Karl Leonhard Reinhold | |
|---|---|
 Reinhold byPeter Copmann [da], 1820 | |
| Born | (1757-10-26)26 October 1757 |
| Died | 10 April 1823(1823-04-10) (aged 65) |
| Education | |
| Education | Jesuitenkollegium St. Anna (1772–1773) Barnabitenkollegium St. Michael (1773–1778) University of Leipzig (1784; no degree) |
| Academic advisor | Immanuel Kant (epistolary correspondent)[2] |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | 18th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Austrian Enlightenment (early)[1] German idealism |
| Institutions | Barnabitenkollegium St. Michael (1778–1783) University of Jena (1787–1794) University of Kiel (1794–1823) |
| Notable students | Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg |
| Main interests | Epistemology,ethics |
| Notable works |
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| Notable ideas | Elementary philosophy (Elementarphilosophie), principle ofconsciousness (Satz des Bewußtseins) |
| Ecclesiastical career | |
| Religion | Christianity |
| Church | Catholic Church |
| Ordained | 1780 |
| Laicized | 1783 |
Karl Leonhard Reinhold (/ˈraɪnhoʊld/;[3]Austrian German:[ˈraɪnhɔld]; 26 October 1757 – 10 April 1823) was an Austrianphilosopher who helped to popularise the work ofImmanuel Kant in the late 18th century. His "elementary philosophy" (Elementarphilosophie) also influencedGerman idealism, notablyJohann Gottlieb Fichte, as a critical system grounded in a fundamental first principle.
He was the father ofErnst Christian Gottlieb Reinhold (1793–1855), also a philosopher.
Reinhold was born inVienna. In late 1772, at the age of fourteen, he entered theJesuit college (Roman Catholicseminary) ofSt. Anne's Church, Vienna (Jesuitenkollegium St. Anna).[4] He studied there for a year, until the order was suppressed in 1773,[5] at which time he joined a similar Viennese Catholic college of theBarnabites,[4] the Barnabitenkollegium St. Michael. In 1778, he became a teacher at the Barnabitenkollegium, on 27 August 1780, he was ordained as aCatholic priest, and on 30 April 1783, he became a member of the VienneseFreemasons' lodge "Zur wahren Eintracht."[1]
Finding himself out of sympathy with monastic life,[4] he fled on 19 November 1783 toLeipzig,[6] where he converted toProtestantism. In 1784, after studying philosophy for a semester atLeipzig, he settled inWeimar, where he becameChristoph Martin Wieland's collaborator on theGerman Mercury (Der Teutsche Merkur), and eventually his son-in-law. Reinhold married Wieland's daughter Sophia Catharina Susanna Wieland (19 October 1768 – 1 September 1837) on 18 May 1785. In theGerman Mercury Reinhold published, in the years 1786–87, hisBriefe über die Kantische Philosophie (Letters on the Kantian Philosophy), which were most important in makingImmanuel Kant known to a wider circle of readers. As a result of theseLetters, Reinhold received a call to theUniversity of Jena, where he taught from 1787 to 1794.[4]
In 1788, Reinhold publishedHebräischen Mysterien oder die älteste religiöse Freymaurerey (The Hebrew Mysteries; or, The Oldest Form of Freemasonry) under the pseudonymDecius. The fundamental idea of this work is thatMoses derived his system from the Egyptian priesthood. He presented them in the form of two lectures in Leipzig that year.
In 1789, he published his chief work, theVersuch einer neuen Theorie des menschlichen Vorstellungsvermögens (Essay Towards a New Theory of the Faculty of Representation), in which he attempted to simplify the Kantian theory and make it more of a unity by basing it on one principle, Reinhold's principle of consciousness (Satz des Bewußtseins). In 1794 he accepted a call to theUniversity of Kiel, where he taught until his death in 1823, although his independent activity had come to an end.[4]
In later life, he was powerfully influenced byJ. G. Fichte, and subsequently byF. H. Jacobi andChristoph Gottfried Bardili. However, his historical importance belongs entirely to his earlier activity. The development of the Kantian standpoint contained in theNew Theory (1789), and in theFundament des philosophischen Wissens (1791), was called by its authorElementarphilosophie.[4]
Reinhold lays greater emphasis than Kant upon the unity and activity ofconsciousness. The principle of consciousness tells us that every idea is related both to an object and a subject, and is partly to be distinguished from and partly united to both. Since form cannot produce matter and a subject cannot produce an object, we are forced to assume athing-in-itself. This is a notion which is self-contradictory if consciousness were to be essentially a relating activity. There is therefore something which must be thought and yet cannot be thought.[7]
As a former Catholic priest, Reinhold retained the values of Christianmorality and individualdignity. The basic Christian doctrines of a transcendent God and an immortal human soul were presuppositions in his thinking. Reinhold tried to show that Kant's philosophy provided an alternative to either religiousrevelation orphilosophical skepticism and fatalisticpantheism. But Kant'sCritique of Pure Reason was a difficult and confusing book. It was not widely read and had little influence. Reinhold decided to write his comments on it in the literary journalThe German Mercury. He skipped over the beginning and middle of the book and started at the end. Reinhold showed that the book was best read backwards, that is, starting with the end section. The last part of the Critique is where Kant discussed the issues of morality and their relation to the Rational Ideas of God, Free Will, and life after death. These issues were Reinhold's main concern. By presenting these concerns to the public, instead of the extremely difficult epistemology that took up most of the beginning and middle of the book, Reinhold aroused great interest. As a result, Kant's Critique immediately became a book of great importance.
According to historian of philosophyKarl Ameriks, "Fichte,Hegel,Schelling,Schiller,Hölderlin,Novalis, andFriedrich Schlegel all developed their thought in reaction to Reinhold's reading of Kant..."[8] There is aFaustian tendency in Reinhold's assertion that a person can hope for a future reward only because that person is constantly striving to be good. It is not moral to be good merely in the hope of reward. Reinhold's emphasis on history is evident in his declaration that philosophies and religions are to be judged on the way that they respond to the needs of reason in a particular era. Philosophical development, to him, has an underlying rationality. New philosophies are fated to struggle repeatedly in order to survive in a dialectic of history in which progress is unconsciously occurring. With regard to a transcendent God, the human internal moral law is externalized in such a deity. This extreme otherness or alienation is part of a rational process. It makes possible a subsequent deeper regaining of the self through something other than the self.
Kant's critical philosophy was not being accepted as the final truth. According to ProfessorGeorge di Giovanni, ofMcGill University, Reinhold tried to provide a foundation for Kant's philosophy in order to remedy this situation. Reinhold distinguished two levels of philosophy. The most basic level was the concern with consciousness and the representations that occurred in it. The second, less basic, level, was the concern with the possibility and structure of the known or desired objects.[citation needed]
Kant's important realization was that the possibility of metaphysics can be established. This can be done only by describing what occurs when the mind is conscious of objects. Kant's weakness was in being overly concerned with the objects themselves. He remained at the second, less basic, level of philosophy. He rarely examined what occurred in consciousness, which is the basic level of philosophy. Kant did not provide aphenomenological description of consciousness. Reinhold was convinced that Kant should have identified the fundamental fact of consciousness that was essential in making cognition itself possible.
Reinhold'sEssay Towards a New Theory of the Human Faculty of Representation is a description of the main parts and attributes of consciousness. In writing this book, Reinhold turned his attention from the moral issues that Kant addressed in the end section of hisCritique of Pure Reason to the epistemological concerns of the beginning and middle sections.
Reinhold examined the necessary conditions of representation, such as subject and object, that must exist in order for an object to be consciously present.
In English translation
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Reinhold, Karl Leonhard".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 56–57.| International | |
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