Welches sind die wirklichen Fortschritte, die die Metaphysik seit Leibnitzens und Wolf's Zeiten in Deutschland gemacht hat? (What Real Progress Has Metaphysics Made in Germany since the Time of Leibniz and Wolff?, henceforth to be referred to as Progress) constitutes Kant's projected, but never submitted or even completed, contribution to the prize essay contest on that topic announced by the Académie Royal des Sciences et des Belles-Lettres in Berlin. Unfortunately, Kant's original manuscript has been lost, and the text that we have is a compilation of three different manuscripts by Kant's friend and dinner companion Friedrich Theodor Rink. Kant apparently gave the material to Rink sometime between 1800 and 1802, and Rink published it in April, 1804, two months after Kant's death.

The proposed topic for the essay contest was first announced within the Academy itself on January 24, 1788, with the expectation that the public announcement would be made the following year. For some reason, however, the Academy failed to announce the contest until 1790, at which time it set a deadline for contributions of January 1, 1792. But having by then received only one submission, that of the Wolffian Johann Christ of Schwab (a collaborator with Eberhard on the anti-Kantian Philosophisches Magazin – see the introduction to On a Discovery), the Academy extended the submission date to June 1, 1795, and doubled the prize.