“Arbeitsstelle Lambert-Edition”

From 2005 to 2014, the “Arbeitsstelle Lambert-Edition” of the chair Philosophie I at the University of Mannheim, headed by Prof. Dr. Lothar Kreimendahl, was engaged in the completion of the edition of the philosophical writings of Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728-1777), which had been started by Hans Werner Arndt. Those volumes which Arndt had not been able to submit were edited by Armin Emmel  and Dr. Axel Spree. The completion of the edition was financed by the Hans Werner Arndt Foundation at the University of Mannheim; all volumes have been published by Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim.

After completion of the work on the volumes containing philosophical texts by Lambert, in the spring of 2009 the office began to prepare further “instruments” for Lambert research: In a project partly funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, Dr. Niels Bokhove and Armin Emmel produced an annotated new edition of Lambert's  Monatsbuch (monthly book) (manuscript UB Basel L.I.a 740/2, first edition by Karl Bopp, Munich 1915). Together with an improved catalogue of the handwritten literary remains in manuscript, a list of the surviving letters from and to Lambert, and a corrected and supplemented bibliography of Lambert's writings, including his reviews (both based on the works of Max Steck), this new edition was also published by Olms at the beginning of 2020 as a supplement to the Philosophische Schriften. On the subpage Monatsbuch below we provide the research community and all users of this volume with additional materials. We will also maintain a list of Corrigenda (PDF, 103 kB) there.

Due to the long-standing work on the commentary on the Monatsbuch, we have been already able to provide several corrections and additions to the volumes VIII and X of our edition; we present the most important improvements in a PDF-file here.

After the editors have quit university service, the office no longer exists in the institutional form. This homepage can therefore only be updated to a limited extent. Information about a few smaller projects that follow up on the new edition of the Monatsbuch can be found on the homepage of Armin Emmel.

On these pages we also offer information about volumes I to X of the edition, which unfortunately is not available completely from the publisher at the moment.

On 23 July 2016, Axel Spree, former staff member of the office and co-editor of volumes V, VIII and X of Lambert's Philosophischen Schriften died far too early. Without him, his determination, professionalism, his various skills, his patience and prudence, the edition would not have been completed in the way it happened, and certainly not so quickly. Everyone who had the privilege to work with Axel Spree knows how much we will miss him.

From 27 to 28 September 2006, the Lambert-Edition department in Mannheim organised an

International Lambert Colloquium

which was attended by renowned Lambert researchers from Germany and abroad. You can download the conference program here  (as pdf).

If you have any questions about the edition of Lambert's Philosophische Schriften, please contact the editors:

Armin Emmel: Armin.Emmelmail-rub.de

Dr. Niels Bokhove: N.W.Bokhovemail-Inter.NL.net