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 Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...

in the late 18th century. His "elementary philosophy" (''Elementarphilosophie'') also influenced

German idealism German idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s, and was closely linked both with Romanticism and the revolutiona ...

, 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 German idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in ...

, as a critical system grounded in a fundamental first principle. He was the father of

Ernst Christian Gottlieb Reinhold Ernst Christian Gottlieb Reinhold (18 October 1793 – 17 September 1855) was a German philosopher. He was the son of Karl Leonhard Reinhold and grandchild of Christoph Martin Wieland. He at first lectured on philosophy at the University of Kie ...

(1793–1855), also a philosopher.

Life

Reinhold was born in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. 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 Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

seminary A seminary, school of theology, theological seminary, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called ''seminarians'') in scripture, theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as clergy ...

) of St. Anne's Church, Vienna (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 ...

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 Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

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 Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

, where he converted to

Protestantism Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

. In 1784, after studying philosophy for a semester at

, he settled in

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...

, 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

known to a wider circle of readers. As a result of these ''Letters'', Reinhold received a call to the

University of Jena The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (german: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany. The ...

, where he taught from 1787 to 1794. In 1788, Reinhold published ''Hebräischen Mysterien oder die älteste religiöse Freymaurerey