Über Gewissenhaftigkeit in der Spätphase des philosophischen Denkens Reinholds

In this paper, I deal with Karl Leonhard Reinhold’s 1820 work Beantwortung der alten Frage: Was ist die Wahrheit? by focussing on the concept of conscientiousness (Gewissenhaftigkeit). This concept has been almost completely overlooked by recent Reinhold scholarship. My aim is to present conscientiousness as the element of human experience that gives significance to the human condition in virtue of the way it connects human beings to the divine. In order to corroborate this thesis, I first look at the anthropological observations in Reinhold’s 1820 text, emphasising the connection between sensuality, reason or selfhood, and truth. Second, I focus on the relation between truth itself and primordial truths. As a consequence of my analysis, conscientiousness is presented as the central element of human experience in Reinhold’s late work, in so far as it enables a connection of the human being with God qua primordial being by way of enabling a connection between truth and primordial truths.