Over at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, there is an interesting review by Julian Wuerth of a new book for Kant scholars. 

Eric Watkins (ed., tr.), Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: Background Source Materials, Cambridge UP, 2009, 410pp., $27.99 (pbk), ISBN 9780521787017.

The book provides translations of works by Kant’s contemporaries in order to set his work better in context. Few of the writers included are well-known today: Christian Wolff, Martin Knutzen, Alexander Baumgarten, Christian August Crusius, Leonhard Euler, Johann Heinrich Lambert, Marcus Herz, Johann August Eberhard, and Johann Nicolas Tetens.

Wuerth begins the review by raising the following question:

We can approach the question of the value of this volume by addressing another interesting question first. Who is in a better position to understand Kant’s philosophy: his 18^th Century contemporaries or today’s scholars?

This takes him to a discussion of the Akademie edition, and the much fuller range of Kant’s writings that we have today, questions of context, and availability of materials. It sounds an interesting book, but the wider issues raised by the review should be of interest beyond the specific thinker under discussion.