Karl Leonhard Reinhold (26 October 1757 – 10 April 1823) was an Austrian
philosopher
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
who helped to popularise the work of
Immanuel Kant in the late 18th century. His "elementary philosophy" (''Elementarphilosophie'') also influenced
German idealism, notably
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (; ; 19 May 1762 – 29 January 1814) was a German philosopher who became a founding figure of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, which developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kan ...
, as a critical system grounded in a fundamental first principle.
He was the father of
Ernst Christian Gottlieb Reinhold (1793–1855), also a philosopher.
Life
Reinhold was born in
Vienna. In late 1772, at the age of fourteen he entered the
Jesuit
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders ...
college (
Roman Catholic seminary) of
St. Anne's Church, Vienna
St. Anne's Church (german: Annakirche) is located in Vienna, Austria, and has been administered by the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales since 1906. A relic of Saint Anne—her right hand—is kept in a rich Baroque setting and exhibited every y ...
(Jesuitenkollegium St. Anna).
[ He studied there for a year, until the order was suppressed in 1773, at which time he joined a similar Viennese Catholic college of the ]order
Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to:
* Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood
* Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of d ...
of St. Barnabas
Barnabas (; arc, ܒܪܢܒܐ; grc, Βαρνάβας), born Joseph () or Joses (), was according to tradition an early Christian, one of the prominent Christian disciples in Jerusalem. According to Acts 4:36, Barnabas was a Cypriot Jew. Nam ...
,[ the Barnabitenkollegium St. Michael. In 1778 he became a teacher at the Barnabitenkollegium, on August 27, 1780, he was ordained as a priest, and on April 30, 1783, he became a member of the Viennese Freemasonry lodge "Zur wahren Eintracht."][Karl Leonhard Reinhold, ''Essay on a New Theory of the Human Capacity for Representation'', Walter de Gruyter, 2011, p. x.]
Finding himself out of sympathy with monastic life,[ he fled on November 19, 1783 to Leipzig, where he converted to Protestantism. In 1784, after studying philosophy for a semester at Leipzig, he settled in Weimar, where he became ]Christoph Martin Wieland
Christoph Martin Wieland (; 5 September 1733 – 20 January 1813) was a German poet and writer. He is best-remembered for having written the first ''Bildungsroman'' (''Geschichte des Agathon''), as well as the epic ''Oberon'', which formed the ba ...
's collaborator on the ''German Mercury'' ('' Der Teutsche Merkur''), and eventually his son-in-law. Reinhold married Wieland's daughter Sophia Catharina Susanna Wieland (October 19, 1768 – September 1, 1837) on May 18, 1785. In the ''German Mercury'' Reinhold published, in the years 1786–87, his ''Briefe über die Kantische Philosophie'' (''Letters on the Kantian Philosophy''), which were most important in making Immanuel Kant known to a wider circle of readers. As a result of these ''Letters'', Reinhold received a call to the University of Jena, where he taught from 1787 to 1794.[
In 1788, Reinhold published ''Hebräischen Mysterien oder die älteste religiöse Freymaurerey
]