Karl Reinhardt (18861958), one of the most distinguished Greek scholars of his time, was a professor of philology at the University of Frankfurt am Main from 1924 until his retirement in 1951. In his study on Sophokles, Reinhardt takes his point of view from the inside of the Sophocleian drama itself. He discusses the relation of the inner world of Sophocles' heroes to the world in which they live and to the daimonic world of the gods. Reinhardt´s intention is not to raise philosophical questions, but rather to investigate into what is happening inside these tragedies into, as it were, the ways of the soul in its juxtaposition between Me and You, the Self and the Other, Man and God and, ultimately, Man and Man. Reinhardt thus succeeds in saving the classic devotional objects of humanism from their customary paleness and instead rendering them colorful. He aims not at depicting Sophokles' heroes in their canonical exemplarity, but rather to show them as contemporaries in their humanity, their frailty, pride, and sorrow.

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Diese 1916 erstmals erschienene Untersuchung des Altphilologen Karl Reinhardt weist nach, dass das Lehrgedicht des Parmenides nicht in zwei Teile auseinanderfällt, sondern eine Einheit ist, und stellt den Schöpfer der eleatischen Einheitslehre in den historischen Zusammenhang mit Xenophanes und Heraklit.

"Was Reinhardt in seinem Parmenides-Buch geleistet hat, war wahrhaft bahnbrechend. Wir fangen erst heute an zu ermessen, wie die innere Nähe, die Reinhardt zwischen Parmenides und Heraklit aufdeckt, eine ganze Dimension des Fragens geöffnet hat. Durch ihn ist die Forschung und die philosophische Deutung der Vorsokratiker neu in Bewegung gekommen." Hans-Georg Gadamer