” criticizing philosophy in general and Fichte'stranscendental idealism in particular as “nihilism.”) Thiseffort on Reinhold's part to mediate the differences between thetranscendental idealist “philosopher of freedom” (Fichte)and the common-sense “non-philosopher of faith” (Jacobi)pleased neither party, and signaled the quick and abrupt end ofReinhold's short-lived “Fichte phase.”After resolutely turning his back on the new post-Kantian idealistphilosophy that he himself had done so much to instigate, Reinholdnow presented himself to the public, in the six issues of his ownBeyträge zur leichtern Uebersicht des Zustandes derPhilosophie beym Anfange des 19. Jahrhunderts [Contributionsto an Easier Overview of the State of Philosophy at the Beginning ofthe Nineteenth Century] (1801–1803), as a partisan of the“logical realism” of C. G. Bardili, which was an effort tobase philosophy upon pure logic and upon an appeal to what Bardilicalled “thinking qua thinking.” It was this efforton Reinhold's part, in the first issue of the Beyträge,“to reduce philosophy to logic” that drew the sarcastic ireof Hegel in his notorious appendix to his Differenz desFichte'schen und Schelling'schen Systems der Philosophie[Difference between the Fichtean and Schellingian System ofPhilosophy] (1801)Soon enough, however, Reinhold became dissatisfied with Bardili'sposition as well, and began publicly to criticize the same “fromthe standpoint of language” and to reject all efforts to groundphilosophy in pure formal logic. Reinhold's final project as aphilosopher can be described as a pioneering effort to take seriouslythe implications of ordinary language for philosophy itself and toinsist upon the intimate relationship between speaking and thinking.These writings of Reinhold's final years went nearly unnoticed duringhis own lifetime and have generally remained unknown until the presentday; yet they would appear to merit the attention of contemporaryphilosophers and scholars, inasmuch as they anticipate in certain waysthe “linguistic turn” of so much subsequent philosophyAfter a lifetime of philosophical inquiry, during which heinfluenced countless readers and students, while himself movingrestlessly from one theoretical standpoint to another, Reinhold died inKiel in 1823.2. The "Elementary Philosophy"No sooner did he begin lecturing on the first Critique thanReinhold began to have serious doubts about the completeness of Kant'sphilosophy, the soundness of its theoretical foundations, and theadequacy of Kant's own arguments and deductions. With remarkablealacrity and considerable ingenuity, he took it upon himself to remedythese perceived defects in Kant's own presentation and to construct hisown, allegedly more systematic, well-grounded, and “universallyacceptable” version of the new Critical philosophy.Though Reinhold sometimes referred to his new system simply as“philosophy without a nickname,” it soon became known byanother name that he used for it, namely: “ElementaryPhilosophy” or “Philosophy of the Elements”[Elementarphilosophie]. After introducing his newphilosophical ideas in his own lectures, Reinhold began laying thembefore the public in a series of essays in popular and professionaljournals, essays which were then revised and expanded as chapters ofthe three books which together constitute his “official”exposition of the Elementary Philosophy: Versuch einer neuenTheorie des menschlichen Vorstellungsvermögens (1789),Beyträge zur Berichtigung bisheriger Missverständnisseder Philosophen, Erster Band (1790), and Ueber dasFundament des philosophischen Wissens (1791).Reinhold introduced his presentation of the Elementary Philosophywith the following “metaphilosophical” questions: How isphilosophy possible as a strict science, and what is the distinguishingfeature of such a science? Following Kant, as well as the entirerationalist tradition, Reinhold maintained that the essence of sciencelies in universality and necessity. But these are properties ofthought, not of sensation or intuition. Only through thinking andjudging can we recognize universality and necessity, a recognition thatis, in turn, formulated and expressed in concepts and propositions. Thebusiness of philosophy is therefore to establish “universallyvalid” [allgemeingültig] propositions in a mannerthat allows their necessity and universality to be universallyrecognized as binding upon everyone [allgemeingeltend]. Thislast requirement reveals the intimate link between Reinhold's earlierefforts at “popularizing” the Kantian philosophy and hissubsequent efforts to expand and to ground this same system. One of theconstant hallmarks of Reinhold's philosophical efforts was hisconviction that a genuinely scientific philosophy must be capable ofbeing understood and recognized as true by everyone.What makes philosophy “scientific,” according toReinhold, is not simply that it consists of propositions arrived at bythinking, but rather, the logical connection between the propositionsin question — that is, their systematic form. Over and overagain, in one forum after another, Reinhold trumpeted the samedeclaration: scientific philosophy is systematic philosophy.Accordingly, he embarked upon an influential analysis of systematicform as such, in order to gain insight into how Kantianism could bemade rigorously systematic and therefore genuinely“scientific.”The fundamental hallmarks of systematic form, according to Reinhold,are consistency and completeness, but it was the former of these thatattracted most of Reinhold's attention. The only way to be sure thatany two propositions are truly consistent with one another — andhence, the only way to determine whether a number of philosophicalpropositions actually constitute a “system” — is to showthat they can all be traced back to the same first principle orfoundation [Grundsatz]. And the only way to show that they canindeed be “traced back” to such a first principle is byactually “deriving” them therefrom. (Despite his efforts toclarify this point, Reinhold's conception of philosophical“derivation” — which is apparently not to be understood assimple logical deduction — nevertheless remains extraordinarilymurky.)It follows that a philosophical system must begin with a singlefirst principle, which “determines” all the otherpropositions of the system. (Here again, there is a certain obscurityin Reinhold's claim, inasmuch as he insisted that the first principle“determines” only the “form” and not the“content” of all the other, subordinate propositions, yethe also described the relationship between the first principle and thesubordinate principles as a “syllogism,” in which thelatter are “derived” from the former.) Only if propositionsare logically related to one another in this manner can they constitutea “system.” A system with two or more “firstprinciples” is not a system at all, but several differentsystems. As for the completeness problem, Reinhold's implicit solutionseems to have been to seek an a priori first principle that could beknown in advance to encompass the entire domain of experience, andhence of philosophy.What, however, can one say about the truth (or, as Reinhold was morelikely to say, the “validity” [Gültigkeit])of the proposed first principle itself? If the validity of aphilosophical proposition is determined by its systematic, logicalconnection to other propositions, then what determines the truth of thefirst principle, from which the system as a whole is generated orderived? The answer, Reinhold thought, is obvious: the first principleand systematic starting point of philosophy must beself-evident. It must be immediately certain.Despite reservations concerning the capacity of the first principleto determine the content, as opposed to the form, of the propositionsderived from it, Reinhold unequivocally maintained that the firstprinciple of all philosophy had to be a material (or synthetic) as wellas a formal (or analytic) principle. Otherwise, “scientificphilosophy” would be identical to formal logic and would have nocontent of its own, which Reinhold (at this point anyway) staunchlydenied. Moreover, according to Reinhold, the establishment of such auniversally valid and immediately certain first principle is not merelya pressing requirement of theoretical reason, but also a matter of theutmost practical urgency, inasmuch as in the absence of such afoundational first principle “philosophy itself is impossible asa science, in which case the basis for our ethical duties and rights —as well as those duties and rights themselves — must remain foreverundecided” (Beyträge I, p. 367).Granted, then, that a system of philosophy must begin with a single,immediately certain, synthetic first proposition or “groundingprinciple”: where might one turn in order to discover and torecognize the first principle in question, a proposition that alone canserve as the foundation or “ground” of all otherphilosophical propositions and cannot itself be established by anyargument? The answer is, we must turn within — to theconsideration of consciousness itself. This, Reinhold maintained, isprecisely what Kant (not to mention Descartes) had done, albeit he didnot succeed in presenting the fruits of his inquiries in an adequatelyscientific and systematic form.What then is the “first principle” of the ElementaryPhilosophy? It is the “Principle of Consciousness,” namely,the proposition that “in consciousness, the subject distinguishesthe representation from the subject and the object and relates therepresentation to both” (Beyträge I, p. 167). Inthis proposition, the term “representation”[Vorstellung] designates whatever we are directly conscious ofwhenever we are conscious of anything whatsoever; the term“subject” designates the one who “is conscious”of whatever one is conscious of (the “conscious subject” or“subject of consciousness”); and the term“object” designates that “of which” therepresentation is a representation (the intentional object ofconsciousness, that to which the representation“refers”).Though “self-evident” and “universallyvalid,” the proposition asserting this tripartite character ofconsciousness is, according to Reinhold, not analytic but synthetic.The Principle of Consciousness is not a tautology, yet anyone whoreflects upon what is asserted by this principle will immediatelyrecognize its truth and universal validity, inasmuch as it expresseswhat Reinhold called a “universally recognized fact ofconsciousness.”Self-evidence alone, however, is not enough. One of the chief meritsof the Principle of Consciousness, according to Reinhold, is that fromit one can then derive the starting point of Kant's ownphilosophy, which appears to begin with a sheer, ungrounded assumptionof the distinction between intuiting and thinking, the differencebetween theoretical and practical reason, etc. From this point,Reinhold assures us, one can then proceed to the derivation of acomplete system of philosophy as a whole, as envisioned but neveractually accomplished by Kant himself. (One must recall that Reinhold'swork on Elementary Philosophy preceded Kant's thirdCritique.)With the Principle of Consciousness Reinhold believed he haduncovered that “common root” of thought and sensibility,which Kant had declared to be unknowable. By commencing his analysis atthe level of “representations as such,” Reinhold wasconvinced that he had, so to speak, hit philosophical rock bottom,inasmuch as all consciousness is self-evidently“representational” in character. (Fichte, however, in hisAenesidemus review and his early writings on theWissenschaftslehre, would subsequently challenge preciselythis claim.) Thus, Reinhold's “Theory of Representation”(which is the first section of the Elementary Philosophy) purports toprovide Kant's Critical philosophy with the very foundation it sosorely lacks. And the Principle of Consciousness is, in turn, thefoundational or first principle of this new Theory of Representation —and hence the first principle of philosophy as a whole.By far the most original and influential portion of the ElementaryPhilosophy is its first part, the Theory of Representation, which isdevoted entirely to an analysis of our fundamental spiritual power —the power of representation itself [Vorstellungsvermögen]— in an effort to determine “everything that can be known apriori concerning the representations of sensibility, understanding,and reason.” This foundational portion of the ElementaryPhilosophy thus purports to provide a thorough and complete analysis ofthe necessary features of representation qua representation,an analysis that claims to show “that space, time, thetwelve categories, and the three forms of the ideasare originally nothing but properties of mererepresentations” (Fundament, pp. 72–73). This sameanalysis of our power of representation also claims to establish thedistinction between the form and content of representations, thenecessity of both receptivity and spontaneity on the part of the powerof representation, the necessary multiplicity of sensations, and theunknowability of things in themselves.If Reinhold displays considerable originality and ingenuity inderiving the above mentioned results from his first principle (thePrinciple of Consciousness), the same cannot be said of the subsequentsection of the Elementary Philosophy, the “Theory of the Power ofCognition,” which follows Kant's own exposition much more closelythan the Theory of the Power of Representation and becomes increasinglyschematic — and less convincing — as it advances. (Reinhold's soleattempt at complete exposition of his “Theory of the Power ofCognition” is roughly sketched in Book 3 of the Versuch,whereas the “Theory of the Power of Representation” istreated in elaborate detail in all three of his book-lengthpresentations of the Elementary Philosophy.)One may recall that Reinhold's intention was to provide a newfoundation not merely for the “theoretical philosophy”expounded by Kant in the first Critique, but for the Criticalphilosophy as a whole, including Kant's practical philosophy. In fact,however, Reinhold provided his readers with only the barest hints ofhow his Elementary Philosophy might embrace Kant's account of will andof practical reason. Significantly, this occurs in the final, 19 pagesection of his “Theory of the Power of Cognition,” entitled“Theory of the Power of Desire,” in which Reinhold limitshimself to what he himself describes as the mere “outline”of a strategy for demonstrating the unity of theoretical and practicalreason: if willing is the condition for the possibility of actual, asopposed to merely possible representation and cognition, then the“power of desire” conditions the powers of cognition andrepresentation.Unfortunately, Reinhold never fleshed out this fascinating outline,never provided any arguments for the same, and never indicated how thisprovocative claim concerning the relation of willing to knowing couldbe reconciled with the “immediate certainties” of hisstarting point. And this was precisely what provoked his most brilliantand critical reader, J. G. Fichte to attempt his own version of anElementary Philosophy — a version that would begin with theunity of the theoretical and the practical and that would, with the actof “positing” or Setzen, claim to have discovereda starting point even more “basic” than that of mere“representation.” (It is significant that Fichte'sunpublished notebook of 1793/94, in which he first sketched what wouldsubsequently be known as the Wissenschaftslehre or“Theory of Scientific Knowledge,” was titled “PrivateMeditations on Elementary Philosophy/Practical Philosophy.”)It would be difficult to exaggerate the influence of Reinhold'sinquiries into systematicity and first principles upon an entiregeneration of philosophers. Though some recent research on Reinhold andthe “Jena circle” of the late 1780s has stressed the degreeto which Reinhold himself soon came to have doubts about the project of“philosophy from a single principle” (see the work ofDieter Henrich and his students, such as Marcello Stamm), this projectwas nevertheless enthusiastically embraced by Fichte and the youngSchelling, and inspired others, notably Hegel, to re-examine (and toquestion) the alleged connection between systematic form andself-evident first principles. Reinhold's subsequent reservations abouthis own Elementary Philosophy notwithstanding, the ElementaryPhilosophy remains one of the clearest examples of a thoroughgoing“foundationalist” project in the history of Europeanphilosophy.3. Reception of Reinhold's PhilosophyDuring Reinhold's own lifetime, or at least during certain phases ofthe same, he was among the more influential philosophers in Germany —first as an immensely successful popularizer of the Kantian revolutionand then, with his effort to construct an Elementary Philosophy, as oneof the founders of “post-Kantian idealism.” This, however,nearly exhausts his positive influence upon his contemporaries.Following the heyday of German idealism, Reinhold's name hasgenerally been relegated to the history of philosophy, within which heis assigned the role of serving as a small, but not insignificant rungon the alleged ladder “from Kant to Hegel,” and this isprecisely how he is still treated in most general histories ofphilosophy (as well as in this entry). In this context, Reinhold isusually credited with (or blamed for) putting the issues of systematicform and “philosophical foundations” at the center ofphilosophical concern. Even those, such as Fichte, who roundlycriticized the details of his Elementary Philosophy professed sincereadmiration for Reinhold's “systematic spirit.” And many ofthose who rejected his contention that the Principle of Consciousnesscould serve as the first principle of a philosophy as a whole,nevertheless praised him as the philosopher who first recognized theneed for some such principle and first sought to provide Kantianismwith a solid “foundation.” In both of these respects,Reinhold served as an important catalyst or stimulus for furtherphilosophical developments.Given this situation, it his hardly surprising that — with a fewminor exceptions — the only works of Reinhold familiar even to mostscholars, as well as the only writings by him to be reissued after hislifetime, were the Letters on the Kantian Philosophy and thethree, above-mentioned volumes in which he expounded his ElementaryPhilosophy. This, however, is unfortunate, inasmuch as these textsrepresent only a small fraction of Reinhold's literary output and donot include some of his most original ideas, projects, and literaryproductions, such as his final writings on philosophy and language andhis pioneering, lifelong efforts to get philosophers to take seriouslythe history of their own discipline and to understand the“history of philosophy” philosophically.This situation has recently begun to change, however. A criticaledition of Reinhold's voluminous and important philosophicalcorrespondence was inaugurated in 1983 (though only one of theprojected ten volumes has appeared to date), and plans are currentlyafoot for an edition — the first ever — of Reinhold's completeworks. Newly edited editions of some of Reinhold's major works havealso begun to appear, most notably the two volumes of hisBeyträge zur Berichtigung bisheriger Missverständnisseder Philosophen, edited by Alessandro Lazzari and issued in the"Philosophische Bibliothek" series published by Felix Meiner.For many years, the serious secondary literary on Reinhold was verysparse and was dominated by Alfred Klimmt's monograph (see below).Recent years, however, have seen a spate of new articles and monographsdevoted to Reinhold, the most significant of which are the works byWolfgang Schrader and the recent, groundbreaking book by MartinBondeli. Also worth mentioning is Alexander von Schönborn'sannotated bibliography of Reinhold's writings, a fine example ofscholarly detective work and an essential tool for further research. Inconjunction with and as part of the renaissance of Fichte studies overthe past four decades, there have been numerous efforts to reexaminethe relationship between Reinhold and Fichte, and, in particular, toreassess the precise debt of the Wissenschaftslehre to theElementary Philosophy. Accordingly, the scholarly literature on Fichteincludes numerous studies of this aspect of Reinhold's achievement.Even more recently and for the first time ever, Reinhold's ideashave begun to be expounded, criticized, and debated among Anglophonescholars and philosophers, including Karl Ameriks, Frederick C. Beiser,Daniel Breazeale, Paul Franks, and Alexander von Schönborn. Arecent annual meeting of the Eastern Division of the AmericanPhilosophical Association featured a session devoted almost entirely toa debate (between Ameriks and Breazeale) over Reinhold's actualcontribution to post-Kantian philosophy and the merits of his position.Such a debate would have been unimaginable even a few decades ago.Appreciation and discussion of Reinhold among Anglophone readers is,however, not likely to spread very widely until more of Reinhold'swritings have become available in English. Until very recently the Englishreader had to make do with incomplete translations of two works byReinhold: one, by George di Giovanni, of excerpts from theFundament and another, by Sabine Rohr, of portions of theVerhandlung über die Grundbegriffe und Grundsätze derMoralität aus dem Gesichtspunke des gemeinen und gesundenVerstandes. In 2005 a fine translation of the first series ofReinhold's "Letters on the Kantian Philosophy," translated by JamesHebbeler and edited by Karl Ameriks, was published as the series of"Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy." However, the rest ofReinhold's philosophical writings still await English translation.In 1998 Reinhold's philosophy was the subject of an internationalacademic conference — the first such conference ever to be devoted toReinhold — in Bad Homburg, Germany. The second international Reinholdconference was held in Luzern, Switzerland in 2002; the third, inRome, Italy in 2004; and the fourth in Montreal, Canada in 2007. (Thepublished Proceedings of the first three of these conferences havealready appeared and those of the fourth are forthcoming.) The levelof scholarship and philosophical acumen on display at these two eventswas very high and augurs well for the future. Indeed, one could arguethat the future of Reinhold Studies is brighter today than at any timesince Reinhold's death.BibliographyReinhold's Works in German and English in Chronological Order (Note that almost all of Reinhold's books consist of revised versionsof material that originally appeared in the form of journal articles.For a complete listing of all of Reinhold's writings, see thebibliography by Alexander von Schönborn.) Schriften zur Religionskritik und Aufklärung,1782–1784, ed. Zwi Batscha (Bremen: Jacobi-Verlag, 1977).Briefe über die Kantische Philosophie[Erster Band](1790). (Both volumes reprinted in a single volume, ed. RaymundSchmidt [Leipzig: Reclam, 1921]. English translation of the firsteight letters in the versions originally published in Der TeutscheMerkur, supplemented by "the major additions in the 1790edition," in Letters on the Kantian Philosophy, trans. JamesHebbeler, ed. Karl Ameriks. [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2005].)Versuch einer neuen Theorie des menschlichenVorstellungsvermögens (1789; 2nd ed. 1795). (Photomechanicalreprint ed. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1963.)Beyträge zur Berichtigung bisherigerMissverständnisse der Philosophen, Erster Band (1790). (Newedition, edited and with an introduction by FaustinoFabbianell. [Hamburg: Meiner/Philosophische Bibliothek 554a, 2003]. Aphotomechancial reprint of Sect. V of this work, “Ueber dieMöglichkeit der Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft,” isincluded in the volume containing the photomechanical reprint editionofUeber das Fundament des philosophischen Wissens, ed.Wolfgang H. Schrader [Hamburg: Meiner, 1978].)Ueber das Fundament des philosophischen Wissens (1791).(Photomechanical reprint edition, ed. Wolfgang H. Schrader [Hamburg:Meiner, 1978]. Partial translation, The Foundation of PhilosophicalKnowledge, trans. George di Giovonni. In Between Kant andHegel: Texts in the Development of Post-Kantian Idealism, ed.George di Giovanni and H. S. Harris [Albany: SUNY Press, 1985], pp.52–106.)Briefe über die Kantische Philosophie, Zweyter Band(1792). (Both volumes of the Briefe were later reprinted in asingle volume, ed. Raymund Schmidt [Leipzig: Reclam, 1921].)Beyträge zur Berichtigung bisherigerMissverständnisse der Philosophen, Zweyter Band (1794). (Newedition, edited and with an introduction by FaustinoFabbianell. [Hamburg: Meiner/Philosophische Bibliothek 554b,2004.])Auswahl vermischter Schriften [Erster Theil] (1796).Auswahl vermischter Schriften, Zweyter Theil (1797).Review of Fichte's, Ueber den Begriff derWissenschaftslehre, Grundlage der gesammtenWissenschaftslehre, Grundrisse des Eigenthümlichen derWissenschaftslehre in Rücksicht auf das theoretischeVermögen, and Philosophisches Journal einer GesellschaftTeutscher Gelehrten, Band 5, Heft 1–6. (1798). (Rpt. in J. G.Fichte in zeitgenössischen Rezensionen, Band 2, ed. ErichFuchs, Wilhelm G. Jacobs, and Walter Schieche, pp. 286–321[Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1995].)Verhandlung über die Grundbegriffe und Grundsätze derMoralität aus dem Gesichtspunke des gemeinen und gesundenVerstandes (1798). (Partial translation in Sabine Roehr, APrimer on German Enlightenment: With a Translation of Karl LeonhardReinhold's “The Fundamental Concepts and Principles ofEthics” [Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1995], pp.157–251.)Ueber die Paradoxien der neuesten Philosophie (1799).Sendschreiben an J. C. Lavater und J. G. Fichte über denGlauben an Gott (1799).Beyträge zur leichtern Uebersicht des Zustandes derPhilosophie beym Anfange des 19. Jahrhunderts, Heft 1–3 (1801),Heft 4 (1802), Heft 5–6 (1803). (This journal was founded and edited byReinhold, who also contributed most of the editorial content.)C. G. Bardilis und C. L. Reinholds Briefwechsel über dasWesen der Philosophie und das Unwesen der Speculation (1804).Prologomena zur Analysis in der Philosophie (1804).Etwas über den Widerspruch (1804).C. L. Reinhold's Anleitung zur Kenntniß und Beurtheilungder Philosophie in ihren sämmtlichen Lehregebäuden(1805; 2nd ed. 1824).Versuch einer Auflösung der von der philosophischen Classeder königl. Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin für 1805aufgestellten Aufgabe: “Die Natur der Analysis und deranalytischen Methode in der Philosophie genau anzugeben, und zuuntersuchen: ob und was es für Mittel gebe, ihren Gebrauch sicher,leichter und nützlicher zu machen” (1805).Versuch einer Critik der Logik aus dem Gesichtspunkte derSprache (1806).Die Anfangsgründe der Erkenntniß der Wahrheit ineiner Fibel für noch unbefriedigte Forscher nach dieserErkenntiß (1808).Rüge einer merkürdigen Sprachverwirrung unter denWeltweisen (1809).Grundlegung einer Synonymik für den allgemeinenSprachgebrauch in den philosophischen Wissenschaften (1812).Das menschliche Erkenntnißvermögen, aus demGesichtspunkte des durch die Wortsprache vermittelten Zusammenhangzwischen der Sinnlichkeit und dem Denkvermögen (1816).Ueber den Begriff und die Erkenntniß der Wahrheit(1817).Die alte Frage: Was ist die Wahrheit? bey den erneuertenStreitigkeiten über die göttliche Offenbarung und diemenschliche Vernunft, in nähere Erwägung gezogen(1820).Karl Leonhard Reinhold Korrespondenzausgabe derösterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vol. I, ed.Reinhard Lauth, Eberhard Heller, and Karl Hiller (Stuttgart-BadCannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1983). Nine more volumes of this editionare projected.Selected Secondary Literature About ReinholdAdam, Herbert, 1930. Carl Leonhard Reinholds philosophischerSystemwechsel, Heidelberg: Carl Winter.Ahlers, Rolf, 2003. “Fichte, Jacobi und Reinhold überSpeculation und Leben,” Fichte-Studien, 21:1–25.Ameriks, Karl, 2000. Kant and the Fate of Autonomy: Problemsin the Appropriation of the Critical Philosophy, New York:Cambridge University Press. (On Reinhold, see Pt. II,pp. 81–159.)Beiser, Frederick C., 1987. The Fate of Reason: GermanPhilosophy from Kant to Fichte, Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress. (On Reinhold, see Ch. 8, pp. 226–65.)Bondeli, Martin, 1995. Das Anfangsproblem bei Karl Leonhard Reinhold.Eine systematische und entwicklungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zurPhilosophie Reinholds in der Zeit von 1789 bis 1803, Frankfurt:Klostermann.Bondeli, Martin, 2001. “Freiheit im Anschluss an Kant. ZurKant-Reinhold-Kontroverse und ihren Folgen.” In Akten des IXInternationalen Kant-Kongresses, V. Gerhardt, R.-P. Horstmann,and R. Schumacher (eds.), Berlin: de Gruyter.Bondeli, Martin, 1994. “Geschmack und Vergnügen inReinholds Aufklärungskonzept und philosophischem Programmwährend der Phase der Elementarphilosophie.”In Evolution des Geistes: Jena um 1800, F. Strack (ed.),Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, pp. 328-49.Bondeli, Martin, 1995. “Hegel und Reinhold,”Hegel-Studien, 30: 45-87.Bondeli, Martin, 1998. “Hegel und Reinholds RationalerRationalismus.” In Hegels Jenaer Naturphilosophie,Munich: Fink Verlag.Bondeli, Martin, 1997. “Hegels Identitätsphilosophie inAuseinandersetzung mit Reinholds Rationalem Realismus.” InHegels Jenaer Naturphilosophie, K. Vieweg (ed.),Paderborn/München: W. Fink, pp. 163–74.Bondeli, Martin and W. H. Schrader (eds.), 2003. DiePhilosophie Karl Leonhard Reinholds. (Beiträge derInternationalen Reinhold-Tagung von Bad Homburg, März 1998),Amsterdam: Rodopi.Bondeli, Martin and Alessandro Lazzari (eds.),2003. Philosophie ohne Beinamen. System, Freiheit und Geschichteim Denken C.L. Reinholds, Basel: Schwabe-Verlag, 2003. (Proceedingsof the second international Reinhold conference, held in Lucerne in2002.)Bondili, Martin, 1997. “Reinhold im Lichte Kants undHegels. Zu G.W. Fuchs: C.L. Reinhold – Illuminat undPhilosoph; P. Valenza: Reinhold eHegel,” Hegel-Studien, 31: 159-66.Bondili, Martin, 1998. “Von Herder zu Kant, zwischen Kant undHerder, mit Herder gegen Kant – Karl Leonhard Reinhold.” InHerder und die Philosophie des deutschen Idealismus, M.Heinz (ed.), Amsterdam, Atlanta: Rodopi, pp. 203–34.Bondili, Martin, 1997. “Zu Fichtes Kritik an Reinholds‘empirischem’ Satz des Bewußtseins,”Fichte-Studien, 9: 199-213.Breazeale, Daniel, 1982. “Between Kant and Fichte: KarlLeonhard Reinhold's ‘ElementaryPhilosophy,’” Review of Metaphysics, 35:785–821.Breazeale, Daniel, 1998. “Putting Doubt in its Place: KarlLeonhard Reinhold on the Relationship between Philosophical Skepticismand Transcendental Idealism.” In The Skeptical Traditionaround 1800, J. van der Zande and R. H. Popkin (eds.), Dordrecht:Kluwer, pp. 119–32.Cloeren, Hermann-Joseph, 1972. “Philosophie als Sprachkritikbei K. L. Reinhold. Interpretative Bemerkungen zu seinerSpätphilosophie,” Kant-Studien, 63: 225-36.Fabienelli, Faustino (ed.), 2003. Die zeitgenössischenRezensionen der Elementarphilosophie K. L. Reinhold, Hildesheim:Olms.Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 1794. “Recenzion desAenesidemus.” (“Review ofAenesidemus,” trans. Daniel Breazeale. In Fichte:Early Philosophical Writings, Ithaca, NY: Cornell UniversityPress, 1988, pp. 59–77.)Frank, Manfred, 1997. “Unendliche Annäherung”:Die Anfänge der philosophischen Frühromantik,Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. (On Reinhold, see Pt. II, pp.112–662.)Franks, Paul, 2000. “All or Nothing: Systematicity andNihilism in Jacobi, Reinhold, and Maimon.” In The CambridgeCompanion to German Idealism, Karl Ameriks (ed.), Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, pp. 95–116.Fuchs, Gerhard W., 1994. Karl Leonhard Reinhold, Illuminat undPhilosoph: eine Studie über den Zusammenhang seines Engagementsals Freimaurer und Illuminat mit seinem Leben und philosophischenWirken, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Hegel, G.W.F., 1801. Differenz des Fichte'schen undSchelling'schen Systems der Philosophie. (The DifferenceBetween Fichte's und Schelling's System of Philosophy, ed. and H.S. Harris and Walter Cerf (trans.), Albany: SUNY Press, 1977.)Henrich, Dieter, 1991. Konstellationen. Probleme und Debattenam Ursprung der idealistischen Philosophie, Stuttgart:Cotta.Horstmann, Rolf-Peter, 1972. “Maimon's Criticism of Reinhold'sSatz des Bewusstseins.” In Proceedings of the ThirdInternational Kant Congress, Dordrecht: Reidel, pp.350–8.Kim, Yun Ku, 1996. Religion, Moral und Aufklärung:Reinholds philosophischer Werdegang, Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Klemmt, Alfred, 1958. Karl Leonhard ReinholdsElementarphilosophie. Eine Studie über den Ursprung desspekulativen deutschen Idealismus, Hamburg: Meiner.Lauth, Reinhold (ed.), 1974. Philosophie aus einemPrinzip. Karl Leonhard Reinhold, Bonn: Bouvier. (A collection ofessays by seven different scholars.)Lazzari, Alessandro, 2004. “Das Eine, was der Menscheit Nothist” Einheit und Freiheit in der Philosophie Karl Leonhard Reinholds(1789–1792), Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Fommann-Holzboog.Leopoldsberger, Jürgen, 1968/69. “Anfang und Methodeals die Grundprobleme der systematischen Philosophie. Reinhold,Fichte, Hegel,” Salzburger Jahrbuch fürPhilosophie, 12/13: 7–48.Lukjanow, Arkadij V., 2003. “Die Beziehung zwischen Geist und Systembei Fichte und Reinhold,” Fichte-Studien, 21:111–16.Perconti, Pietro, 1999. Kantian Linguistics. Theories of MentalRepresentation and the Linguistic Transformation of Kantism.Münster: Nodus. (For Reinhold, see Chs. 2 and 5.)Pinkard, Terry, 2002. German Philosophy 1760–1869; The Legacyof Idealism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (ForReinhold, see Ch. 4, pp. 96–104.)Pupi, Angelo, 1966. La formazione della filosofia diK. L. Reinhold 1784–1794, Milan: Societˆ Editrice Vita ePensioro.Reinhold, Ernst (ed.), 1825. Karl Leonhard Reinhold's Leben undlitterarisches Wirken, nebst einer auswahl von Briefen Kant's,Fichte's, Jacobi's und andrer philosophierender Zeitgenossen aihn, Jena: Frommann.Röttgers, Kurt, 1974. “Die Kritik der reinen Vernunftund K. L. Reinhold. Fallstudie zur Theoriepragmatik inSchulbildungsprozessen.” In Akten des 4. InternationalenKant-Kongresses, Vol. II, Part 2, Berlin: de Gruyter, pp.789–804.Schrader, Wolfgang H., 1979. “Philosophie als System —Reinhold und Fichte.” In Erneuerung derTranszendentalphilosophie im Anschluß an Kant und Fichte,Klaus Hammacher and Albert Mues (eds.), Stuttgart-Bad Cannstaatt,pp. 331–42.Schrader, Wolfgang H., 1993. “C. L. Reinholds‘Systemwechsel’ von der Wissenschaftslehre zum rationalenRealismus Bardilis in der Auseinandersetzung mit J. G. Fichte.”In Transzendentalphilosophie und Spekulation, (Band2: Der Streit um die Gestalt einer Ersten Philosophie(1797–1807)), Walter Jaeschke (ed.), Hamburg: Meiner,pp. 85–104.Schrader, Wolfgang H., 1990. “‘Wir denken über keineneinzigen Begriff gleich.’ Die Auseinandersetzung zwischen Reinholdund Maimon.” In Zur Architektonik der Vernunft,Lothar Berthold (ed.), Berlin: Akademie Verlag, pp. 525–52.Schönborn, Alexander von, 1997. “Fichte und Reinholdüber die Begrenzung derPhilosophie,” Fichte-Studien, 9: 241-55.Schönborn, Alexander von, 1991. Karl LeonardReinhold. Eine annotierte Bibliographie, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt:Frommann-Holzboog.Schönborn, Alexander von, 1999. “Karl LeonhardReinhold: ‘... Endeavoring to keep up the pace mit unseremZeitalter.’” In The Emergence of GermanIdealism, Michael Baur and Daniel O. Dahlstrom (eds.),Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press,pp. 33–62.Selling, Magnus, 1938. Studien zur Geschichte derTranscendentalphilosophie. I. Karl Leonhard ReinholdsElementarphilosophie in ihrem philosophiegeschichtlichenZusammenhang, Lund: Olsen, 1938.Stamm, Marcello, 1995. “Das Program des methodologischenMonismus; Subjekttheoretische und methologische Aspekte derElementarphilosophie K. L. Reinholds,” Neue Hefte fürPhilosophie, 35: 18–31.Stolzenberg, Jürgen, 2003. “‘Geschichte desSelbstbewußtseins.’Reinhold–Fichte–Schelling,”Internationales Jahrbuch des Deutschen Idealismus/InternationalYearbook of German Idealism (Konzepte derRationalität/Concepts of Rationality), Karl Ameriks andJürgen Stolzenberg (eds.) Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 93–113.Teichner, Wilhelm, 1976. Rekonstruktion oder Reproduktion desGrundes. Die Begründung der Philosophie als Wissenschaft durchKant und Reinhold , Bonn: Bouvier.Valenza, Paolo, 1994. Reinhold e Hegel, Padua:Cedam.Zynda, M. von, 1910. Kant – Reinhold –Fichte. Studien zur Geschichte der Transzendentalphilosophie,Kantstudien-Ergänzungshefte, Berlin. (ReprintedRuggell/Liechtenstein: Topos, 1980.)JournalK. L. Reinhold. Alle Soglie Dell'Idealismo, Special (487pp.) triple issue of Archivio di Filosofia/Archives ofPhilosophy, LXXIII (2005), Nos. 1–3. (Contains the proceedings ofthe third international Reinhold conference, held in Rome in2004.)Other Internet Resources[Please contact the author with suggestions.] Related Entries Fichte, Johann Gottlieb | Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich | Kant, Immanuel Copyright © 2008 byDan Breazeale<breazeal@uky.edu> |
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