New at Leuphana: Prof. Dr. Marina Martinez Mateo – Footnotes of Ambivalence

“One can assume four class distinctions among humans based on skin color.” Adolf Hitler? Or a contemporary right-wing extremist?

Neither. The quote comes from Immanuel Kant.

So was he a racist?

For many, labeling Kant a racist is highly provocative. He is regarded as one of the great thinkers of the Enlightenment. Yet one could also approach the issue quite objectively: What exactly does Kant say, and how should it be understood? There is no denying that Kant developed theories about differences between human “races” and, in various places – by no means only in his early work – spoke very disparagingly about people who are not white and European. Kant was even one of the first European thinkers to develop a scientifically intended theory about biological “racial differences” among humans – some say he is the “inventor” of the concept of race.

What does this tell us about how we should assess Kant today?

There are various attempts to deal with this. Some say: These are footnotes of history. That’s just how people thought in his time. Others try to separate his racial theory from Kant’s supposedly “true” philosophical achievements. We, on the other hand, wanted to ask more specifically: Why was Kant interested in these questions at all? What role does thinking about “race” play in his work? And how does it relate to his other philosophical reflections?

What conclusion do you reach?

For me, the ambivalence is precisely what’s interesting. The problematic aspects of Kant’s work – specifically those parts linked to his racist thinking – are, in a certain sense, the most interesting. For Kant introduces the concept of “race” precisely where he reflects on the relationship between nature and freedom – that is, on what must be given for human beings to become capable of freedom. This is a central philosophical question. Kant’s racism is therefore not marginal to his work. We cannot simply separate the “good” Kant from this without losing some of his most central and valuable ideas.

So what do we do now with the legacy of the Enlightenment? 

We must take seriously the racism of the Enlightenment, the colonialism, the misogyny, the anti-Semitism, and the various forms of exclusion associated with certain modes of Enlightenment thought.

If the Enlightenment thinkers themselves did not think in an enlightened way, wouldn’t we then, strictly speaking, have to bid farewell to the Enlightenment?

I wouldn’t say that. Concepts such as universalism, freedom, equality, and reason, in particular, continue to be of great importance. But we cannot simply adopt them without critical reflection.

What, for example, can one possibly say against reason?

For example, in Kant’s work, we can see how the concept of reason was used to devalue people outside of Europe. They were denied the ability to possess—or even attain—the same form of cultivated reason as Europeans. If we take this history seriously, we can’t simply say: The concept of reason is good, and the problem is merely that Kant had some problematic views in the 18th century. This is precisely where I see an open research question: How can we redefine these concepts in light of this critique? 

Your work isn’t exclusively philosophical; you also incorporate approaches from civil society and even the arts. Why?

I understand philosophy as an open discipline that – if it remains engaged with society and the public –can also be accessible to non-philosophers and can influence social conditions. The politics of memory is a central theme for me in this context. As part of a research project on right-wing violence and memory in Munich, for example, I collaborated with colleagues from the fields of art and art education, as well as with political groups and initiatives, such as the a.i.d.a. Archive Munich and the OEZ-Erinnern initiative. Part of this project involved working with students from the Academy of Fine Arts. The students independently explored questions of memory related to acts of right-wing violence – including their own gaps in knowledge –and developed artistic works that were exhibited at the Nazi Documentation Center in Munich. Art can also open up new spaces, invite discourse, and spark processes of reflection.

You’re less concerned with individual victims and more with alliances of memory. What do you mean by that?

In the project, we built on the self-understanding of alliances for remembrance that formed primarily in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Halle and Hanau. The aim here is to bring together different experiences and forms of being affected without homogenizing them. In my own work, I’d like to take this approach further and ask what it means to move beyond notions of being affected or identity and to work toward a common ground that isn’t defined by shared experiences. Individual terrorist attacks are often viewed as singular events that affect specific population groups. I would like to ask: What is the common societal cause of this violence, and how can we address it as a shared problem despite our different experiences of being affected? It is not a matter of pitting these respective experiences against one another, but rather of placing them within a broader context.

So you do not merely want to describe society, but also to explore possibilities for its transformation. Are you thereby also drawing on an idea from critical theory?

Yes, although I wouldn’t formulate the claim (in the sense of critical theory) in such a way that philosophy must immediately provide proposed solutions. Rather, I would like to take the critical analysis of existing conditions as a starting point to understand where we might begin in order to overcome them. This is, of course, also linked to the idea of a “philosophy of the present.” I find it very rewarding to be able to work with this concept within the framework of my professorship and to try to understand the present with the help of philosophy – that is, by working with the concept itself. 

Thank you very much for the interview!

Marina Martinez Mateo studied philosophy and political science in Jena, Frankfurt, and Santiago de Chile. From 2013 to 2016, she completed her doctorate at Goethe University Frankfurt. She subsequently served as a research assistant there until 2021 and, from 2021 to 2026, as an assistant professor of philosophy of media and technology at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. In 2022–23, she conducted research as a Feodor Lynen Fellow at Northwestern University.