Karl Leonhard Reinhold and the Enlightenment: (9 Studies in German Idealism)

Karl Leonhard Reinhold (1757-1823) is a complex figure of the late German Enlightenment. Sometime Catholic priest and active Mason even when still a cleric in Vienna; early disciple of Kant and the first to try to reform the Critique of Reason; influential teacher and prolific author; astute commentator on the immediate post-Kantian scene; and at all times convinced propagandist of the Enlightenment––in all these roles Reinhold reflected his age but also tested the limits of the values that had inspired it. This collection of essays, originally presented at an international workshop held in Montreal in 2007, conveys this multifaceted figure of Reinhold in all its details. In the four themes that run across the contributions––the historicity of reason; the primacy of moral praxis; the personalism of religious belief; and the transformation of classical metaphysics into phenomenology of mind––Reinhold is presented as a catalyst of nineteenth century thought but also as one who remained bound to intellectual prejudices that were typical of the Enlightenment and, for this reason, as still the representative of a past age. The volume contains the text of two hitherto unpublished Masonic speeches by Reinhold, and a description of recently recovered transcripts of student lecture notes dating to Reinhold’s early Jena period.

Table of Contents:
Reinhold, Freemason and Educator of Humankind.- Karl Leonhard Reinhold and the Enlightenment: Editor’s Presentation.- Reinhold, Franc-Maçon et philosophe de l’Aufklärung.- Le travail d’Aufklärer de Reinhold auprès de ses étudiants d’Iéna.- The Conception of Enlightenment in Reinhold’s “Letters on the Kantian Philosophy”.- Reinhold, Lavater et les Lumières.- Bürgerliche Aufklärung und streng systematische Philosophie. Zum Verhältnis von Leben und Philosophie bei K. L. Reinhold.- Reinhold and the Historical Turn.- Reason’s Changing Needs: From Kant to Reinhold.- Reinhold, History, and the Foundation of Philosophy.- Reinhold in Struggle with Religious and Moral Issues.- K. L. Reinhold und der Glaube der Vernunft.- Reinhold a Kantian? “Practical Reason” in Reinhold’s “Briefe über die Kantische Philosophie” and Versuch einer neuen Theorie des menschlichen Vorstellungsvermögens.- Le «besoin de la raison» dans les Lettres sur la philosophie kantienne (1786–1787).- Zwei Wege der Kantischen Praktischen Vernunft: Reinhold und Fichte.- Reinhold and Systematicity: Theory of Science and Theory of Mind.- und Gegenstand der Vorstellung in Reinholds Elementarphilosophie.- Reinhold’s Critics: Kantian and Anti-Kantian.- Reinhold’s Road to Fichte: The Elementary-Philosophy of 1795/96.- Architektur und System. Das Verhältnis von Gedankengebäude und Baugedanke.- How Reinhold Helped Hegel Understand the German Enlightenment and Grasp the Pantheism Controversy.- Appendix: Sources and Materials.- Zwei Wiener Reden Reinholds: Ein Beitrag zu Reinholds Frühphilosophie.- Reinholds Vorlesungen 1792–1794 über die Kritik der reinen Vernunft und über Logik und Metaphysik: Kollegnachschriften Smidt, Kalmann, Krause.

Review :
From the reviews: “A very welcome addition to the hitherto sketchy critical literature on Reinhold. … Giovanni portrays Reinhold’s adherence to the abstract ideals of the classical enlightenment as in tension with just those features of post-Kantian idealism … . invaluable for anyone wanting to understand both the architecture and dynamics of Reinhold’s views … . we should not ignore its apparently intended status as an historically particular and specifically targeted intervention within the pedagogy of humankind, informed by an historical conception of reason and its changing needs.” (Paul Redding, Philosophy in Review, Vol. XXXI (4), 2011)