Peggy Breitenstein

Immanuel Kant was an 18th century German philosopher. He is famous for his critical philosophy in which he explores the grounds and limits of human knowledge and morality. He was also an important representative of the Enlightenment. Central ideals of this movement were an emphasis on scientific knowledge, reason, and individual rights in contrast to superstition, authority, and tyranny. In his essay “Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?”, Kant states conditions that have to be met in order for an individual, a group, or a state to become enlightened. In this piece, we will introduce Kant’s line of thought that Enlightenment is the emergence from self-imposed immaturity. His message is more relevant today than ever. In a world of filter bubbles, fake news, and algorithmically-curated content, we have to decide when to use our own reason and when to let others do the thinking for us.

Racist statements in Kant’s writings have been discussed since the 1990s. A comparison of biographical and systematic overviews that were published around 2004 on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Kant’s death with those published to celebrate the 300th anniversary of his birth in 2024 shows a different treatment of racist statements in Kant’s writings. In 2004 Kant’s racist statements were completely ignored, whereas this no longer seemed possible in 2024. Based on recent publications, the contribution shows that the question of racism in Kant is addressed and integrated in very different ways (e. g. person-centred or, in the context of reconstructions of the history of science, as philosophically irrelevant, or as a systematic part of the work). This in turn can have very different consequences, ranging from problematic trivialisation to demanding self-criticism. As result, the article argues for a self-critical and self-reflective approach to racist statements in philosophical writings, which includes the consideration of such consequences under current conditions.

Natural history is a key concept in Adorno’s philosophy of history. In the second model of Negative Dialectics, he develops this concept following Marx’s critique of political economy, which, as a critique of ideology, criticises the appearance of natural necessity of social practices and relations. Starting from an irritation concerning a note by Adorno in which he reproaches Marx for “language mannerisms” and conceptual inability, this article argues that Adorno’s critique is based on a one-sided reading, preventing him from adequately considering the critical-emancipatory potential of the concept of natural history. This potential is not independent of linguistic and aesthetic mediation. Rather, Marx uses metaphors, caricatures, etc. in his depiction of social practices as natural history, enabling him to convey more than theoretical knowledge. His critical theory is emancipatory precisely in that it compels agents to self-criticism, which is a necessary condition for sustainably shattering the appearance of natural necessity.

For a long time philosophers would avoid addressing the subject of ideologies, steering clear even of the critique of ideology. In the last few years, however, positions attempting to implicitly or explicitly revive this method have been on the rise again. The criticism of ideology has been rediscovered and is now practiced as a means of social criticism-among others, by thinkers such as Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello, Sally Haslanger, Nancy Fraser or Slavoj Žižek, and also by some representatives of the younger generation of the Frankfurt School, such as Rahel Jaeggi, Robin Celikates or Titus Stahl. However, to date, hardly any of the existing analyses of the assumptions and claims of this particular method of social critique, or clarifications if how it works exactly, prove to be satisfactory. The present article aims at shedding light upon these questions by referring back to Marx and Adorno. More specifically, the dialectical concepts of “ideology” and of the “critique of ideology”-which both thinkers employ, but which neither of them specifically explicates-are hereby clarified and subjected to methodological reflection.