The Reinhold letters lend a great insight into the historical and intellectual context that Kant was immersed in. Opening with a long extracted passage, it seems as though everyone is intellectually at odds with reason, as it is “being accused ever more loudly as a disturber of the peace in the most important affair of humankind.” (Reinhold, 3)
The passage claims how the whole world is “driving reason into a corner.” (Reinhold, 4) The social religious and despotic orders want to suppress the “voice of their enemy,” which is reason of course, to maintain their current status quos. Reinhold maintains a dissenting view from the passage and challenges the writer to understand how any religious or secular faction is always utilizing reason to a certain extent. In fact, when one observes an isolated group or faction, it may seem frightening, but when viewed in a larger historical context, “as a whole in their connection with one another” the viewer can witness the “far-reaching and beneficent revolutions” that are continuously occurring (Reinhold, 4).
Reinhold does not believe the world of ideas to be stagnant or at odds with reason, but rather that it is in a constant state of flux. No single opinion or metaphysical answer is ever permanently sound, but rather there is an “ever-growing inadequacy of every answer offered to date.” (Reinhold, 7)
He then goes into great length of how various groups will latch reason to their beliefs, but how diametrically opposed groups will tear each other apart, “The deist drives pantheism out from all fortifications, while the pantheist tears down the bastions of deism.” (Reinhold, 8) All outdated modes of dogmatic thought are squabbling to assert their own belief structure but are at constant odds with one another. Reinhold, however, is glad that the current epoch has arrived. With a greater extent of intellectual freedom, there does not have to be any particular metaphysical universals, rather a limitless field of inquiry and potential for investigation can foster and develop.
Reinhold certainly seems to express a very far-reaching and broad-minded view of intellectual history and its development. No idea is capable of being a permanent fixture, but rather it is continuous chains of ideas, which are perpetually being altered or further developed to suit the needs of a particular era.
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I think that the first sentence of your post captured the value of this reading perfectly; by reading Reinhold's bold depiction of an epoch defined by the polemical relationship between the factions of reason and faith, one truly gets a sense of Kant's significance.
Essentially, since reason, with all of its metaphysical tools, cannot adequately validate the existence of God, there are those who holdfast to reason while others submit to blind faith. Reinhold was clearly unhappy with the polarity that had found its way into society, and was exhilarated that someone like Kant had come to save the day. With his practical philosophy, Kant is willing to grant that our reason has always been after some notion of God (Reinhold 22). Thus, even though we cannot sufficiently prove this existence, the mere idea of God, along with the fact that we abide by some morality implies that there must in fact be a God. Although Reinhold had hoped that Kant's work would have sealed the eternal bond between faith and reason, is seems that the bitter battle still rages on to this day...
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