Tim Mehigan

`Aufklärung', freemasonry, the public sphere and the question of Enlightenment

That the Enlightenment was a movement reaching across at least three European countries (France, Germany and Britain) in the eighteenth century, with a similar platform in all three (social improvement on the basis of unassisted reason), is the current orthodoxy. Yet this view can only be accepted with qualifications. It is the intention of this essay to focus attention on these qualifications. A first objection lies with the fact that no platform of Enlightenment was articulated in any country in the eighteenth century apart from Germany. In the debate about Enlightenment initiated in the Berlinische Monatsschrift in 1783, Kants insistence that Aufklärung must stay within political limits is considered characteristic not only of the German discussion, but indeed of all broadly Enlightenment thought from the beginning. In considering Kosellecks argument about the Enlightenment, which analysed this same conservatism, a second objection is apparent: the impulse to stay within the confines of the absolutist state suggests that eighteenth-century Enlightenment, politically speaking, was decidedly other than that which has subsequently been found within it.

Essay on a New Theory of the Human Capacity for Representation

Although influential in his own day, Karl Leonhard Reinholds contribution to late 18th and early 19th century thought has long been overshadowed by the towering presence of Immanuel Kant, the thinker whose ideas he helped to interpret and disseminate. Today, however, a more nuanced understanding of Reinholds contribution to post-Kantian thought is emerging. Apart from his exposition of Kants critical philosophy, which played a significant role in the development of German idealism, Reinholds role in the intellectual movement of Enlightenment and his contributions to early linguistic philosophy are now receiving scholarly attention. In the English-speaking world, where few translations of his work have been attempted, Reinhold has mostly been overlooked. This imbalance is corrected in the present work: the first translation into English of Reinholds major work of philosophy, the New Theory of the Human Capacity for Representation (1789). The translators provide an overview of the main currents of thought which informed Reinholds philosophical project, as well as notes on his reading of Kant and other important thinkers of Reinholds day. A glossary of key terms, a bibliography of scholarly work on Reinhold and suggestions for further reading are also included.