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Reviewed by:
  • Briefe über die Kantische Philosophie
  • George di Giovanni
Karl Leonhard Reinhold . Briefe über die Kantische Philosophie. Gesammelte Schriften: Kommentierte Ausgabe. Band 2/1-2. Hrsg. Martin Bondeli. Basel: Schwabe, 2007. 2/1: pp. lxxiii + 349; 2/2: pp. cii + 431. Cloth, 2/1: €63.00; 2/2: €68.00.

Now that the edition of Fichte's works is complete, and those of Hegel's and Jacobi's practically complete, it is comforting to see that the edition of Reinhold's works, begun in 1983 with a first volume of his correspondence (1773–1788), but subsequently dormant, has finally been resumed in earnest. The two books under review are Reinhold's Letters on Kantian Philosophy that make up the two parts of the second of the twelve volumes now planned for the edition. An editorial board is supervising the project, but general editorial control will fall on Martin Bondeli, who has just produced this second volume. Including the multiple parts of individual volumes, there will be sixteen books altogether, 2019 being the foreseen completion date. This Schwabe publication will also incorporate in some form or other the work already done by Faustino Fabbianelli in editing the Beiträge zur Berichtigung bisheriger Mißverständnisse der Philosophen of 1790 and 1794 (Meiner Verlag, 2003–2004). As for Reinhold's correspondence, the first volume of 1983 was followed in 2007 by a second covering the 1788–1790 period, both published by Frommann-Holzboog. This series will proceed independently, but in cooperation with the Schwabe publication. All indications are that the present efforts at a complete edition of both the works and the correspondence of Reinhold are on a sound financial basis and under firm editorial control. Soon we should have in place one more piece of that complex authorship of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century German philosophical literature that saw the rise and development of post-Kantian idealism.

In this respect especially, Reinhold's Letters on Kantian Philosophy are of historical significance. They mark the beginning of the transition from Kant to post-Kantianism. Following a typical literary convention of the time, the Letters are essays couched in the form of an exchange of views between the author and a fictitious dialogue partner. The first series of eight was published in Der Teutsche Merkur between August 1786 and September 1787. These letters make up the core of a new series published under a single cover in 1790, but in much revised form, with the addition of two essays published by Reinhold in Der Neue Teutscher Merkur in 1786 and 1790, respectively. In this 1790 edition (now part 1 of volume 2 of the critical edition) the original Letters 1 and 3 are each split into two, becoming respectively Letters 1 and 3 and Letters 5 and 6, while the added essay of 1790 (Concerning the Spirit of our Age in Germany) becomes Letter 2 and the 1786 essay (Sketch of a Theogony of Blind Faith) concludes the series as Letter 12. As for the series published in 1792, also as a single volume (now part 2 of volume 2 of the critical edition), this also includes already published, but newly revised materials; namely, seven essays published in 1791 and 1792. Added to these are five completely new Letters for a total of twelve. Together, these twenty-four Letters represent the achievement of Reinhold's program of publicizing Kant's philosophy, which (as we know from correspondence dating to late 1786) Reinhold had originally envisaged under sixteen headings, and of which the original eight Letters were only a partial realization. More interesting still, in these Letters we see Reinhold—a lifelong committed and politically active member of the Illuminati—developing a history of humankind according to the Illuminati's gospel of reason, in which the eschatological age of illumination is marked by Kant's philosophy, rather than by the previous metaphysics of the schools. Kant replaces Adam Weishaupt, the founder of the Illuminati, as the ultimate preacher of rectitude.

There are differences between the first eight Letters, where one can feel Reinhold's emotions as he turns to Kant for resolving his doubts about the possibility of reconciling faith with reason...

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