La storia della filosofia secondo Reinhold all’inizio del XIX secolo

The journal Beyträge zur leichtern Uebersicht des Zustandes der Philosophie beym Anfange des 19. Jahrhunderts, whose six volumes were edited by K. L. Reinhold from 1801 until 1803, gives in some of its essays an outlook of the philosophy at the beginning of 19th century. Reinhold’s point of view is driven by his conversion to logical realism and consequently critically turned against Kantian transcendental philosophy as well as Fichtian and Schellinghian Idealism. In the first part of the essay Reinhold’s idea of history of philosophy as process toward a last and definitive revolution in philosophy is expounded. I argue that Reinhold’s idea of a revolution in philosophy looks at an articulated step in which discovery and foundation of knowledge are involved. Anyway history of philosophy according to Reinhold is possible from a philosophical point of view, that one of the final revolution in philosophy. In the second part of the essay Reinhold’s criterions to evaluate history of philosophy are explained, particularly the difference between “true” and “originally true” through which Reinhold considers Plato, Leibniz and logical realism as peaks of history of philosophy, but with a special regard also to Descartes. The third and last part of the essay deals with Reinhold’s criticism toward Kantian philosophy and Idealism. Reinhold conceives subjectivity as common principle of Kantian, Fichtian and Schellinghian philosophy. Subjectivity according to Reinhold consists in a free activity of the Self abstracting from the objects and reflecting on itself and thus finally in a psychological deception. Nevertheless Schellinghian identity of subjectivity and objectivity could seem close to logical realism. Reinhold's idea of contemporary philosophy looks at a closed confrontation with Schelling's last philosophy on one hand and a debate with Jacobi's theory of faith opposed to knowledge on the other