Described by Hedwig Conrad-Martius as "the phenomenologist in itself and as such", Reinach was a central figure of the early phenomenological movement, and a proponent of the realist phenomenology of the Munich Circle. His background consisted of a tripartite education: descriptive psychology (under Theodor Lipps), law (in Munich and Tübingen), and philosophy (under Husserl). Examples of the integration of all three of these aspects of his thought include his articles "The Apriori Foundations of Civil Law," "Toward the Theory of Negative Judgment," "On the Concept of Causality in the Criminal Law", and in his immense, continued interest in speech acts, states of affairs (Sachverhalt), and material necessity. Reinach died on the battlefield of WWI.