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Reinhold on Being, Appearance and Ursein and some Consequences
Rolf Ahlers
Abstract: The paper investigates being, appearance and Ursein in Reinhold’s Bardili-phase, a time during which he critically
positions himself over against Schelling and Hegel. The first part (1) highlights Bardili’s and Reinhold’s being, the basis of their
“rational” or “objective realism”. From here (2) Reinhold criticizes Schelling’s “subjective idealism” as one of appearance and
of philodoxy. The third part (3) investigates identity in Reinhold and Schelling: Schelling’s philosophy of identity is a philosophy
of indifference. But since (4) Reinhold’s criterion of evaluation is a religiously connoted Urwahres, original truth, he is forced to
redraft this criterion as a logical principle with its own inherent developmental logic that moves from hypothesis to conclusion.
Reinhold formulates a position that is neither a dogmatism, nor a skepticism, but a combination of both. These maneuvers have
consequences, specifically for Hegel.
The pivotal influence of the early German Idealist thinker Karl Leonhard Reinhold (1757-1823) is increasingly
recognized. Reflections presented here on being, appearance and Ursein are central to Reinhold and his
influence. My comments limit themselves to the longest period of his creative career, the period identified as
“rational realism”. It starts toward the end of 1799 with an abrupt turn away from Fichte to Bardili and
positions itself critically over against the Idealism of the young Critical Journalists of Jena, Schelling and
Hegel. Reinhold does so in his Beyträge zur leichteren Übersicht des Zustandes der Philosophie beym Anfange
des 19. Jahrhunderts. Schelling and Hegel start their Critical Journal of Philosophy at the same time.1 The
discussion of the time considered Reinhold’s Contributions to be of equal weight with Schelling’s and Hegel’s
writings in their Critical Journal of Philosophy. The discussion was adversarial. Indeed, it became so heated
1
When the Philosophische Journal, edited by Fichte and Niethammer, fails in 1798, Fichte, pursuing the goal of a new critical
journal, hopes to promote together with the brothers Schlegel and Schelling and with the whole Romantic circle the goal of
realizing a new critical journal of philosophy. Rebuffed by the Romantics, however, for reasons I cannot here elaborate, Fichte
turns to Reinhold. But Reinhold’s own controversy with Fichte not much later causes him to reject his own
“Zwischenstandpunkt”, his “position between” Jacobi and Fichte, which he held for only a very brief period, and turns now to
Bardili in his pursuit of an “objective” idealism. That both Schelling and Hegel, whom Schelling recruits as co-editor, pursue in
their own Critical Journal of Philosophy the same kind of objective idealism as does Reinhold but do so in their critique of
Reinhold is one of the ironies of the history of philosophy. See Buchner, Pöggeler, editors, Hegel, Jenaer Kritisdche Schriften
Hegel-AA 4, 533 ff. on the circumstances leading to the Kritische Journal. Assumed here is Reinhold’s pivotal influence on
Hegel despite this new positioning of literary fronts; since this is explained elsewhere, this issue is not detailed here..
that Reinhold characterized it as a “war of annihilation”!2 Those are strong words for the gentle and levelheaded Reinhold. He believes at this time he has discovered the true Idealism and he is its prophet.3 His
writings, as well as those by Schelling and Hegel and those of the immediate literary environment make an
important contribution to the transformation of the tradition of European metaphysics.
The first part of my essay (1) focuses on Reinhold’s pronounced religious interest in an “original truth=
Urwahres” and “original being=Ursein” in this Bardili-phase of his thought. These are only two of an
extensive series of tangent concepts, all of them derivatives of concepts of the long history of metaphysics.
This interest forms the basis of Reinhold’s objective Idealism. From this perspective he criticizes – the second
(2) part – the subjectivism of Schelling (and of Hegel). Schelling’s philosophy, Reinhold argues with
considerable consequences, is no more than a philosophy of error=Scheinphilosophie, indeed, it is philodoxy.
This philosophy of error turns out – in part (3) three, in which we turn to the problematic of identity – as a
philosophy of indifference. Since an “original truth”, clearly at least at the outset of this period is an
ontological corrective to Kant’s agnostic thing in itself with consequent severe restrictions of philosophy to
epistemology,4 is basic to Reinhold, he must, however, reconceive it, among other reasons in order to protect
himself against the accusation that his, and Bardili’s, new system constitute a massive dogmatism, a
reincarnation of his older Elementarphilosophie. Reinhold finds the shield against that critique (4) in a
developmental-logical relationship of hypothesis and conclusion. Some of the consequences of Reinhold’s
Bardili-phase distinction between being and appearance are new tensions with Schelling – and less
pronounced with Hegel. Another important consequence is Reinhold’s proposal of a series of other theories of
which especially Hegel made use during his Jena years. Since Reinhold is a systematic thinker we also point
to the continuity in Reinhold’s thought in distinction from the discontinuity otherwise stressed in his thinking.
2
Reinhold, (1803a): „Über den Vertilgungskrieg zwischen der spekulirenden und der denkenden Philosophie“. The title is
revealing: Jacobi used the concept “speculation” consistently with negative connotations, a consequence of his critique of reason
in the Kantian mold. For Fichte and Schelling, however, speculation has an eminently positive connotation. Reinhold elevates
“thinking” above “speculation”. Also the concept of “thinking” is gaining here in Reinhold’s position between 1800 and 1803 a
new prominence, which it did not have in Kant: Kant consistently favored “Erkenntnis”=recognition, which can be empirically
verified, over “thinking” which often occupies itself with unverifiable issues. For a very abridged perspective on the history of
the concept of “speculation” see Ebbersmeyer (1995) on Kant cols. 1363-65, on Fichte’s, Schelling’s and Hegel’s use of
“speculation” cols. 1365-67.
3
Reinhold is pivotal for German Idealism for three reasons: “First (,) as paving the path for systematic reflectivity, the most
important element of the genesis of Early Idealism. But his philosophy is secondly not only the initiator, but remained until 1820
also the constant critic of the developing philosophies of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. Reinhold’s philosophy accompanies
German Idealism to its most extreme periphery and its radical modification in post-speculative modernity. Third, Reinhold’s
work is pivotal with his objective influence on further systematic developments since 1800” within German Idealism. Kersting,
Westerkamp, (editors), (2008) p. 8. All translations are those of the author except where otherwise noted. Nouns and names,
capitalized in contemporary German and also in German of two centuries ago, are not capitalized in English to conform to
grammatical correctness of the German original and American English usage today. So with adjectives and verbs: Two hundred
years ago and now, both are not capitalized, both in German and English. If, however, adjectives or verbs are capitalized in the
original, deviating from the grammatical norm, the English rendition follows that deviation.
4
An important book which investigates the reasons here discussed for the return to “speculative metaphysics” in the very vortex
of the discussion surrounding Kant’s critique of just such speculation is by Baur, Dahlstrom (1999). Although von Schönborn’s
excellent essay on Reinhold pp. 33-62 points to the pivotal function of Reinhold in that debate, the influence of Reinhold on the
emergence of objective and absolute Idealism in Hegel during Hegel’s early and later Jena years is underemphasized. That is the
period of Reinhold’s Bardili phase central to our debate.
That discontinuity is not denied here but rather presupposed as undeniable. Throughout, the connections of
Reinholdian issues discussed to Jacobi and Hegel must be highlighted, for during his Bardili phase both were
central, although in different ways, to the debate in which Reinhold is now a dominant discussant. I proceed to
the first part of my paper.
1.
Reinhold’s religious interest during his Bardili phase
During this “Bardili phase” of his thought, Reinhold begins to use such terms as “truth”, “original truth=das
Urwahre”, “the complete principle truth”, “that which is true in itself”5, which is “neither merely subjective
nor objective nor in both ways Absolute”,6 “that which is true through itself”, and the “Other”.7 Other terms
he uses are: “something higher” “trans-sensual real”8, “essence = Wesen” or “Urwesen = original essence”,
“being = Sein” and “Ursein=original being”9, the “One” and “the originally One=das Ureine”, the “ground”
or “original ground=Urgrund”, as well as “the unconditioned” which can be recognized by the “original light =
Urlicht”10 of reason. Since the beginning of his Bardili phase, he understands his philosophy as grounded in
this “originally true = Urwahres”, “Ursein” =original being, or “unconditioned real and…really
unconditioned”.11 I quote: This truth is that “which is True in itself and through itself; it is that through which
all that is True has its truth; it is the originally True, which is True prior to Everything else, the Prius κατ’
εξοχην“.12 Philosophy is then in this theological, i.e. revelatory sense, the application or execution of this
5
Reinhold, (1801a): „Was heißt philosophiren?“ p. 70.
Reinhold, (1804): Briefwechsel, p. 3.
7
Reinhold, (1800a): Schelling Review, p. 366. See also (1801c) “Denken als Denken” p.101.
8
Reinhold, (1801f): “Erste Aufgabe der Philosophie” pp.15 f.
9
The word Ursein, left untranslated in its German original, is composed of the prefix “ur-“ and the noun “Sein” = ”being”. Many
German words contain the prefix “ur-“: “Urgeschichte” = ”primeval history”, “Ursache” = “cause“, “Ursprung” = “origin“,
“Urstand” = “original state“, “Urwald” = “primeval forest untouched by civilization“ and also “Ursein”. The English equivalent
of “ur-“, “original” renders the meaning only imperfectly, but it is nonetheless probably the best translation. The prefix “ur-“ is
etymologically related to modern “Uhr=clock”, which refers to passing of time, so that the prefix “ur-“ refers to a “time prior to
the passing of time” a golden age from which all that springs which is transient and fallible. There are two versions of “Urzeit” =
original time prior to time and “Uhrzeit” = time which the clock tells. The first, “Urzeit” is only inappropriately called “-zeit”, for
prior to time there is eternity, not time, but popular Vorstellung calls it the “Urzeit” anyway. The German “Ursache” is generally
translated as “cause” or “origin”, but its full meaning emerges in the translation: “governing principle”, the reflective
modification of “original issue”. “Ursein” is in its ontological sense the “being” prior to both Sein =being and Schein= error or
appearance. As we will see, Reinhold distinguishes between Sein=, Erscheinung=appearance, and Schein=error. Ursein is the
criterion distinguishing between the valid appearance of being and its problematic or fake, or deceptive manifestation in mere or
erroneous opinion.
10
The term “Urlicht der Vernunft” is taken over directly from Jacobi, see his 1st Sendschreiben an Fichte in (1799) Jacobi-W 1 p.
349:5. In his own (1799) 1st Sendschreiben an Lavater und Fichte, pp. 318 f. Reinhold rejects subjective and affirms objective
Idealism. Objective Idealism is based on “natural” in distinction to “speculative” reason, affirming the first, while rejecting
“speculation”. Natural reason is immediate and original knowing and possesses validity. Unmediated knowing is identified by
Reinhold with Jacobi as “faith” the “Original Light” knowing “Truth itself”. See on this passage Schrader (1993) p. 87, and
Lauth (1974b) p. 250.
11
Reinhold, (1801f.): „Erste Aufgabe der Philosophie“ p. 29.
12
Reinhold, (1801a): „Was heißt philosophiren?“ p. 71. See also his characterization of philosophy as the „ground..., origin, and
the Prius κατ’ εξοχην.“ Reinhold, (1802b): „Elemente der Phänomenologie“ p. 109. Bardili used similar language, see his
Grundriß (1800) pp. 241, 294. He defines in his Grundriß of 1800 God, the “world-principle”, as exclusively “in and through
himself”, i.e., as completely independent, and he identifies “that which he has revealed of himself in my thinking (as) the
indestructible modus of a being κατ’ εξοχην”. Bardili, (1800) p. 333. Jacobi had already in the first and then in all subsequent
6
original trans-sensual ground. For philosophy is intimately tied to that ground. We note Reinhold stresses the
“first task of philosophy” of his rational, not logical realism (Bardili is a logical realist) is only one single task
that must be seen as a single principle. It is nothing less than “the manifestation of the original being in the
essence of things, or the revelation of God in nature”.13 Executing this principle is no longer a practical task
however, as in the “Zwischenposition”,14 the “position between Jacobi and Fichte”. True philosophizing is
now a theoretical task.
The “originally True” and “Absolute” is “true in and through itself”.15 It is that which is “exclusively
possible and truly real”.16 “From it and for it the […] logical certainty […] results in One and the same real
certainty.”17 This original truth is the “Prius κατ’ εξοχην”.18 Philosophy is the application or execution within
changeable matter of the unchangeable original ground which manifests itself. In this process this changeable
matter is hypothetically presupposed as the condition of the manifestation of the original substance which is
always unconditional.19 Thinking accomplishes the validation of this presupposition, being or nature or matter.
For extended and changeable matter, which “has in God its essential being”, is “determined” only through
applying and changing it in thought. There is nothing without determination. Thought, which is not extended,
determines plural, “multifaceted” matter in all difference and specificity.20 The essence and identity of matter
is specified in this differentiating determination. Its goal is the unity of thought and being (Plotinus,21 Hebrew
editions of his Spinozabriefe characterized “absolute thought” as understood by Spinoza in this way: “Absolute thought is the
pure, immediate consciousness in general being, the being κατ’ εξοχην or of substance.“ Jacobi-W (17851, 17892) p.105.
13
Reinhold, Karl Leonhard (1802d): „Die Simplicität der Philosophie“ p. 219. See Bondeli, (1995a) p. 370.
14
Reinhold, (1799): „1st Sendschreiben an Lavater und Fichte“ p. 308. He writes here to Fichte, whose position he had assumed
not long ago: „For a few days now I am personally in Eutin. Each conversation with Jacobi clarifies for me more and more that I
have to assume my position between Him and You.“
15
Reinhold, (1799) p. 308. The „1st Sendschreiben” takes his “position between Jacobi and Fichte” on the basis of the faith and
the negative theological element of not-knowability affirmed by both Jacobi and Fichte. He even says that he has been “united
forever” with Jacobi’s position of faith, see p. 308, – a view he abandoned just as decisively shortly thereafter. Even eight
months later Reinhold still describes in his first letter to Bardili of December 1799 our knowledge of the “Absolute” in Jacobian
terms “as a dark intuition of what is true in itself (neither subjective nor objective nor in both ways).” Reinhold (1804) ReinholdBardili Briefwechsel p. 3. But already in his 2nd Sendschreiben to Fichte dated „Kiel, Nov. 23, 1800” and printed in numbers 214
and 215 of the Erlanger Litteratur Zeitung [reprinted in Reinhold (1801c) pp.113-134, Reinhold’s reply to Fichte’s devastating
Bardili Review (1800), which was also printed in the Erlanger Litteratur Zeitung 30/31 of Oct. 1800,] Reinhold emphasizes his
distance to both Jacobi and Fichte. Bardili’s “pure being”, Reinhold now stresses, is neither a “purely Objective” being, which
any putative knower must dogmatically presuppose, nor is it “purely Subjective” in the sense of “your (i.e. Fichte’s) truly
dogmatic idealism”. “Bardili’s perspective”, Reinhold concludes this weighty paragraph, “is not at all that position between
Fichte’s and Jacobi’s position. I had to abandon forever the latter (i.e. Jacobian) perspective by learning to think that pure being
from within the context of Bardili’s perspective. It is therefore neither subjective nor objective.” Reinhold (1801c) p. 131.
16
Reinhold, (1801c): „Denken als Denken?“ pp. 100 f.
17
Reinhold, (1801e): „Vorrede“ p. ixf. See Onnasch, (2002) pp. 88 f.
18
Reinhold, (1801a), „Was heißt philosophiren?“ p.71. See Onnasch, (2004), „Wahrheit“. Onnasch points to the antique roots of
the concept of absolute truth, which saw a revival in German Idealism. It should be mentioned that Reinhold is even in his first
publication, the Hebrew Mysteries, acutely aware of these roots. He references them on every page. Reinhold stresses in
particular the relevance of British Platonism for the Enlightenment.
19
Reinhold, (1802a) „Phänomenologie“ pp. 106 f.
20
Reinhold, (1802a) „Phänomenologie“ p. 106.
21
Already Plotinus, who is frequently quoted by Reinhold as early as in his Hebrew Mysteries, knew this identity of thought and
being. See Kremer on that identity in Plotinus, (2008).
Mysteries22, Spinoza23, whom to study Reinhold came to Leipzig24) in the „original relationship“ (UrVerhältnis) of „identity“ and „non-identity”.25
The „originally true“ (Urwahre) and the „unconditionally absolute“,26 „which is in and through itself“,
is the „exclusively possible and real truth“27 „from and for which will evolve the […] logical certainty of One
Identical […] real certainty.”28 Self-grounding, i.e. not being conditioned by something else, the identity of
possibility and reality and the mentality of existence conceived as necessary certainty are Spinizistic attributes
of God.29 Certainty in thought has its ground in an absolutely true being. The ontologically conceived
originally One = (Ureine), which is always also the model for systematically coherent unity of thought, is truth
itself, from which arises everything and in which also complete certainty has its ground. This has a neoplatonic tenor and is not Kantian, indeed, it is anti-Kantian.30 Also the unity-plurality issue is here conceived
22
Hebrew Mysteries (1784-1785) pp. 34 f.
See Ethica (16771, 19984) pars 2, prop. 7: „The order and the interconnectedness of ideas is the same as the order and the
interconnectedness of things.“ Precisely this same 7th propositio is quoted by Jacobi in his Spinozabriefe Jacobi-W 1 p.100:1921: see especially Supplement VII, Jacobi-W 1 pp. 247-265.
24
We know from the Jena theology professor Paulus (1761-1851), who put out a new Spinoza Opera edition (the first edition in
the original Latin!) in two volumes in 1802 and 1803, that Reinhold came from Vienna to Leipzig and Weimar with the plan to
write a doctoral dissertation on Spinoza, and/or that this plan took on form in the context of new conversation partners like
Herder. Herder‘s Gott appeared in 1787, the year in which Reinhold’s Kantische Briefe appeared and also the year in which he
was called to serve as philosophy professor in Jena. In this same year (1787) 1788 he also is successful in (again) publishing his
Hebrew Mysteries in Leipzig at Göschen. After his move from Weimar, where he had lived in the house of Wieland, to Jena,
Paulus visited Reinhold on June 27, 1787. The conversation turned around Kant, with whom Reinhold had intensively occupied
himself in his just published Kantian Letters. But the conversation also turned around Spinoza! Immediately after that
conversation Paulus jotted down in his travel diary the central points Reinhold wanted to develop in his dissertation on Spinoza:
„Whatever we know are mere predicates. We do not know the subject itself. Whatever we perceive of it is only phenomenon for
our representations. We can neither assert nor deny anything about the absolute subject. If we cannot differentiate anything in
something, it is One. God is indivisible, but everything is modification of the absolute subject, the sole substance.” Reinhold,
(1773-1778): KA 1 p. 268, note to Wieland‘s letter number 65 of Sept. 23, 1787. Paulus presents here in a few sentences the key
points of Reinhold’s understanding of Spinoza of 1787. This concept of the unity of God in Reinhold’s planned but never
executed dissertation on Spinoza, is here, in Paulus’ notes, Spinozistically reformulated. It plays a central role in Reinhold‘s
Bardili phase. I am indebted to Karianne Marx for this reference, as also to Alexander von Schönborn for clarification of the role
of Spinoza in the very early Reinhold.
25
Reinhold, (1803d): „Neue Auflösung der alten Aufgabe der Philosophie“ p. 24. No earlier than here do the concepts of the
difference between the re-lating of „identity“ and „non-identity“ appear, a use of concepts which anticipates Hegel’s use.
26
In his 1st Sendschreiben (1799), the first part of which is written in Eutin, Reinhold stresses his position is identical to the
position of Jacobi’s believing not knowing. He points out he is „forever tied” p. 308 to this position, also represented by Fichte.
He writes eight months later in his first letter to Bardili in a similar Jacobian style that our knowledge of the absolute is “a dark
intuition of truth which is unconditionally absolute (not only Subjectively – or Objectively – or in both ways), Reinhold-Bardili
Briefwechsel (1804), p. 3. But in his 2nd Sendschreiben an Fichte (1801c) Reinhold stresses his distance both to Bardili as also to
Jacobi: „Bardili‘s position is not at all that Zwischenstandpunkt = position between“ Jacobi and Fichte which he had assumed
before. Reinhold now stresses he had to leave Jacobi „forever“, because he had to „learn to think pure being from within the
Bardilian“ position, the absolute truth, „which is neither something Subjective nor something Objective.” p. 126. Reinhold has
now completely distanced himself from Fichte. So Jacobi’s not knowing faith is now, in 1801, changed into knowing. But it is a
knowing of the identity of the one being, in which knowledge participates. It is neither subjective, nor objective, neither
skepticism nor dogmatism, but both.
27
Reinhold, (1801c) „Was ist das Denken, als Denken?“ pp. 100 f. His Fichtean background is visible here, but behind Fichte
Spinoza.
28
Reinhold, (1801e) „Vorrede“ S. ix f. See Onnasch, (2002) pp. 188 f.
29
Spinoza Ethics Part I, De Deo, Def. 1 “As rationally grounded in itself I understand that, whose essence involves existence or
the nature of which cannot be conceived other than as existing”. See Part II, De Natura, et Origine Mentis, Proposition 1,
“Thinking is an attribute of God, or God is a thinking being.” Part II, Proposition 7, “The structure and the interconnection of
ideas is the same as the structure and the interconnection of things.”
30
Kant distinguishes recognition, Erkenntnis, which is always limited to possible experience, and thinking, which deals with
objects outside of experience, see Kant-AA (17812) CpR § 22 B pp. 145ff. But Kant also associates thinking with representation,
23
in a neo-platonic and metaphysical mold. The One is identical not only with itself but also with itself in the
Other and in difference. But Reinhold is no stranger at all to this new, Bardilian31, Platonism and NeoPlatonism. His Hebrew Mysteries, written in 1784 and 1785 for the Journal for Freemasons, use similar
terminology32 and quote Plato, Plotinus, and especially the British Neo-Platonists in a systematically and
philosophically conceived view of world history in which hypothetically the end of the meaning of creation
and of history is anticipated in the self-recognition and self-revelation of the absolutely One.33 Now, at the
beginning of the nineteenth century he urgently appeals to Fichte in his letter of Jan 23, 1800 to read Bardili’s
Grundriß. He does so while still defining his position as that “between” Jacobi and Fichte.34 Bardili’s Outline
of Primary Logic contains a „completely new understanding of transcendental Idealism”. He immediately
accentuates this judgment: Bardili’s Outline is „actually a new invention“ of Idealism „on a completely new
path”.35 Now Reinhold does not simply capitulate to Bardili. True enough: Bardili’s Outline, although not
without inner problems, a rather original proposal, is found by Reinhold on paths within his own philosophical
journey, paths that lead across bridges which he had not destroyed as he moves on to new territory with the
Kant-AA (17812) CpR § 16 in the chapter on the synthetic unity of apperception, B pp. 131ff. Bardili thinks in Grundriß (1800)
pp. 2, 19, that Kant misses with this distinction the true task of thinking. Bardili understands thought to have an ontological
object and to be ultimately identical with being. That is the point of the formula of identity as “thought as thought”. In Bardili’s
perspective Kant misunderstands basically this dimension of thinking and Kant additionally contaminates thinking with
empiricism through his association of thinking with representation. See Bondeli (1995a), pp. 283-286. This is most likely the
most important aspect of the new impetus toward Hegel provided by Reinhold to Idealism, a direction toward what is called in
the literature the objective Idealism of Hegel. An important representative of this basic interest in objective thinking in Hegel,
observing critically problematic developments since Hegel’s death, is today Christoph Halbig, see his study of (2002).
31
Bardili’s Grundriß (1800) is influenced by Leibniz, Plato and the Tübingen Gottfried Ploucquet. It is emphatically antiKantian. Its title is in English: “Outline of Primary Logic, cleansed of previous Logics in general and of the Kantian in
particular; No Critique, but a Medicine for the Mind, useful primarily for Germany’s Critical Philosophy”. It is “dedicated to the
Berlin Academy of Sciences, to Misters Herder, Schlosser, Eberhard, Saviors of the diseased German mind, and dedicated in
particular to Friedrich Nikolai”. Herder, Schlosser, Eberhard and Nikolai are emphatic opponents of the philosophical tradition
inaugurated by Kant and continued by Fichte and the young Schelling. If Schelling insists in his letter to Fichte of May 24, 1801
[see Jaeschke (1993) 2,1, p. 198], that Bardili’s Grundriß and Reinhold’s Contributions are in their polemical thrust no more than
a series of “annihilating documents” and “absurd babbling of thinking as an objective activity”, he nonetheless recognizes that
formulations such as the identity of “thought as thought” belong to the “center of Idealism”. But Schelling only senses affinity
between the two combating sides. He concedes that he has not read carefully either Bardili or Reinhold. He fears to do injustice
to the latter. Reinhold on his part, though, is despite his repeated adulation and praise for Bardili, nonetheless “repelled” and
“outraged” [Reinhold (editor) Reinhold-Bardili Correspondence (1804) p. 4] by Bardili’s polemicism against the Kant-Fichte
Idealism and instead affirms in Bardili the tradition of Plato and Neo-Platonism, a tradition in which Reinhold is well versed.
32 Reinhold, (1784-1785) Hebräische Mysterien, pp. 34 ff.
33
See Reinhold, Hebräische Mysterien, Assmann (1784-1785): Assmann adds his own Preface (pp. 5-10), a Postscript (pp. 157199), as well as an extensive scientific apparatus. Assmann also adds in his edition the small essay by Friedrich Schiller Die
Sendung Moses in: Reinhold, Hebräische Mysterien (1784-1785) pp. 129-156. At the very end of that essay Schiller appends a
brief note. In it he states that Reinhold’s essay Hebrew Mysteries is the model of his own essay on The Mission of Moses.
Reinhold‘s and Schiller‘ proposal of a systematically coherent philosophy of history has significantly influenced intellectual
developments of the late 18th and 19th century, especially in Germany. Already in an earlier book Assmann pointed to those two
essay by Reinhold and Schiller, see (1997) pp. 115-143. This draft by Reinhold of a philosophy of history has all the elements of
later projects that follow in its footsteps, e.g. by Hegel: a systematic coherent draft of history, tying together an originating
project of nature and culture which moves from beginning to meaningful end, guided by an overarching purpose, which
manifests itself in a dialectical interaction between guidance for good and reason by the visionaries, the epoptai, as also by the
disruption of purposeful progression of history through the deceit, irrationality and evil generally and especially of priests.
Hegel’s cunning of history is here theodiceically anticipated. Reinhold has correctly been identified as the initiator of the
“historical turn” in philosophy by the Kantian Karl Ameriks, see Ameriks (2004), (2006).
34
On the shift in Reinhold’s system see Schrader (1993) and Bondeli (1995a).
zeal of a missionary. He identifies the new land before him even as a “continuation of the position of faith”36
he had left behind. So he points out that his new position is at least at the beginning an insistence on
philosophical “not knowing”. A further bridge which ties his new position to the past are basic elements of
Fichte’s “I-speculation”37, as also the insistence on grounding, i.e. justifying thinking, which was also a
Fichtean concern. Behind these issues stand Platonism and Neoplatonism, which were also suffused with
negative theological concerns about not knowing, and were speculative and very much dedicated to the need to
justify a position. Reinhold insists on a continuity in his work in the context of a philosophically highly
articulate religious or religious-philosophical interest.
I propose here that this religious interest is the
background of Reinhold’s complete opus, from the first Hebrew Mysteries to his last work, the Synonymik.
This interest attracts Hegel at the latest during his early Jena period,38 although we must not forget the earlier
enthusiasm of the Tübingen Stift students for Kant, Reinhold and Fichte but also Jacobi.39 I do not want here to
point to the real and possible encounters prior to this time. That has been done often enough elsewhere. But
we must also think of indirect bridges in Hegel’s development to this Neo-Platonic and philosophical-religious
problematic. At Frankfurt Hegel had preoccupied himself intensively with different forms of the Neo-Platonic
doctrine of the One.40 But over and above Hegel’s own development this religious and philosophical interest
is also an important aspect of all of German Idealism. Ernst Otto Onnasch (2004). Lu de Vos (1996) and
others have stressed this in various writings. But behind Hegel stands Reinhold. Reinhold’s new, or rather
35
Reinhold (1800c), „Letter to Fichte“, p. 69. In this letter Reinhold claims Bardili’s Outline has points of connection, in fact
corresponds to Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre. Bondeli’s judgment is that Bardili, although influenced by Leibniz and Plouquet, “is
some kind of unique growth” (1995a) p. 277. See Schrader (1993) p. 94.
36
Reinhold Reinhold-Bardili Correspondence (1804) pp. 3f., Dec. 20, 1799. See Bondeli, (1995a) pp. 273 ff.
37
See Reinhold (1800c) Letter to Fichte Jan 23, 1800, p. 69: „Bardili is not really your – indeed not even Kant’s – opponent
although he believes he is. For he neglects in his pursuit of the true uniqueness of his perspective, which he singularly and
therefore also too narrowly pursues, the common elements which he shares with your own, and of which he is therefore not
aware.“
38
Were Schelling and Hegel influenced by Bardili during their early Jena period? Klaus Düsing thinks this thesis is not
plausible. See Düsing, (1976), especially pp. 154f. I agree with Bondeli’s argument (1995a) pp. 279f.: Bardili’s „ontologicological thinking“, characterized by the hypothesis of the „unity of formal and material thinking“, is similar to Hegel’s basic idea
in his Science of Logic. Hegel’s preoccupation with Spinoza and with Neo-platonism was among other issues the reason for a
certain openness for the Reinholdian-Bardilian departure. I have already referred to Spinoza’s theory of parallelism of thought
and being. We now also know from the writings of Gustav Falk (1987), Volker Rühle (1989), and Jürgen Gawoll (1998), see also
(1999), of Hegel’s intense and life-long study of Jacobi’s writings, especially of Jacobi’s Letters on Spinoza since his Tübingen
Stift days. Jacobi quotes Spinoza’s 7th Propositio on the identity of thought and being in his Letters on Spinoza Jacobi-W 1 p.
100:19-21. See his Supplement VI. This whole supplement VI Jacobi-W 1, (17851, 17892) pp. 233-246 deals in toto with the
issue of that „parallelism“ of thought and being. Lessing, having revealed himself to Jacobi as a Spinozist, was especially
interested in this issue: „I won’t let you be; you must clarify this parallelism […] Yet people always speak of Spinoza as if he
were a dead dog.” See Jacobi Main Works (1994) p. 193. With this background in his own studies of Platonism, Neo-platonism,
Jacobi’s Spinoza and his own study of Spinoza at Frankfurt – he had been asked by Paulus to participate in his new Spinoza
edition –, Reinhold’s turn to Bardili since late 1799 becomes of interest to Hegel at Jena despite his critique of Reinhold. So we
can affirm Bondeli’s judgment that Bardili’s (1800) Outline has influenced Hegel’s idea of his Logic. At the latest since 1802 the
dialectical structure of the Logic is reinforced through Reinhold’s writings in the Beyträge. But the negative element in this
conception of logic is missing in Bardili. In view of this aspect, “Hegel works out a kind of anti-logic to Bardili’s conception.”
Bondeli (1995a): p. 280 note 63. That element of negativity derives from Jacobi’s leap, and also from Reinhold’s conception of
dialectics.
39
Rosenkranz (1969) p. 40 writes: „According to trustworthy sources, Hegel read and discussed with Hölderlin, Fink, Renz and
other friends Plato (we still have some of his attempts to translate him), Kant, Jacobi’s Woldemar and Allwill, Letters on Spinoza
and Hippel’s biographies in ascending order”.
40
Onnasch (2002) stresses Neo-Platonic and Christian-Theological influence on Reinhold and Hegel.
renewed religiosity sees in Bardili’s philosophy of identity an objective and logical criterion of his critique of
subjectivism.
2. Critique of Subjectivism and its Philosophy of Appearance
The new perspective of rational, not logical realism positions itself over against the „region of appearance”.41
Reinhold believes that a completely new epoch has commenced in philosophy at the beginning of the 19th
century. He is its main spokesman. The Jena „philosophy of appearance“, also called “philodoxy”,42 opposed
by him continues to move in the tradition of Kant and Fichte. It is hardly able to adequately get a hold of
reality because it de-finitizes and absolutizes finite subjectivity – this Jacobian argument reappears later in
Hegel as the “bad infinite” – therewith missing the true absolute. The subject is “amalgamated” with the
absolute. Reinhold belonged to that Fichtean-Schellingian-Hegelian tradition until his own epochal turn to
Bardili. His points of orientation toward that new position were twofold: Jacobi’s critique of reason and
Bardili’s logical realism, but behind them stand Plato, Leibniz, and others. Illustrating his concern by looking
at Fichte, Reinhold identifies the problem in his first letter to Bardili as „pure self-activity or pure I-ness”.43
The „ultimate and chief consequence of the Critique of Pure Reason“, Reinhold writes in the last sentence of
the section on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason of his programmatic essay on “The First Task of Philosophy as
seen by its most Noteworthy Advocates”,
“is that Truth is only subjective”. That means that „purely
philosophically recognized truth, seen as pure truth but now recognized only as pure subjectivity, consists in
the objectivity of truth recognized as error: from the perspective of this error philosophy can affirm pure truth
only as statutory appearance, natural prejudice, [and] of the truth of appearance. This consequence is
understandable on the basis of that pure subjectivity and can be deduced from it.”44 If objective truth is
considered from within the Kantian assumptions, it turns out to be no more than the erroneous appearance of
truth and prejudice, but this Kantian argument, which rejects an empirically not verified objective truth as
erroneous, is here turned against Kant and the Kantian tradition of subjectivity. It is now the “realm of
illusion” or of “error“, Schein. The Kantian tradition, preoccupied with empirical verifiability (Kant) or the
41
Reinhold, (1803b) „Systemwechsel“ pp. 26 f.
Reinhold, (1802b) „Philodoxie“ pp. 186-201. See also Reinhold‘s (1800a) „Schelling Review“ especially p. 376, where he
speaks of the „Non plus Ultra of the amalgamation of thought and poetry“. See Bondeli, (1995b) p. 53.
43
Bardili Reinhold Briefwechsel (1804) pp. 2 f. In this critique of the Fichtean-Schellingian subjectivism not only Jacobi became
important for Reinhold, but also Jean Paul. See especially Jean Paul (1800a). See also Jean Paul’s letter to Jacobi of Feb. 21,
(1800b): „The concept of the absolute I is according to his (i.e. Fichte’s) statement the absolute I itself and nothing else.”
44
Reinhold, (1801 f.), „Die erste Aufgabe der Philosophie“ p. 20. See Schrader (1993) pp. 85 ff., see especially Reinhold,
(1803b) „Systemwechsel“ pp. 26 f.
44
Reinhold, (1802b) „Philodoxie“ pp. 186-201. See also Reinhold‘s (1800a) „Schelling Review“ especially p. 376, where he
speaks of the „Non plus Ultra of the amalgamation of thought and poetry“. See Bondeli, (1995b) S. 53.
44
Bardili Reinhold Briefwechsel (1804) pp. 2 f. In this critique of the Fichtean-Schellingian subjectivism not only Jacobi became
important for Reinhold, but also Jean Paul. See especially Jean Paul (1800a). See also Jean Paul’s letter to Jacobi of Feb. 21,
(1800b): „The concept of the absolute I is according to his (i.e. Fichte’s) statement the absolute I itself and nothing else.”
44
Reinhold, (1801 f), „Die erste Aufgabe der Philosophie“ p. 20. See Schrader (1993) pp. 85 ff., see especially p. 87.
42
(finite) non-I (Fichte) is preoccupied with the „realm of error“ or „realm of illusion“, and its truth is therefore
erroneous or illusory truth = Scheinwahrheit. Against this tradition of subjectivity Reinhold, oriented by
objective Truth, fields the realm of “appearance“ = Erscheinung, appearance here understood as phenomenon.
This realm consists of extended and changing „conditions“ – in thought –, of the „manifestation“ of the
unconditioned original being.45 And so “appearance = Erscheinung“ „is in no way error = Schein“. Error or
illusion “confuses or mixes” or “amalgamates” appearance “with what is not extended and unchangeable, with
the essential being, with the original image” or “archetype”.46 And this confusion creates illusion and error.
The doctrine of manifestation – Jacobi frequently talks of revelation,47 the equivalent of Hegel’s concrete
general48 – or appearance = Erscheinungslehre is the “second task of philosophy, […] the elementary doctrine
of phenomenology”. This doctrine has the foundational function to tie appearance to its “original image, its
archetype, or essence as such”. In the essay on the “First Task of Philosophy”, which deals with the
relationship of thought to the absolute and to truth in the second installment of the Contributions49 Reinhold
thinks Fichte provided in his Aenesidemus Review “the first indications on the uniqueness of Fichtean
philosophy”.50 The characteristic center of the Fichtean departure lies in „philosophy’s global deduction of the
reality of knowledge and of what can be known by absolute subjectivity”.51 Reinhold therefore believes in the
2nd Sendschreiben, Fichte‘s Idealism is a „truly dogmatic Idealism“52; indeed he, Fichte, and not Jacobi is the
truly “obstinate dogmatist”.53 The last sentence of this important essay on Jacobi54 summarizes his skeptical
analysis of transcententalism, which Reinhold incorporated into his thought:
Since Jacobi traces
transcendentalism back to „mere subjectivity“, which was declared to be „the absolute and originally true”, we
45
Reinhold, (1802a), „Phänomenologie“ pp. 108 f.
Reinhold, (1802a), „Phänomenologie“ pp. 108f.
47
Jacobi-W I1, pp. 116:5-7: “Through faith we know that we have a body and that outside of us there are other thinking beings.
It is a truthful, wondrous revelation.“ We „feel“ and „experience“ our own and the bodies of others, and that „other“ is neither
mere empathy = Empfindung, nor thought. “In this way we have a revelation, which does not only command but rather coerces
all and each human being to believe and to accept through faith eternal truths.” Jacobi-W 1, pp. 18-20.
48
Hegel’s important fragment „Faith and Being“, written at Frankfurt beginning 1798 (or not prior to 1797 according to Schüler),
Hegel-W 1, pp. 250-254, works this ontologically coercive dimension of Spinoza’s “substance” into his theology of
reconciliation. “Faith presupposes being” Hegel says here. That is Hegel’s equivalent of Jacobi’s provocative Spinozism:
„Reason has the human being“ Jacobi-W 1, pp. 158-170; 2, pp. 243-258. „So it is contradictory to say that in order to be able to
believe one first has to convince oneself of being.” Hegel-W 1, p. 251. Or, stated differently, in theological terminology of
reconciliation in “Faith and Being”: “Uniting is the activity. This activity, reflected as an object, is what is believed. In order to
unite, the members of the antinomy have to be felt or recognized. But what is contradictory can be recognized as contradicting
only if reconciliation has already happened. Reconciliation is the measure of the comparison. It is the criterion by means of
which the contradicting members can be recognized as contradicting and as frustrated.” Hegel-W 1, p. 251. Of course Hegel’s
“frustration” or Bedürfnis der Philosophie, is Jacobi’s “elastic spot” propelling thought upward. Jacobi-W 1, p. 30:13 f. The hen
kai pan of Spinoza’s substance must have already reconciled all contradictions in the all in all before the contradictions of
Verstand can be recognized as such. Reconciliation as such can only be felt and believed. To know it is as contradictory as to
know “God” as an object of knowledge is contradictory if he is truly God, i.e. the all in all generality: All objects of Verstand =
understanding are contradictory if viewed by reason, Hegel says in § 27 of his Encyclopedia of 1830, Hegel-AA 20, p. 70:5-16.
See to this problematic Gawoll, (1998) p. 136. On the fragment on Faith and Being see also Bondeli (1995b); see also Baum
(1986) pp. 55 ff.
49
Reinhold, (1801f), „Die erste Aufgabe der Philosophie“ pp. 1-71.
50
Reinhold, (1801f), „Die erste Aufgabe der Philosophie“ p. 48.
51
Reinhold, (1801f), „Die erste Aufgabe der Philosophie“ p. 48.
52
Reinhold, (1801d), „2nd Sendschreiben to Fichte“ pp. 113-34, quote p. 125.
53
Reinhold, (1801d), „2 nd Sendschreiben to Fichte“ p. 124.
54
Reinhold, (1801f), „Die erste Aufgabe der Philosophie“ pp. 1 ff.
46
cannot really be surprised that transcendental philosophers built their thought on the foundation of that subject.
“The creators of the pure doctrine of the I listened well to this explanation. They declared subjectivity loudly
enough and expressly as the absolute and as the original truth.”55
Viewed from his new Bardilian posture, Reinhold’s abandoned position in proximity to Fichte is one
of opinion or even poetry, „philodoxy“, and not a position of a genuine knowledge of truth. Schelling’s
philosophy of identity must, viewed from his new perspective, hurl all truth – expressed later with words in
Hegel‘s Phenomenology – into the abyss, the “night” of indifference, dominated by the “cognition naively
reduced to vacuity”.56 But Hegel’s well-known critique of Schelling’s philosophy as a philosophy of
indifference has, as I suggest here, its origins in Reinhold.
immediately.
57
I will turn to the topic of this critique
Since not only Fichte, Jacobi, and Reinhold and many others are debating in the literature, but
58
also Jean Paul , a veritable „literary battle“59 develops,
the (already mentioned) „battle of annihilation“
(Reinhold) between „the two belligerent camps“, a battle, however, which is clearly pleasing all sharp wits –
so the judgment of Jean Paul.60 There are multifaceted recriminations, accusations, and misunderstanding in
that literary free-for-all.
Bardili and Reinhold use the concept of identity, as do Schelling and Hegel. But what exactly is
meant with this concept? Despite many misunderstandings, the disputes are not a battle of smoke and mirrors.
I characterize the different use pointedly: Bardili and Reinhold are motivated by an identity of thinking and
absolute and originating ground seen as self-grounding in order that in thought „among human beings“ this
absolute can become manifest or grounding in such a way that finite and real plurality and the concrete identity
of extended things can be „revealed“ in all specificity and differentiation. The originating Ground and valid
grounding in thought, understood in this way, are therefore not only tied together in this philosophy of
identity: The originating ground has in that grounding process „returned and come home to itself”.61 But
viewed from Reinhold‘s new perspective the tradition from Kant,
Fichte and Schelling is interested in the
identity of subject and object (of thought) in the sense of epistemological correspondence. And because this
55
Reinhold, (1801), „Die erste Aufgabe der Philosophie“ p. 34. See Schrader (1993) p. 87. Jacobi had described himself in his
Sendschreiben to Fichte of 1799 as the true discoverer and creator of idealism, which he characterized as „exclusive philosophy =
Alleinphilosophie“ which has its point in such an exclusive philosophy’s exclusion of “reality”. Over against this “exclusive
philosophy”, which tolerates no authority outside of itself, he positioned his own “Non-philosophy = Unphilosophie“ in such a
way that they are tied together, like Cain and Abel, in a mutually exclusive bond: „At the moment of touching they permeate
each other“ and yet they are so different that they fight against each other “with the highest degree of antipathy”. He himself,
Jacobi writes to Fichte, was as the discoverer of idealism „recognized by you at the door to your lecture hall long before it was
opened. I waited for you and pronounced prophecies.“ For he, Jacobi, has invented the „most pithy idealism“ (Jacobi-W 2, p.
310) in having shown that the „hovering, productive intuition“ = schwebende productive Einbildungskraft (Jacobi-W 2, 204:7f.),
the free I, is the “originator, the creator” (Jacobi-W 2, p. 234:4) of nature, through which discovery alone the inner contradiction
within Kant’s thought is overcome.
56
Hegel (1807) Phänomenologie Hegel-AA p. 9:17:27-29; A. V. Miller transl. p. 9.
57
See here especially Bondeli, (1995a) pp. 355-357: „Die Indifferenz als Differenzlosigkeit“.
58
In this literary battle especially important are Jacobi, David Hume (1787) and Jean Paul Clavis Fichtiana (1800a). See also
Bondeli (1995a), pp. 317 ff.: “Der Grundmangel des subjektiven Denkens”.
59
Onnasch (2002) pp. 188 f.
60
Jean Paul Letter to Jacobi (1799) December 23, in Jaeschke (1993) p. 63.
61
Reinhold, (1802b) „Phänomenologie“ pp. 104-185, quote p. 105.
identity has its basis in the subject and not, as in Reinhold’s new paradigm, in objective truth, it leads to
illusion and error. Reinhold and Bardili stand in the Platonic-Neoplatonic tradition which exerted strong
influence on the development of Christian thought. Bardili‘s logical and Reinhold‘s rational Realism stand
close to Christian-theological metaphysics. And they make no bones about that. To the contrary: Never are
concepts and terms borrowed from that general, religiously tinged cultural environment avoided. Bardili says
in the 14th paragraph of his Grundriß, that thinking as thinking, “A”, is “eternally identical with itself and just
the same.[…] Thought itself does not begin or end“ prior to being applied.62 In this eternal identity there is
neither beginning nor end. Nor is there time in this eternal identity. It is hardly possible to say that “thought as
thought” has a beginning and an end. For it is „prior to time“.63 But pre-temporal hiddenness of the highest
original truth implies a) anonymous namelessness, b) unity of all, and c) a state prior to thought in the sense of
the immediate64 participation of worldly “thinking” in original being prior to all thought.65 This “participation
in” or “being with” of secondary or worldly thought in primary, i.e. original and originating thinking is the
criterion of the beginning and of the application of the thinking process. It is omnipresent. For all thinking is
determination and what is predetermined and immediate is also not thought. And determination is in Bardili
and Reinhold application. Only in application begins and ends the process of thinking: Only now, in being
applied, is the presupposed but not thought original being also carried out. In the application “among us
human beings” this thinking knowledge of truth, „crashes into life“ and in this entry into finite life this
thinking becomes true knowledge. I quote precisely: In being applied to an object of thought (B) – this is
62
Bardili Grundriß (1800) p. 69.
Arndt points to this process in his excellent study on dialectic (1994): p. 39 “In both cases (i.e. subjective self-reflection and
pre-reflexive thought) the ground and validity of the work of reflection are tied to an immediacy which is unconditionally
presupposed.” In Spinoza absolute substance is immediate, i.e. “that which is conceived out of itself, that is, whose concept does
not need the concept of any other thing from which it is formed.” Ethics Part I, Def. 3. To understand this unconditional selfgrounding is key to understand “immediacy”. It is axiomatically valid, not needing premises external to itself. Being valid it has
power. As infinite it is indeterminate. Being without determination, it is immediate. Spinoza clarifies in his letter to Ludwig
Meyer of April 20, 1663 his views on the indeterminate infinite: It is infinite “based on its ground”, understood as self-grounding,
being axiomatically valid. Hence we can “only recognize but not represent it”, i.e. we know it intuitively. Spinoza Opera ed.
Gebhard vol. VI pp. 47f. Spinoza does not use here the terms “intutitive immediacy” as the quality of “knowing” the infinite, but
that is what he means. The phrase “quod solummodò intelligere, non verò imaginary”, Opera VI, 48, goes back to Aristotle’s
notion of self-evidence of axiomatic validity. See Schmidt, (1975) 57-126. Jacobi uses a number of terms to describe the same,
mainly “faith”, “intuition” or the “feeling” of “immediacy”. Jacobi is here a child of late 18th century sensualism in terms of
which he interprets Spinoza.
64
Later Hegel, just as Reinhold in his Bardili phase, makes use of Jacobi’s concepts of immediacy, the pantheistically immediate
certainty, and mediation, as well as scientific certification of mediation. These concepts are used by Hegel in order to describe the
origination of this process, as well as its beginning and entering temporality. It is best and most succinctly described at the
beginning of the Logic of 1812.
65
Reinhold evidences these three aspects in all of his writings. Their continuity can be traced: The Hebrew Mysteries (17841785) have their center in the hidden deity, which the epoptai, those who are initiated, cannot think but view intuitively, for this
deity is nameless, (1784-1785) p. 41. Attempting to somehow characterize namelessness despite the inability to think it, the
Pyramid of Sais carries the insignia: “I am all that is, was and will be. No mortal has lifted my veil (1784-1785) p. 42. But
thinking it is called the “revelation” of eternity in time, so here eternity and time are connected. Reinhold quotes in the Hebrew
Mysteries Clement of Alexandria (1784-1785): pp. 40, 47 f. 63-127, Warburton pp. 34 ff., 41 and others such as Eusebius, pp.
36, 88. This philosophy without a Name then reappears later in Reinhold’s Fundamentschrift (1791). Reinhold says here: „The
task of critical philosophy was able but is also forced to end with the absolute foundation of the issue of representation. But with
just this foundation philosophy also stops being critical. For with just this foundation begins the Science of the Foundation of
Philosophy Without a Name.” Reinhold, Fundament (1791) p. 104. Further, the Beyträge zur Berichtigung bisheriger
63
clearly a spot vulnerable to the critique of „dualism“ and „dogmatism“ from Fichte, Jäsche, and others –,
thinking (A), which is thought knowing truth, has gained in an „original division“ = “Ur-Theilung“66 (C) a
„matter“, through which development it „crashes into life”. Through this process that concept emerges, in
which the „object“ of thought, which, in being thought starts the life-giving process of thinking, is
„abolished=zernichtet“, and will, since it is subjectively tainted, be destroyed.67 The Prius κατ’ εζοχην of
thinking as thinking does not emerge in this process, because this prius has neither beginning nor end. It is
eternal. The thought of a specific object initiates the thinking process
„in time“. All that is knowable is
“abolished = vertilgt“ or “destroyed = zernichtet“ in this process – similar to the way in which in Hegel’s
Phenomenology the world of appearance is intellectually aufgehoben = negated by being transformed: es muß
zugrundegehen and go into its “ground”.68 The reality of an object is thereby separated from its mere
possibility. That means, we quote again from Bardili, that the “mere representation“ of a possibility is
separated from objectively correct knowledge.69 Subjective thinking is united with that which is objectively
thought in a new identity in such a way that it distinguishes the real ground of the perceived object from only
subjectively apprehended, and thus erroneous knowledge. With this distinction it provides adequate and real
Mißverständnisse call in the same way for a „scientific philosophy without a name” (1794) p. iii. See Bondeli, Lazzari (2004).
On the problematic of the hiddenness of truth through the veil in Reinhold see now Röhr (2005).
66
Hölderlin’s Urtheil und Sein of 1795 is of great importance in the debate of that time. Reinhold’s use derives from that debate.
This speculative use of Urteil becomes pivotal for Schelling and Hegel. The fact that Bardili’s and Reinhold’s highly speculative
use of the term is hardly mentioned in the professional literature indicates a major vacuum in research. See Gabriel (2001), see
esp. p. 441-443. See also Henrich (1965-66); Henrich (1991) p. 47-80.
67
The verb „zernichten“ or its passive adjectival version being “zernichtet” or its substantive form “Zernichtung” are used by
Bardili in his Grundriß (1800) p. 67, and by Reinhold. That word is no longer used in contemporary German. It stands close to
“vernichten” = destroying and “Vernichtung” = destruction. Similar terms, such as “Vertilgung” and “vertilgen”, “Zerstörung”
and “zerstören”, and “vernichten” are widely used in early romantic literature. Solger depends on theological terminology of the
destruction of finitude, which is created from nothing and therefore returns to nothing. Jean Paul criticizes Fichte as the destroyer
of bodily existence as abstract self-embodiment in the Fichtean formula I=I. It is a key idea in Hegel: finitude is internally
contradictory and therefore self-destructive. The Jacobian leap’s “bouncy” or “elastic spot” Jacobi (1785 1, 17892): p. 30
understands the abysmal self-destructive and contradictory realm of the finite and determined as providing the energy for the
upward thrust to freedom and real thought. More precisely: The inner contradictoriness of finitude worked out by Verstand is the
abyss across which Vernunft leaps. And for Reinhold the same reasons lead to the Aufhebung = elimination, see Reinhold,
(1802a): “Elemente des Rationalen Rationalismus” p. 182: “In applying thinking as application of thinking to matter it is
destroyed = aufgehoben as matter by thought; but simultaneously it is through that same application elevated out =
herausgehoben as indestructible in thought.” Here we have in one sentence the double Hegelian use of Aufhebung as 1.
destruction or negation and 2. as preservation or negation of the negation, but Reinhold neatly distinguishes Aufheben =
destruction from Herausheben = elevating out. See Hühn (2001), Arndt (1994) p. 161: “Hegel agrees with the early romanticearly idealist view that reflectivity is limited to the finite realm and is therefore able at best negatively to refer to the absolute.
This thought gains in Hegel a particular acuteness in his thought that the negativity of finitude mediates the absolute.” See
Bondeli (1994) p. 297 on “Vernichtung” = destruction in Bardili and Reinhold.
68
Sufficient grounds had in traditional metaphysics to be provided for the structure of reality to be reasonable. Kant had
destroyed that assumption: He transfers legitimacy of reasonableness into the transcendental “grounds of possible experience”
Kant, CpR Kant AA A 201/ B 246. Reinhold disputes, as here shown. the legitimacy of the way Schelling’s indifference,
building on Fichte’s I=I, had produced no more than “apparent knowledge”. Reinhold departs here from Jacobi, who was the
originator, as I had shown, of the idealistic principle of identity that migrated through Fichte’s I=I to Schelling’s indifference.
Hegel correctly observes critically of Jacobi: “Jacobi conceives the principle of sufficient reason as pure principle of
contradiction.” Hegel-AA 4:348:20, Hegel (1802b) p. 99. Hegel bases these critical remarks on Reinhold’s critique. See to this
issue Stiening (2002a) pp. 202f
69
Bardili (1800) Grundriß pp. 68-70.
grounds for what is known. Hegel says that reflectivity must be painfully destroyed70 in order to be able to be
adequately grasped.
This „painful destruction“ is a reformulation of Reinhold’s „Zernichtung“ = destruction. But Hegel
has here also had impulses both from Jacobi’s abyss71 as of its Spinozistic substance and its „transition“ to the
absolute, subjective spirit and personality. The virtuous athlete dares his spectacular salto: The „abyss“ of
Nothing of the pantheistic-infinitely mediated and absolutely necessary substance must in Reinhold’s words
“be destroyed”. For it is internally conflicted because appearance causes illusions and contradictions. The
infinite mediation is mediated and thus „abolished“ or „elevated“ in its transition to spirit. As is the case in
Reinhold’s argument, „finitude and mediation are destroyed“.72 The idea is the same, but Reinhold does not
use the concepts immediacy and mediation. Hegel says in his Jacobi Review of 1817, which Jacobi quotes in
his Letter to Neeb of May 30, 1817, the virtuous athlete has to make a „transition“ from „the absolute
substance to absolute spirit”, the absolutely free and spiritual subject. The athlete is forced to perform that
“summersault in the air“ by means of the „mediation which abolishes itself“. And through this mediation of
the mediation he comes to stand “firmly and soundly on both feet” on the other side of the groundless abyss.
So this is “not at all a leap head-first into the abyss” Jacobi protests in that letter to Neeb, and Hegel agrees.
But why is the athlete “forced” into this daring feat? Because Spinoza’s Substance is “spiritless necessity” and
„spirit”, also present in the all-in-all substance, “protests powerfully against the idea that spiritless substance is
all and that outside it is nothing.” But that means that this “spiritless substance” itself „is the elastic spring
which elevates me by means of a firm and strong stepping on it”.73 So the impetus-providing bounce is the
70
The writings of the young and also mature Hegel attempt to recast theological issues – i.e. the painful but justifying death of
Jesus and his resurrection, as e.g. expressed in I Cor. 15 – in terms of the debate of early Idealistic theories. The late pre-Jena
writings from the Frankfurt period are full of terms such as „Schmerz“ = pain „Leiden“ = suffering and „Tod“ = death, see HegelWerke 1:243, and „religion“ and „love“ can reunify, i.e. bring back to life, what reflective thinking has sundered apart.
“Begreifen ist beherrschen” = conceiving is dominating. But religious reunification imparts new life: „Die Objekte beleben ist sie
zu Göttern machen“: To vivify objects is to turn them into gods, to “elevate them to God” Enz 1830 § 50. The last sentence of the
Jena Faith and Knowledge of 1802 Hegel-AA 4:413 f. specifically discusses the „lack of objectivity“ in Jacobi’s concept of „civil
beauty” Hegel-AA 4:382, Jacobi’s basic subjectivism, which, with “longing egoism”, “hangs on to itself”. Of course Jacobi’s
subjectivism became part of Hegel’s thought anyway: Hegel interprets Jacobi’s leap, central to that theological theme of
Christian reconciliation in the death and resurrection, opposing Jacobi’s subjectivism, although the leap is central in this process.
The subjectivist „Schmerz der Welt“ = Weltschmerz of the Jewish-Christian God, which is not part of the world, negates that
world. This Weltschmerz, – so in the Heidelberg Lectures on Natural Law and Philosophy of Right Hegel-AA (1817-1818): p.
263, § 169 – has the function to cause the mere world of appearance to „go under“ or „go into its ground“=zugrundegehen. It
must – so in 1802 – be destroyed in the „abyss of nothing“ and in the „absolute pain“ of the „speculative Good Friday“. For it
has no truth in itself. But this negativity can be negated in the „pure concept“, which liberates from illusion and error in all that
appears and which therefore „can and must resurrect” to the „happiest freedom“ of speculative philosophizing. See Hegel-AA
(1802), 4:413 f. Jacobi answers Hegel’s critique in great detail in his Three Letters to Köppen Jacobi-W (1803).
71
Hegel (1817), 9:26. Hegel describes here Jacobi’s salto, i.e. the center of all of Jacobi’s philosophy: The „content“ of the
determined „finitude“ is “consumed” in the absolutely empty “absolute” of the Spinozistic substance, which Jacobi calls the
“Not, the absolutely undetermined, that which is thoroughly empty” (1799):214:26f. Hegel identifies this same Spinozistic
substance thus: “The being which is elevated to the position of the infinite is the pure abstraction of thinking, and this thinking of
pure substance is not sensual intuition but rather intellectual or reason-intuition.“ It is the “abyss into which all determination has
been thrown and was thus destroyed.” Jacobi deduced from the equal abstraction of infinite substance and finitude the
determination found in freedom. Hegel (1817): p. 9 f.
72
Hegel (1817), Jacobi Rezension, p. 390.
73
The previous quotations in: Jacobi Vorbericht (1819) Jacobi-W 1. p, 348:4-8.
contradiction within Spinoza’s immediately accessible – because it is the hen kai pan – substance, which is
therefore both the All, and also Nothing.74 Jacobi explains to Neeb in a letter of May 30, 1817 in this way the
nature of his salto. He is forced to this “summersault in the air“ by the „mediation which abolishes itself“.
Hegel calls this abolishment, Bardili’s and Reinhold’s Zernichtung, the “negation of the negation”. And
through this exercise he comes to stand „firmly and soundly on both feet“ on the other side of the abyss of
senseless and therefore totally vacuous assumptions.75 The eternally proceeding lack of determinacy – it moves
from mediation to mediation to mediation ad infinitum, Spinoza’s infinite substance and Jacobi’s
“senselessness” of an “infinite time, an infinite finitude”76, Bardili’s and Reinhold’s abstract, infinite
reiteration, A=A=A=A, etc. ad infinitum – is halted by being guided in the application: Determinacy, rooted
in the validity of the original ground of the originally true (Reinhold), negates willfulness, abstraction,
indifference and Philodoxy. I need to explain this in Reinhold in greater detail:
3. Identity, Difference and Indifference
The principle of identity is a process with these elements:77 First (philosophy of religion), Bardili and Reinhold
identify the eternity of the prius κατ’ εζοχην as „God“ and as the true ground of all appearance. Doing this
they integrate themselves into the western tradition of philosophy of religion. Its important center is the
complex of theories known as Negative Theology. Speechless awe in the face of original truth lies at the heart
of Reinhold’s Hebrew Mysteries. For second, (God-world, eternity-time), the God of the eternal and eternally
reiterating identity with himself (A=A) is pre-temporal and pre-logical in the sense of being pre-verbal and
pre-expressive. This eternal deity has neither beginning nor end, but is immediate or not mediated. Therefore it
is also not thinkable. Jacobi says this deity is above all reason. The process of thought begins only with the
entry into time and the realm of conceptuality and speech. Better formulated: It is possible to conceptualize
74
We note that Hegel’s conception of a logic follows rather precisely these assumptions: a) The “first”, naive, i.e. unreflected
posture of thought to objectivity in metaphysics (§§ 26-36 of 1830). This posture is not yet powered by the awareness of the
metaphysics-contradicting assumptions within the tradition of metaphysics. This first posture is followed b) by the “second”
posture toward objectivity (§§ 37-60 of 1830), which breaks down into the two parts of “empiricism’s” protest against
metaphysical assumptions because of its inherent contradictions with reference to empirical evidence (§§ 37-39 of 1830); and
“criticism’s” Kantian protest (§§ 40-60 of 1830), which was triggered by that protest. That second position is followed by c) the
“third” posture of thought over against objectivity: Jacobian immediacy of the Spinozistic hen kai pan (§§ 61-78 of 1830), which
is dominated by ancient, e.g. Platonic and Neo-platonic principles. Each of these three positions of thought toward objectivity is
powered by the Jacobian “elastic” or “bouncy spot” of the awareness of internal contradictions in all of thoughtful assumptions,
which turn out therefore, upon further reflection, to be thoughtless. That is the skeptical impulse in Jacobi, Reinhold and Hegel.
Hegel just lays the groundwork here for his Encyclopedia Logic, which is but a summary of the longer Logic of 1812-16. The
very first part of that Logic, the Seinslogik = Logic of Being, gains the impetus of its inner vitality, i.e. it “makes a beginning”
with the principle of the identity of Being and Nothing (§§ 86 f. of 1830), which is an internally contradicted idea. This issue of
beginning is equally indebted to Jacobi and also to Reinhold.
75
Jacobi (1825, 1827): p. 466 f. Jacobi quotes here Hegel (1817).
76
Jacobi-W 1, 251:19f.
77
See the excellent brief summary of the development of Reinhold’s systematic principle between 1800 and 1803 by Martin
Bondeli, beginning with his „Substantilization of Philosophy of Subjectivity“ in an absolute Being and culminating in the
conception of a system around 1803. This development is grounded in „Bardili’s dialectical method of grounding, tracing back
the hypothetical, first and conditioned assumption to the ultimate conclusion, or the ground of theoretical truth in such a way“
that the actual, or the absolute ground of the „Ursein=original being“ is distinguishable from the merely subjective conclusion of
identity as an original and originating principle only when it is thought, i.e. when it has entered or rather when
it originates time as the beginning principle. Also present here is the dialectic of hypothesis and its movement
toward the conclusion. In 1799 Reinhold does not yet see this clearly enough. In March and April of that year,
while still adhering to his „position between Jacobi and Fichte“, which Bondeli calls the „continuation of
(Jacobi’s) position of faith“78, he stresses in his Letter to Fichte that he participates „completely and with my
whole heart“ in Jacobi’s philosophy of „Not-Knowing“79, for the process of thinking has not yet begun. But
this position he abandoned not much later „forever“. Third, (Ur-Theilung = original division, Religious-Logic),
an originating division = Ur-Theilung is made with the principating origination of time in such a way that an
original division is made between abstract eternity and determinate time. The eternal is also the whole. But
that means that it contains and is therefore not different from time, although its difference to time will
simultaneously always be stressed. One must not contaminate Bardili’s and Reinhold’s new departure with the
Aristotelian form-content problem, although of course there are plenty of reasons for the critique of
„dualism“,80 which Reinhold later deemphasizes and ultimately addresses successfully. For this reason the
formidable chorus of critique, foremost among them Fichte’s Bardili-Review, ultimately are off the mark with
their critique of Reinhold’s ostensible “formulary method” and “form-matter dualism”.81 So the principle of
thought, which is eternally identical to itself, is “originally divided” prior to all time. It is possible to repeat
the formula “A in A through A” ad infinitum as an abstract “many”. The identity of this original division = UrTeilung implies such a division. This identity is pure unity because it is identical only with itself and therefore
an abstract tautology. But the repetitive identification in an Other, B, is the application of thought in a
„multiplicity“ which aims at conceiving discrete and qualitative differentiation, which implies that
qualitatively different stones or insects or plums or pears can be recognized generically as „many“ objects only
by „disregarding“ this qualitative difference by “abstracting” from it.82 The foundational-logical judgment
“this is a plum” is possible only by suspending (elevating) and eliminating or rejecting the abstract generality
„fruit“, to which generality of course this intended object „plum“ belongs. That suspension happens in the
identification of the infinitely repeated essential quality of this singular plum „through“ this essential original
being in the „other“ of this relative individuality with the logical copula „is“, by which logical judgment it is
returned to its actual essential ground: „This is a plum.” It is important to understand that the identity of the
„originally true“ essence, which in this process returns to itself, remains independent of the „other“, for it is
independent, while the repetition in an other „C“ represents a multiplicity that is dependent on that original
opinion in the form of the correspondence of thinking and being: This subjectivistic conclusion is Scheindenken=erroneous or
illusory thought. Bondeli (1998) pp. 166 f. .
78
Bondeli (1995a) pp. 273 f.
79
Reinhold (1799) 1st Sendschreiben an Lavater und Fichte p. 308
80
See Ballauf (1972). See on the question what Reinhold formulates correctly and what remains problematically “dualistic”
during his Bardili phase Bondeli (1995a) pp. 295-300.
81
Fichte, (1800) Bardili Rezension, p. 116.
82
Reinhold, (1801c), „Was ist das Denken, als Denken?“ pp. 103 f.
essence.83 The ability to specify issues or objects in the realm of relativity and finitude as objectively „true”
depends on the application of independent and essential truth by suspending its abstraction in the concrete
event or object. This dialectical dependence of the finite on the infinite realm is well characterized by Reinhold
in his Bardili Review. Here he distinguishes „infinity“ in itself, or true infinity, from „mathematical infinity“,
which is no infinity at all, but which rather perpetuates itself “finitely into infinity”.84 On the basis of this same
distinction Reinhold therefore rightly criticizes Fichte: In Fichte’s thought there is no infinity or unconditioned
at all: In your work, Reinhold says in his Letter to Fichte, of March and April 1799, we find only the striving
“of finitude toward the infinite”.85 Reinhold’s critique of Fichte points to the central weakness not only in
Fichte but also in other early Romantics: This weakness is the “impossibility of ever moving beyond the realm
of mere things and penetrating the realm of the unconditioned […] It is damned to keep yearning for infinity.
For the unconditioned, which alone could sate this yearning, will in principle not, and therefore never
arrive.”86 So Manfred Frank states on the whole movement. Early Romanticism was in principle disillusioned
and skeptical – a salient aspect of Jacobi’s and Reinhold’s distinction in his Bardili phase between
unconditioned eternity and conditioned temporality.87 Reinhold and Hegel understood and worked with that
83
Reinhold, (1801c) „Was ist das Denken, als Denken?“ pp. 102 f. See Bardili, (1800) p. 3. In the identity of the original truth
with itself it is only „monstrated“, whereas its repetition „demonstrates“ itself in an „other“. It is possible that Reinhold is here
influenced by Jacobi’s use and critique of mathematical and logical “demonstration”. But if this is so, Reinhold further develops
the thought in a way we see reflected in Hegel, where we find details on adequate grounding of real, specific objects through the
mediation or negation of abstract generalities. Jacobi does not, as far as I know, use the concept “monstrating”. For Jacobi
“demonstrating“ is the proton pseudos of the reflexive understanding. This tendency is also an expression of slavish nonfreedom, i.e. dependence on the „machine“ of universal interdependence. The Jacobian use of the concept “machine”, a key
Leibnizian concept the role of which in Jacobi cannot be discussed here, has significantly influenced German Idealism, first
Fichte, but also Hegel. But higher Vernunft = reason acts in freedom, for humans are possessed by it in the manner of Luther’s de
servo arbitrio – see Jacobi (17851, 17892) 28:2-21, – and its uses transcend demonstrative Verstand, which humans possess and
use as they use a tool – this idea and terminology of reason understood as a “tool= Werkzeug” has influenced Hegel. Adequate
thought is for Jacobi possible only by a type of reason which is „possessed”: see the second supplement to his Sendschreiben to
Fichte, which begins with the provocative words: “Does humanity have reason or does reason possess humanity?” (1799): 232.
See also the identical question in the seventh supplement to the Spinozabriefe (17851, 17892) 259. On the influence of Leibniz on
the discussion surrounding “machine” during the time we are discussing see now Justin Smith (2011). The book arrived on my
desk too late to incorporate its content here. Jacobi discusses Leibniz extensively, see e.g. his Spinozabriefe (17851, 17892) pp.
23-26, 32-34, 152-156, 230-245.
84
Reinhold (1800b), Bardili Review p. 276. Reinhold distinguishes himself here from Bardili’s logic, who mathematizes it. See
on this Bondeli (1995) p. 293.
85
Reinhold (1799) 1st Sendschreiben an J. C. Lavater und J. G. Fichte, p. 310.
86
Frank, (1997) p. 28, my emphasis.
87
Jacobi was the first Early Romantic thinker who distinguished the unconditioned or infinity, on which all of his philosophy of
freedom was based, from conditioned finitude and time. Jacobi, who characterized himself as a “realist”, believed he could only
be a successful realist on the basis of maintaining this distinction scrupulously and not mixing up time with eternity, the finite
with the infinite, a false with true infinity. He criticized Fichte (and Spinoza) as “atheists” for not maintaining this distinction.
He considered this mixing, which he called an “infinite time”, an oxymoron, a “concept that does not make sense” (1785 1, 17892)
p. 259:14 f. Similarly, “the concept of creation in time”, – today we would point to Darwinism as a good example of such a
creation – is just as thoughtless as the Spinozistic concept of “creation in infinity”, i.e. creativity ad infinitum (1785 1, 17892) p.
254:4-8. A mechanistic interpretation of nature using the etiological model of cause-and-effect, – Jacobi sees this at work in
Spinoza – must not be confused with a genuinely grounding or principating or originating principle (1785 1, 17892) p. 255:5-8.
See the excellent but tendentious Jacobi-interpretation by Sandkaulen, (2000) pp. 80, 94, 175. The title of her work, Ground
and Cause, clearly focuses on a central distinction in Jacobi. She works out that distinction brilliantly. Nonetheless the purpose
of the whole study is problematic. I cannot provide here a detailed explanation for this judgment, except to highlight two points:
Her interest in Jacobi’s concept of a truly temporal time, for all its pithy analyses, is nonetheless motivated by what is called
today a “postmodern” perspective, which in its frequent appeal to early Romanticism trivializes its true nature and purpose. The
other main point is her twisting beyond all recognition Jacobi’s religious interests, and her sometimes surprisingly dogmatic
realism. It meant that Early Romanticism was far more disillusioned than the traditional interpretation of Early
Romanticism has assumed up to this point and continues to assume88 especially in Anglo-Saxon intelligence.
The infinite and unconditioned is never reached – this is highlighted in Hegel’s Sollenskritik = critique of the
ought – and finitude remains a godless world whose desperation could not be propped up even with concrete
walls. That became clear in 1989 but was in truth clear already two centuries earlier. Reinhold confirms here
Jacobi’s atheism critique of Fichte and simultaneously anticipates Hegel’s critique of Fichte’s philosophy of
striving that never arrives at its goal. It remains impotent and unworldly. Hegel distinguishes both in the
Logic as also in the Encyclopedia Logic a „good“ from a „bad infinity“. Bad infinity is identical with the
ironic „perennial ought“.89 It is too weak to finitize, concretize or to determine itself. Therefore it floats
infinitely in a state of indifferent sameness, willfulness or arbitrariness. It remains vague and abstract, for it is
unable to negate its negativity or to advance beyond its infinite negativity.90 Reinhold addresses this issue well
in the 5th issue of his Beyträge zur leichteren Übersicht with the title „On a philosophy which is religion even
in its very principle”.91 The idea to eternalize the finite and to deify the world, an idea he sees in the tradition
from Kant to Fichte and Schelling, Reinhold accuses of “lacking consistency”. He traces this problem to
theories that are proclaimed as „independent of that original source of all that is true and as well grounded and
already proven truths”.92 But this means changing truth into the lie and to change Sein = being into groundless,
i.e. vacuous Schein = appearance. This lack of persuasiveness derives, despite all clear parallels between his
own and his adversaries’ projects, from Reinhold’s consistent interpretation of Schelling’s and Hegel’s
„speculation” about identity as a subjectivism. „Identity“ is in Reinhold markedly „religious“, as his reference
to Malebranche indicates:
Finite spirits perceive all in God, and „the primal images of things are
communications within God”.93 Reinhold himself points to the same religious claim in his opponents, but
nonetheless criticizes it as no more than an unpersuasive fake claim, because the identity of God as conceived
polemic, e.g. against the theologian Hermann Timm’s Jacobi interpretation. See the review of Sandkaulen’s book by the
philosopher Stiening (2002b).
88
This is Frank’s correct diagnosis (1997) p. 28.
89
Hegel, (1812-1813) 79:36-80, 4; see also (1816-1831) 280 ff. See Hühn (1997), see esp. pp. 130-133.
90
The whole quotation can be found in Hegel’s Logic: (1812-1813) p, 81: „The reason why it is impossible not to go beyond this
going beyond,“ Hegel says is this: „Only the bad infinity is present.[...] The bad infinite is the same as the perennial ought. It does
indeed negate finitude, but it cannot really liberate from it. This becomes apparent in its own Other, because this infinite is no
more than its relationship to its other finitude. Progress into infinity is therefore the perennial sameness, one and the same,
boring alteration of this finitude with the infinite.” The complete complex of issues raised here can be traced, albeit not in the
identical terminology, through Reinhold back to Jacobi. This is especially true for the concept “boredom”, used much by Hegel
and pointedly but more sparingly by Jacobi, who took it over from Lessing. See Jacobi (1785 1, 17892): Lessing, Jacobi reports,
was unable to conceive a deity which extends into infinity. 34:13-17: Lessing, „associated with that idea – of an infinitely
progressing deity - such an infinite boredom, that he became deeply troubled by it.“ Mendelssohn, who knew Lessing well as
being always full of „weird” and “most exotic ideas” with which he loved to entertain at a Sunday afternoon Kaffeklatsch in a
salon, agrees with Jacobi in his Erinnerungen of this „boring idea of God“, which we could call „boring theology“: „It is
identical with all that you say of him on p. 33 [(1785 1, 17892) 31: 1-3]. His concepts of the economy of the world-soul, of the
entelechies of Leibniz, which are mere effects of the body, his weatherman mentality, his infinite boredom (about an infinitely
extending deity) and similar other enthusiastic quirks, which light up momentarily, pelt down, and then disappear.” (17851,
17892) 179:10-16.
91
Reinhold (1803c) „Ueber die Philosophie, welche schon in ihrem Prinzip Religion ist“ pp. 171-180
92
Reinhold (1803c) „Ueber die Philosophie, welche schon in ihrem Prinzip Religion ist“ p. 171.
93
Reinhold (1803c) „Ueber die Philosophie, welche schon in ihrem Prinzip Religion ist“ p. 173.
by Schelling is “completely identical with the essence of nature”.94 So this philosophy of nature which is
identical with a doctrine of God must from Reinhold’s perspective assume „here a skeptical, there a critical,
and elsewhere a transcendental and elsewhere still an apodictic“ structure. But in all this we are confronted
with nothing more than a „knowing about our way of knowing“. But this is far removed from a „manifestation
of God in nature”.95 Because of this unpersuasive unreasonableness it must, in Hegel’s later words, „be
abolished“ in the „abyss of nothing“ of the „infinity“ of the „pure concept“. For “only God is the true
correspondence of the concept and reality” and all of nature has a concept, and a reality, which, however,
lacks this truthful correspondence, and which is therefore inconsistently identical with itself. The disclosure of
this inconsistency is also the disclosure of its own negativity which is negated in this disclosure. But this
disclosure is the „action of the pure concept“.96 In this way Hegel can later come very close to Reinhold’s
formulations. Reinhold said: “To recognize the manifestation of God, who is in his essence altogether
incomprehensible, in nature as the essence, the original ground = Urgrund, and the final purpose of nature is
in rational realism both the essence of philosophy and religion.”97 But that implies that prior to the
clarification of that ultimate this identity of philosophy and religion is not apparent, and to declare nature as
true in itself means affirming and not negating negativity. For this reason Hegel says in supplement 2 to § 24
of the Encyclopedia: „All finite things have an untruth in themselves, they have a concept and an existence,
which, however, does not correspond to its concept. For that reason they must zugrundegehen = be abolished
by going into the abyss of its internal contradictoriness98, by means of which destruction the incongruity of
their concept and their existence becomes manifest.”99 The contrast to Schelling’s later, positive philosophy is
clear, but this contrast is rooted in Schelling’s early philosophy of identity and its difference to Hegel’s
perspective.
I return to the main points in Reinhold’s understanding of identity: Up to this point I observed 1) a
religious dimension in Reinhold’s philosophical understanding of identity focusing 2) on theories on the Godworld and eternity-time in such a way that 3) identity implies an Ur-Teilung = original division which has
religious-logical dimensions. If these points have credibility, we are confronted 4) (Logic of development)
with a genetic development of this thought.100 The theory of identity is a “genetic principle”. Bondeli also
calls it a „developmental-logical“ principle.101 It takes place as a process of thought which participates,
94
Reinhold (1803c) „Ueber die Philosophie, welche schon in ihrem Prinzip Religion ist“ p. 173.
Reinhold (1803c) „Ueber die Philosophie, welche schon in ihrem Prinzip Religion ist“ 9. 172.
96
Hegel (1970) 8 p. 86.
97
Reinhold (1803c) „Ueber die Philosophie, welche schon in ihrem Prinzip Religion ist“ p. 171.
98
Bardili said they must be „destroyed = zernichtet werden“.
99
Hegel (1970) 8, p.86.
100
Karl Ameriks rightly pointed in several of his writings to this dimension in Reinhold as the initiator of the „historical turn“ in
the history of philosophy. See Ameriks (2004). But even more important is Ameriks‘ most important book up to this time on the
subject of the Historical Turn (2006). In this later book not only Reinhold but also other discussants in the post-Kantian debate
are presented in a most nuanced manner on the topic of the cradle of what later became known as “historicism”. Needless to say,
the problem within this development is the main focus of these writings by the Kantian Ameriks.
101
Bondeli (1995a) pp. 302 f.
95
however, in “objective” history, beginning with hypotheses and unfolding through various stages to its
conclusion. So here we are confronted with history, more precisely with 5) philosophy of history. Historicality
is both in reality and in thought, always a phenomenon of and in time, for infinity is both extra-temporal as
well as pre- and trans-gnostic. So we need to summarize that time and finite reality are, as finite and temporal,
possible to think only in the context of a higher trans-temporal eternity, the originally true.
In this way Reinhold comes to criticize Schelling’s philosophy of “indifference“ even in the writings
of the early 19th century, when he had “abandoned forever” Jacobi’s position of not-knowing, as a philosophy
of “perfected philodoxy”, because Schelling views the non-existence of that original truth above “I and
nature” “expressly as the condition of all true recognition of nature and of the I”. By means of this exclusion of
the higher truth Schelling would be able to recognize neither I nor nature. On top of that “nature is fashioned
as the mere mirror image of the I”. So nature is degraded to an anthropopathic self-reduplication of the I. In
the context of Schelling’s philosophy of indifference, thinking, as philodoxy = philosophy of mere opinion, is
possible as no more than „mere appearance of truth“, or as an illusory truth.102 At the latest at this point the
question of justification of the thinking process emerges: Reinhold attests Schelling a failure of the logical
process moving from the incipient hypothesis to its verification in the conclusion. I now turn to this issue, the
next and last part of my investigation.
4. Hypothesis and conclusion
The religious theory of the „original truth“ or of „original being“, which pointedly starts out with Jacobi’s notknowing philosophy of faith but which goes beyond Jacobi to a philosophy of knowing103, works in creative
new ways with Bardili’s Outline of the first Logic. Jacobi’s scientifically not graspable original truth is
asserted not only by Jacobi, but also by Fichte and also Reinhold during his „interim position“ =
Zwischenposition as the foundation of his „organized not-knowing“104 and therefore it is asserted as a “nonphilosophy”. In the meantime, however, the weather conditions have changed dramatically, mainly because of
Fichte’s Bardili Review. Jacobi promotes his not-knowing „in precisely the opposite sense“, Reinhold now
writes to Fichte, „in which you and I with you once believed and confessed.”105 Jacobi, Reinhold states, thinks
all thoughtful products of the human spirit are games fabricated for enjoyment and without knowledge of real
objective truth of which humanity must always remain in the dark. And Jacobi believes, Reinhold continues,
that you have drafted the most impressive scientific game, all without having even the slightest clue about
truth itself. Jacobi‘s critique of reason „considers speculative knowing in principle, and therefore also what he
deems the most consistent system, which you are erecting, as organized Not-knowing. So he is the skeptic, and
102
Reinhold, (1802b) Philodoxie p. 188.
Reinhold, (1801a) „Was heißt philosophiren?“ p. 67-69.
104
Reinhold, (1801c) „2nd Sendschreiben an Fichte“ p. 124.
105
Reinhold, (1801c) „2nd Sendschreiben an Fichte“ pp. 123 f.
103
you are opposite him the hard-core dogmatist.“106 The reason for this judgment is clear: Jacobi had in his
Sendschreiben diagnosed the whole movement of Idealism, beginning with Kant, as a „chimerism“, as an
illusory science. And for that reason it is a „nihilism“ equipped with an „aprioristic halo“ which knows
nothing of the truth and of God but on the contrary understands only philosophical speculation on the „law of
identity“, the law of the identity „of I as the Non-I.“ Nothing but this is declared to be God.107 Reinhold‘s
diagnosis of speculative philosophy of identity of the Fichtean Schelling around 1800 as illusory knowing
takes over Jacobi’s diagnosis in his “incomparable Sendschreiben“108 and incorporates it into his own thinking.
In Reinhold’s interpretation, one can find in Fichte‘s and Schelling‘s „not-knowing“ the scientific destruction
of truth.109 So Reinhold turns Fichte’s sword, with which he had discredited Reinhold as a „hard-core
dogmatist“, against Fichte himself, whose „not-knowing“ speculation implies an atheism and nihilism. And
Reinhold goes to work drafting a better science that takes its guidance from the original ground of all truth,
while simultaneously – of necessity! – incorporating both dogmatism and also skepticism.110 In this way he
devises his new theory in such a way that the problematic of only hypothetically presupposed assumptions at
the beginning do not emerge in their truth until the end of the process of thought or only once the system is
fully developed.
As has already been observed with reference to Plato and Plotinus, the thesis of the not-knowability of
the absolute is an important piece of negative theology,111 and, as we have also mentioned, Reinhold has been
106
Reinhold, (1801c) „2nd Sendschreiben an Fichte“ pp. 123 f.
Jacobi (1799) Sendschreiben Jacobi-W 2, 215: 10 f; 214:3; 214:30. The words „aprioristic halo of nihilism“ of Idealism can
be found in Jacobi’s essay of (1802) Über das Unternehmen des Kritizismus Jacobi-W 2, 320:13. Here Jacobi diagnoses both
Hume’s empiricism as also Idealism as two different forms of nihilism. Already in his David Hume. Über den Glauben (1787),
even prior to the publication of Kant‘s Critique of Practical Reason, Jacobi had diagnosed Idealism as an unfounded science of
the illusory nothing . Jacobi says here: In this nihilistic science those who hold it teach: „I am all and outside of me there is
nothing in the real sense of the term.” David Hume, Jacobi-W 2, p. 61:14f.
108
Reinhold (1799) 1st Sendschreiben an J. C. Lavater und J. G. Fichte p. 308.
109
The philosophical debate on being and nothing goes back to antiquity. See Kobusch (1984) „Nichts, Nichtseiendes“ p. 805.
But the connection between „nothing“ and „nihilism“ is of early Idealist origin. See Kobusch, (1984) especially pp. 829 f., und
Müller-Lauter (1975) „Nihilismus“ and Müller-Lauter, „Nihilismus“ (1984). The concept „Nihilism“ is a neologism coined by J.
H. Obereit, see Müller-Lauter, (1984) pp. 846 f. Jänisch, the Kant editor, differentiates (1796) a „conditioned“ from an
„unconditioned Idealism“. The Kantian Jänisch stresses Kant’s emphasis on the “complete unrealism of our knowledge”, p. 200,
in so far as „in our knowledge of phenomena there is contained nowhere at all anything real in view of things-in-themselves p.
162. In view of Transcendental Idealism our knowledge is a „mere blind eye“ p. 272, or „a glass on the outside of which is
pasted […] a foreign image”, p. 276, see p. 199. Things in themselves are in this perspective „altogether nothing“ for our
knowledge, p. 276 f. This is then called by Jänisch „the principle of the unconditioned Transcendental-Idealistic nihilism”. Here
appears also the abbreviated formula: „Idealististic Nihilism“, p. 274. Jänisch believes that this idea is contained already in
Kant as a dangerous possibility, but only his „more than dogmatic pupils develop it”, pp. 193 ff. Jänisch does not quote any
names. Neither Kant nor Fichte, whom he mentions very respectfully, is for him a nihilist. But Jacobi had come to this
conclusion already in 1787 in his David Hume, indeed, already in his Spinozabriefe in 1785.
110
See Reinhold, (1803c) pp. 99 ff. Sixteenth Part of „New Solution to the Old Question of Philosophy“ § 34, „Manifestation of
essence, appearance and illusion. Dogmatism and Skepticism.“ The „New Solution of the old question of philosophy“ makes on
the very first page of the 6th issue this note: „The Popular presentation of Rational Realism presented in Number 1 of issue V
pointed to its consequences. We can now proceed to the description of the principles of rational realism. That means that we can
proceed to the clarification of what had been presented in those aphorisms only as something still to be explicate and clarified.
For this reason the following §.§. must be understandable also without those aphorisms, although they contain their
continuation.“ So this sixth and last installment dated „Kiel, Sept. 12. 1803“, contains the most mature principles of Reinhold’s
Rational Realism.
111
See especially Kremer (2008) pp. 9-29.
107
well aware of this tradition since his first publication of the Hebrew Mysteries. But it is not helpful to merely
assert the not-knowability of the absolute. At the very least, it is circular: Something is here asserted as
absolute and true of which nothing can be known. As a working hypothesis however, such an assertion makes
more sense. For this reason Reinhold must modify both Jacobi and Bardili if he hopes to show that Jacobi’s
unphilosophic original truth,112 which he calls “Jacobi’s pure being, i.e. God’s being”113, is identical with
Bardili’s philosophic-logical being. But this identification of necessity modifies both. In this process of
modification two procedures become important which he had developed during his Fichtean period: 1. Fichte’s
good circular argument is one, and 2. Reinhold empowers this good circle in a process of deduction and
grounding. Now these are both Fichtean elements. Reinhold himself speaks of a “reformation” of philosophy.
And this reformation leads to the hypothesis-conclusion dialectic. But also Plato’s dialectic of deduction,
present for example in the metaphor of the line of the Republic, gains new prominence in this process. Also
here steps, beginning with a presupposed possibility, lead progressively through a process of negation to the
reality of a new position.114 Reinhold pointedly refers his hypothesis-conclusion dialectic to Plato, and in doing
so he does not depart from Bardili, but rather sees him affirming his own efforts despite his differences with
Bardili. For Bardili also stands in this Platonic tradition. Bardili’s logic is not „undialectical“.115 So we are
able to point to a continuation in Reinhold’s thought also in this regard despite the dramatic shifts, which we
do not deny here. The continuity is in evidence from the Platonic Hebrew Mysteries to Kant to Fichte, and to
Jacobi and then to Bardili.
This hypothesis-conclusion dialectic becomes central in Hegel’s mature system. It emerged at Jena.
Hegel formulated in the Jena period after Schelling left in 1803 in Aphorism 46: „The principle of a system of
philosophy is its conclusion.” Later, in the Encyclopedia,116 he pointed to this partial element of his system,
112
Reinhold, (1801c) „Was ist das Denken, als Denken?“ p. 100 f.
Reinhold, (1801d) „2nd Sendschreiben an Fichte“ p. 118. It is useful here to note that at the latest the new Jacobi edition
used here, which itself is a product of the massive Fichte, Schelling and Hegel research during the last forty years, as also the
significant book by Sandkaulen (2000) have revealed that Jacobi not only opposed Spinoza. He just as strenuously defends
Spinoza. His philosophy of subjectivity emerges precisely out of this „Spinoza-Antispinoza“. I cannot elaborate. If Reinhold
refers to “Jacobi’s pure being, i.e. God’s being“, this is Spinoza‘s Substance. See Jacobi Spinozabriefe (17851, 17892) I, 128:1618; 274:13f. On Jacobi‘s „Spinoza-Antispinoza“ see Sandkaulen (2000) pp. 13, 15, 24 f., 31, 42, 45 and passim. That most
interpreters see in Jacobi’s writings only a critique of reason and not also and even mainly an attempt to provide a better
foundation of reason is one of the main crudities in the history of philosophy. It dominates the image of Jacobi almost exclusively
to this day on both sides of the Atlantic. We have seen recently some more balanced publications on Jacobi. Jacobi’s salto cannot
really be seen as the suicidal philosophical leap „in to the arms of God’s mercy“ (Schlegel [1796] end of Woldemar Review).
Sandkaulen and a few others have begun to change this historical injustice. If thinkers such as Reinhold, Fichte, and Schelling
cut their philosophical teeth on Jacobi, and if Hegel studied Jacobi all his life, as Gawoll maintains, it should not be beneath our
dignity to also take him seriously.
114
Reinhold, (1802d) „Die Simplicität der Philosophie im Gegensatz mit der Duplicität der Philodoxie“ p. 213: „In particular
Plato considered what he called in his Republic ‚dialectic‘, as the purely reasonable science, the science of objectivity, which is
simultaneously doctrine of reason and doctrine of essence. In this science reason proves itself by separating illusion from truth
by tracing truth back to the originally true, and the essence of nature to the deity which manifests itself in it.“
115
Düsing claims (1976) pp. 95, note 75, 103, note 101 that Bardili’s logic is „undialectical“. See to this Bondeli (1998) p. 165.
116
Hegel (1830) Encyclopädie § 10 supplement 43f. Hegel here criticizes „critical philosophy’s“ „confused“ attempt to know
God and the essence of things, i.e. the “thing in itself” by first investigating the “tools” of knowledge. This is as confused as
attempting to learn to swim by first learning on dry land how to swim, instead of jumping in “head first”, or learning to digest
abstractly i.e. in textbooks about the digestive process prior to digesting. Hegel specifically mentions two issues in this quoting of
113
referring to Reinhold. But he speaks already prior to the Encyclopedia, in Fragment number 46 from the
earlier Jena years, described by Rosenkranz, of the origination problematic, which „must of course also be its
conclusion”.117 This dialectic contains the stressed relationship between dogmatism and skepticism, for a
merely asserted point is too dogmatic and any honest reflection of such a claim can only proceed skeptically.
And if Reinhold’s critique of the „groundlessness of Kant’s philosophy“ and of its transcendentalizing
followers is to have any meaning at all, that philosophical thinking must attempt to find better and more solid
grounds.
This better foundation Reinhold finds neither in Jacobi’s „originally true“ nor in Bardili’s
philosophy of identity. He finds it in a combination of both, modifying both of these elements in the
formulation of his own systematic conception. In this process he constantly draws on the tradition of negative
theology, especially on Plato and the Platonic tradition of thought.
Reinhold (1801b): „Vorläufige Zurückführung der Philosophie auf eigentliche Vernunftlehre“. The correct procedure is to begin
hypothetically and problematically, and then to proceed to the Urwahres, i.e. what one hopes to verify, God or what Kant called
the “thing in itself” by analytically applying thinking as thinking. I should mention that Reinhold’s critique of Kantian
epistemology during his Bardili phase, as also Hegel, learned much from Jacobi’s critique of Kantian transcendentalism: The
critique first investigating the “tool” of knowledge comes from Jacobi’s Woldemar (17791, 17962; 271:17f.), from the
Spinozabriefe (17851, 17892) (186:5) as does also the heady “head first” jumping (1785 1, 17892; 20:15-18) into the water to learn
to swim by swimming, which Hegel elsewhere also points out in the digesting metaphor: The gastroenterologist must already be
digesting in order to do his gastroenterological research. It is also an outrage for craniology, i.e. brain science or neurology, to
propose that locating centers in the brain responsible for certain mental functions, is identical to thinking. See Hegel’s sarcastic
remarks in aphorism number 98, AA 5:507 f. on Dr. Gall, who lectured before a large group of paying (and some nonpaying)
intellectuals at Jena for six days in the Gasthof von der Rose beginning Aug. 1, 1805, a lecture which professors Hegel and
Schelver provocatively boycotted. Gall clearly advocated the new, still today reigning empirical approach to brain function.
117
Both quotes come from Hegel-AA, (1803-1806; 496:7-10) Jenaer Notizbuch; see the editorial comments on questions
regarding Rosenkranz‘ dating. See here also Onnasch (2002) p. 191.
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