[This had been posted previously on my other, now defunct blog]
There are not too many genuine classics in Kant scholarship, which is probably because of the often fractious debates between the different schools that claim true insight into the nature of Kant's arguments, whether it concerns the meaning of the Deductions, the extent of his idealism, or the purport of his moral philosophy. But there are a few of them, the most recent arguably being Henry Allison's Kant's Transcendental Idealism (1983; 2004) and Béatrice Longuenesse's Kant and the Capacity to Judge (1993; 1998). They are generally acknowledged as crucial works on Kant by the community of Kant scholars, even if we do not agree with every detail of their arguments. Apart from these two modern day classics, I'd argue--and I'm focusing on the theoretical part of Kant's philosophy--that at least Paul Guyer's Kant and the Claims of Knowledge (1987), Karl Ameriks' Kant's Theory of Mind (1982; 2000), Manfred Baum's Deduktion und Beweis in Kants Transzendentalphilosophie (1986), Gerold Prauss' Erscheinung bei Kant (1971) and of course P.F. Strawson's The Bounds of Sense (1966) should be added to that list (and perhaps the rather wayward Identität und Objektivität. Eine Untersuchung über Kants transzendentale Deduktion (1976) by Dieter Henrich).
All except Baum's and Henrich's book are still commercially available, as far as I know (Prauss's has been reprinted recently, although his other important book, Kant und Das Problem der Dinge an sich doesn't seem available anymore, also since the publisher Bouvier no longer exists). Baum once told me that there'd be a second edition of his book, but to date that hasn't appeared.
But there are a few older works on Kant's theoretical philosophy, which are at least as crucial if not more so, but have been out of print since a very long time. First among them are the grand commentaries by Hans Vaihinger, with his two-volume Commentar zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1881, 1892); Herman-Jean de Vleeschauwer 3-volume La déduction transcendantale dans l'oeuvre de Kant (1934-37) and Herbert Paton's 2-volume Kant's Metaphysic of Experience (1936). To my knowledge, none of these three classical works are currently available commercially and I doubt if ever a publisher is crazy enough to reprint them (let alone for a reasonable price). They have been reprinted once before in the late 70s, under the editorship of Lewis White Beck. Norman Kemp Smith's commentary, on the other hand, is still available in print on demand (with Palgrave Macmillan), as is Heinz Heimsoeth's commentary on the Dialectic as far as I know (De Gruyter). Klaus Reich's unmissable Die Vollständigkeit der Kantischen Urteilstafel (1932, 1948, 1986) can now be found in his Gesammelte Schriften edited by Manfred Baum (Meiner, 2001).
By contrast, I find Robert Paul Wolff (1963) and especially Jonathan Bennett (1966), crucial for those trained in the analytic schools of Kantianism, not nearly as good to count as classics, although Bennett's volume on the Dialectic (1974) is one I consult more frequently. A.C. Ewing's commentary is probably still available -- I bought it in new print some 20 years or so ago -- but who reads it? Graham Bird's early book (1962), important in the schooling of a lot of Kantian Brits, has long been out of print, but perhaps his more recent commentary (2006) is a good replacement [UPDATE: Bird's 1962 book, Kant's Theory of Knowledge. An Outline of One Central Argument in the Critique of Pure Reason has been reissued in paperback, in 2016, in Routledge's Library Out of Print classics of Kant scholarship Editions]
Further I should mention both books on the Deduction by Richard Aquila: Representational Mind. A Study of Kant's Theory of Knowledge (1983) and Matter in Mind. A Study of Kant's Transcendental Deduction (1989). They are very valuable studies on the Deduction and the topic of representation in particular. Alas, no longer in print [I was very pleased that Jennifer Mensch gifted her copies to me]. It's a shame that Heiner Klemme's Kants Philosophie des Subjekts, published only in 1996, is also no longer in print. I have it, but I'm wondering why this classic of sorts hasn't been reprinted in the series Kant-Forschungen, as other volumes in that series have been reprinted [UPDATE: I understand it is now available in digital reprint; check Meiner Verlag's website]. The same holds for Reinhard Brandt's book on the table of judgment in the same series. And then there are the books by Josef Schmucker, none of them currently available: I was once lucky enough to find his Die Ontotheologie des vorkritischen Kants, but unlike certain other volumes in the Kant-Studien-Ergänzungshefte, this one has never been reprinted. A crucial work for understanding the pre-critical Kant, and predating (and much better than) many English-language works on that area. The same holds for his crucial account of Kants precritical ethics, Die Ursprünge der Ethik Kants in seinen vorkritischen Schriften und Reflexionen (1961). I'd certainly would like to lay my hand on a copy of it. Why can't de Gruyter, for example, reprint this?
The one that I'm also eagerly awaiting is a reprint of Erich Adickes Kant und das Ding an sich, originally from 1924. I have that original, but it's falling apart (it was printed in the days that Germany was in dire straits, so the paper is pretty poor quality). Olms have been announcing for years that a reprint is forthcoming, but it's still not out.
Also should be mentioned as important works (among many more): Hermann Cohen's Kommentar zur Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Meiner 1907), Cohen's Kants Theorie der Erfahrung (various editions), Heimsoeth/Henrich/Tonelli (eds), Studien zu Kants philosophischer Entwicklung (Olms 1967), Rainer Stuhlmann-Laeisz, Kant's Logik (De Gruyter 1976), Michael Wolff, Die Vollständigkeit der kantischen Urteilstafel (Klostermann 1995), Hansgeorg Hoppe, Synthesis bei Kant (De Gruyter 1983), Gottfried Martin, Immanuel Kant. Ontologie und Wissenschaftstheorie (De Gruyter 1969) and James Van Cleve, Problems From Kant (Oxford 1999).
© Dennis Schulting, 2020
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