This chapter explores the way in which the historical turn provided an ever more relevant fallback position for Reinhold as he continued to run into difficulties in accounting for the ‘fate’ of the far from universal acceptance of the Critical philosophy — even after the publication of the Letters and his much more systematic Elementary-Philosophy. The first section of this chapter offers an account of the features central to the distinctively historical character of philosophical texts in general, and of how this makes philosophical writing both like and unlike science and art. In the second section, it is argued that the specific features of the initial historical turn in philosophy are not to be found very much earlier or later than Reinhold's Critical phase. Although several systematic features of Reinhold's work can make it appear as if history is a secondary interest for him, this presumption is easily overcome by a closer look at his full career and his deep involvement with radical social change ever since his early years in the Austrian reform movement.
Keywords: Kant, Reinhold, Critical philosophy, Letters, history, Elementary-Philosophy