  Before returning to Vaihinger’s own positive philosophy, it is worth examining the task that occupied him intensely between the publication of (1876) and the PAO: the interpretation of Kant. The rise of Neo-Kantianism in the second half of the nineteenth century brought with it a renewed interest in the historical study of the critical philosophy. The majority of the works written during this period tended to approach Kant’s texts polemically, either with the aim of defending and “updating” them, or with the intention of refuting them. In terms of its scholarly sobriety, depth of textual analysis, and sensitivity to Kant’s immediate intellectual context, Vaihinger’s Commentary was unique. He notes that his approach will be that of those who analyze ancient texts “with philological sobriety and strict rigor … in order to determine their genuine meaning from an historical standpoint” (1881–92, 1:iii). The extent to which Vaihinger resists allowing his own philosophical commitments to influence his interpretation is indeed impressive. In fact, the very idea that understanding Kant’s texts might require a distinctively historical kind of approach seems to have been something of a novelty and is among Vaihinger’s lasting contributions to Kant scholarship.