“Kant’s Collected Works” is the Academy Edition of the complete works of the philosopher from Koenigsberg

In 1894 the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences initiated a comprehensive edition of the complete writings of Immanuel Kant, which has been published since 1900 in the divisions: published works, correspondence, handwritten remains (Handschriftlicher Nachlass), and lectures. The Kant project in Potsdam will bring this edition to an end by publishing new or revised editions of the divisions published works and correspondence, by editing important texts that have been missed from the collection so far, and also by fixing existing serious problems in the volumes that already have been published. This makes “Kant’s Collected Works” the standard reference edition in scholarly research on Kant once again.

Besides a new edition of the “Opus postumum” in the volumes XXI and XXII and also the edition of the lectures on “Physical Geography” (“Physische Geographie”) there will be some first editions: Kant’s hand-written notes in his copy of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten’s “Metaphysica” (3rd ed., Halle 1750) and the 32 letters that have been discovered since 1955. Also there will be a first edition of Kant’s extensive official correspondence, especially discussions and business arising from his academic positions as lecturer, dean and rector at the University of Koenigsberg.

To restore the internal consistency of the edition, numerous revisions also need to be made. Among them there are the revision of volume IV, which includes such essential texts as the “Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals” (“Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten”) and, in a separate publication, the edition of all the lecture transcripts made by Johann Gottfried Herder. Also there is planned the edition of a final volume in the division handwritten remains, which will contain the manuscripts not being included in the “Opus postumum” as well as the “loose sheets” (“Lose Blätter”) that have been discovered since 1955 and were published outside the Academy Edition.

The Academy research project “The Collected Works of Immanuel Kant – New Editions, Revisions and Completion” is part of the Academies' Programme , a research funding programme co-financed by the German federal government and individual federal states. Coordinated by the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities , the Programme intends to retrieve and explore our cultural heritage, to make it accessible and highlight its relevance to the present, as well as to preserve it for the future.