Karl Leonhard Reinhold

This is a draft translation of the fourth letter of G.E. Schulze's Aenesidemus. Comments and corrections welcome.

This is a draft translation of the first letter of G.E. Schulze's Aenesidemus. Comments and corrections welcome.

G.E. Schulze's Aenesidemus, despite its importance for the development of post-Kantian idealism, has not been fully translated into English. Now and then, when I have time, I will upload draft translations of parts of the text here, with the goal of, at some point, providing a complete translation. These drafts will be rough and I welcome feedback! -/- This document contains only the Title page, Schulze's indication of the contents of the work, and the preface.

This is a translation of the short, third letter in G.E. Schulze's Aenesidemus, without its lengthy appendix. -/- Excerpts of the appendix which follows this letter have been translated into English by George di Giovanni in Between Kant and Hegel, eds. G. di Giovanni and H.S. Harris, (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company Inc., 2000).

Kant’s early critics maintained that his theory of freedom faces a dilemma: either it reduces the will’s activity to strict necessity by making it subject to the causality of the moral law, or it reduces the will’s activity to blind chance by liberating it from rules of any kind. This Element offers a new interpretation of Kant’s theory against the backdrop of this controversy. It argues that Kant was a consistent proponent of the claim that the moral law is the (...) causal law of a free will, and that the supposed ability of free will to choose indifferently between options is an empty concept. Freedom, for Kant, is a power to initiate action from oneself, and the only way to exercise this power is through the law of one’s own will, the moral law. Immoral action is not thereby rendered impossible, but it also does not express a genuine ability. (shrink)

Обращение к «первой волне» реакции на «Критику чистого разума» в Германии со второй половины 1780-х гг. до начала XIX в. дает возможность выявить парадоксальный статус кантовского трансцендентального субъекта. Неоспоримость существования трансцендентального субъекта, связанная с самой сущностью критической философии вне зависимости от того, что под ним понимать, сталкивается с нередкими утверждениями о неустойчивости этого субъекта. Кажущаяся очевидность значения понятия трансцендентального субъекта (как субъекта познания, носителя трансцендентальных условий опыта) распадается на различные его трактовки. Для реализации поставленной цели производится текстологический анализ сочинений самых (...) ранних оппонентов и последователей кантовского критицизма и реконструируется их концептуальное поле, в которое было помещено понятие трансцендентального субъекта. В частности, привлекаются работы таких авторов, как Я. С. Бек, А. Вайсхаупт, И. Г. Гаман, С. Маймон, К. Л. Рейнгольд, Г. Э. Шульце, И. А. Эберхард и Ф. Г. Якоби. Авторы рассматриваемого периода сгруппированы на основе общих тем и вопросов, исходя из которых они обращались к понятию трансцендентального субъекта, хотя результаты их размышлений могли при этом даже противоречить друг другу. Трансцендентальный субъект у этих авторов тематизируется в соотношении с трансцендентальным объектом, или «нечто = х», а также в рамках отношения представления к объекту и характеризуется то как нечто принципиально пустое, то как полнота истинной реальности. Трансцендентальному субъекту приписывается статус то вещи самой по себе, то «простой» идеи. Наконец, наряду с тем, что кантовский трансцендентальный субъект мог расцениваться как нечто, что должно быть преодолено, его могли полагать и как бесконечную задачу для рассудка. (shrink)

The study of the “first wave” of reactions to the Critique of Pure Reason in Germany from the second half of the 1780s until the beginning of the nineteenth century reveals the paradoxical status of the Kantian transcendental subject. While the existence of the transcendental subject, whatever the term means, is not open to question since it arises from the very essence of critical philosophy, the fundamental status of the subject is sometimes questioned in this period. Although the meaning of (...) the concept of transcendental subject seems obvious today (the subject of cognition, bearer of transcendental conditions of experience) it lends itself to various interpretations in the late eighteenth century. To achieve my goal I have undertaken a textological analysis of the works of the earliest opponents and followers of the Kantian critique and a reconstruction of the conceptual field in the midst of which the transcendental subject has been planted. Among others I draw on the works of J. S. Beck, J. A. Eberhard, J. G. Hamann, F. H. Jacobi, S. Maimon, K. L. Reinhold, G. E. Schulze and A. Weishaupt. The authors of the period are grouped depending on the common themes and questions that prompted them to turn to the concept of the transcendental subject, even though the results of their reflections did not always coincide. These authors think of the transcendental subject in its relationship to the transcendental object, or as “something = х”, and in terms of the relationship of representation to the object. It is characterised sometimes as something absolutely hollow, and sometimes as the fullness of true reality. The status ascribed to the transcendental subject is sometimes that of a thing-in-itself and sometimes that of a “mere” idea. Finally, Kant’s transcendental subject was sometimes seen as something to be overcome and sometimes as an infinite challenge to understanding. (shrink)

While Kant’s claim that the moral law discloses our freedom to us has been extensively discussed in recent decades, the reactions to this claim among Kant’s immediate successors have gone largely overlooked by scholars. Reinhold, Creuzer, and Maimon were among three prominent thinkers of the era unwilling to follow Kant in making the moral law the condition for knowing our freedom. Maimon went so far as to reject Kant’s method of appealing to our everyday awareness of duty on the grounds (...) that common human understanding is susceptible to error and illusion. In this paper I shall examine how these skeptical reactions to Kant’s position shaped the background for Fichte’s method of moral justification, leading up to his own deduction of the moral law in the System of Ethics. By way of conclusion, I shall propose a new interpretation of how consciousness of the moral law serves as an entry-point to Fichte’s form of idealism. (shrink)

In diesem Aufsatz stelle ich eine neue Interpretation der Reinhold’schen Sprachphilosophie vor. Mein Ziel ist es zu erklären, wie Reinhold der Meinung sein konnte, seine Sprachphilosophie stelle, ebenso wie seine Elementarphilosophie, den Versuch dar, Kants Kritische Philosophie zu fundieren. Außerdem möchte ich zeigen, worin die philosophische Bedeutung von Reinholds Ansatz gegenüber den Sprachphilosophien seiner Zeitgenossen besteht.

This chapter explores Kant’s, Reinhold’s, Fichte’s, and Hegel’s stances toward transcendental philosophy and transcendental arguments. Having explained the new meaning that Kant assigned to the term ‘transcendental’, the chapter surveys his attempt to develop a transcendental philosophy by employing transcendental arguments. Since these arguments presuppose unproven matters of fact, authors who were deeply concerned by scepticism deemed them unsuitable for the task. The chapter explains how Reinhold and Fichte sought to establish solid foundations for transcendental philosophy without relying on transcendental (...) arguments. The final section of the chapter discusses whether Hegel, who rejected transcendental philosophy, employed transcendental arguments. (shrink)

In Book I of the Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason Kant offers an explanation of freedom and moral good and evil that is different from that offered in the Groundwork for a Metaphysics of Morals. My primary goal in this paper is to analyze and elucidate this new theory. My secondary goal is to contrast this new theory with the older one that it is replacing. I argue that the new theory, which centers on the idea that evil (...) involves a sort of misprioritizing, enables Kant to get around two problems associated with the older theory. (shrink)

This paper explains and defends Reinhold’s epistemology of disagreement. The concept of agreement is of central importance for Reinhold’s philosophy. He attempts to settle the most basic disputes among post-Kantian philosophers by offering intermediate positions that reconcile the seemingly incompatible views. Moreover, Reinhold argues for epistemic objectivism, that is, the thesis that a group of philosophers sharing the same information and respecting each other’s opinion may not reasonably disagree. If the members of such a group search for truth then they (...) must converge toward consensus. Disagreement is irrational. (shrink)

The paper examines Hegel's views on Reinhold, from his earliest appreciation to his final remarks in the Encyclopedia. Ultimately, Reinhold's theory of representation helps Hegel see that the Late Enlightenment opposition between faith and reasoning is anchored in the language of representation. The speculative language of Hegelian Science is necessary in order to overcome the modern dilemma.