Karl Leonhard Reinhold
Austrian philosopher
Karl Leonhard Reinhold (; Austrian German: [ˈraɪnhɔld]; 26 October 1757 – 10 April 1823) was an Austrian philosopher who helped to popularise the work of Immanuel Kant in the late 18th century. His "elementary philosophy" (Elementarphilosophie) also influenced German idealism, notably Johann Gottlieb Fichte, as a critical system grounded in a fundamental first principle.
He was the father of Ernst Christian Gottlieb Reinhold (1793–1855), also a philosopher.
Life
Reinhold was born in Vienna. In late 1772, at the age of fourteen, he entered the Jesuit (Roman Catholic) seminary St. Anne's Church, Vienna (Jesuitenkollegium St. Anna). He studied there for a year, until the order was suppressed in 1773, at which time he joined a similar Viennese Catholic college of the Barnabites, the Barnabitenkollegium St. Michael. In 1778, he became a teacher at the Barnabitenkollegium, on 27 August 1780, he was ordained as a Catholic priest, on 30 April 1783, he became a member of the Viennese Freemasons' lodge "Zur wahren Eintracht", and in September 1783, he became a member of the Illuminati.
“Karl Leonhard Reinhold” enters the record as austrian philosopher. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Karl, Leonhard and Reinhold can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Karl Leonhard Reinhold” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Karl, Leonhard and Reinhold provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q112258. VIAF identifies the subject as 14798293. The Library of Congress control number is n88633204. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1757, 1823, 1793 and 1855.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Karl Leonhard Reinhold”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Karl Leonhard Reinhold primary sources, Karl Leonhard Reinhold archive and Karl research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Karl Leonhard Reinhold”?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Karl Leonhard Reinhold” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.