THE PROBLEM OF THE FOUNDATION OF PHILOSOPHY AND THE PROOF OF THE MORAL LAW IN REINHOLD

Abstract

This research continues our doctorate and has as central issue the problem of the relation between the unique foundation of philosophy, which is sought by Reinhold throughout his philosophical trajectory, and the deduction of a free and absolute cause for the freedom of will. Research must be developed in three moments. In the first one, we will examine the texts of the period called Elemental philosophy, giving attention to the Reinhold's project of establishing a unique foundation for the philosophy and the primacy of practical philosophy, which is only sketched in this period. We highlight here the difficulties that prevented Reinhold of accomplishing the deduction of the moral law based on the faculty of representation in general. In the second moment, we will investigate how these difficulties are detached, above all, by the Carl Schmid's objections to Reinhold. In the third moment, we must evaluate the changes that Reinhold, in response to Schmid, prints on his philosophy from the texts of 1792 on, mainly in the second edition of the Letters on Kantian philosophy. Instead of trying to prove the non-impossibility of freedom, as he had done in the Elemental philosophy, Reinhold, supporting on sane understanding, proposes the concept of freedom of the will as the foundation of moral law. Our hypothesis is that, despite the new strategy of proof, there is no rupture between the two phases of philosophy of Reinhold, contrary to what Lazzari sustains.