Matthias Lutz-Bachmann

Foto: privat
Foto: privat

Projects and positions at the research center
Principal Investigator

Funding period 2019-2021
Project management: Language and Practice of Religion. On the normative meaning of religious symbols and rituals | Research focus 3 – Frayed orders: Social cohesion under conditions of radical plurality

Funding period 2012-2017
Project management: Multinormativity | Research field 1
Project management: Genesis and validity of the concept of the secular | Research field 2

Funding period 2007-2012
Project management: The School of Salamanca | Research field 1
Project management: Human dignity in the early modern period | Research field 2

Subject areas
Philosophy

Main research
Philosophy of the Middle Ages, Practical Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Critical Theory

  • Biografische Angaben

    Since 2017: Founding Director of the Johanna Quandt Academy for the promotion of the best internationally recognized young scientists at Goethe University (together with Prof. Enrico Schleiff)

    2017: Together with Volker Mosbrugger, winner of the Hessian Culture Prize for special achievements in art, science and cultural mediation

    Since 2015: Member of the Research Council of Goethe University

    2015-2019: Project leader of the sub-project “Potestas, Iurisdictio and Dominium: Discourses of Weakness and Power in the 13th and 14th Centuries” in the DFG-funded CRC 1095 “Discourses of Weakness and Resource Regimes”

    Since 2012: Director of the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften at Goethe University in Bad Homburg

    2012-2018: Project manager in the sub-project “Sustainability” in the BMBF joint project “Saisir l’Europe – Europe as a challenge”

    Since 2009: Member of the Frankfurt Scientific Society

    2009-2015: Vice President of Goethe University Frankfurt am Main with special responsibility for research and humanities. During his time as Vice President, he founded the Academy for Educational Sciences and Teacher Training, the Institute for Studies in the Culture and Religion of Islam and the Center for Islamic Studies, the Research Center for Historical Humanities, the “Dagmar Westberg Lectures for the Humanities”, the Institut Franco-Allemand de Sciences Historiques et Sociales (IFRA) in cooperation with EHESS (Paris), the initiation of cooperation with the universities of Mainz and Darmstadt, the opening of the GU’s Brussels office at the European Union, the expansion of the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften into an “Institute for Advanced Studies”, the support of the IZO through the introduction of a permanent professorship for Korean Studies, the expansion of the Institute for Jewish Studies and the preservation of the musicology and archaeology institutes at Goethe University, etc.etc.

    Since 2007: Member of the Board of Directors and PI of the Cluster of Excellence 243 “The Formation of Normative Orders” at Goethe University

    Since 2006: Head of the “Section for Philosophy” of the Görres Society
    2004-2008: Member of the Philosophy Review Board of the German Research Foundation (DFG)

    Since 1999: Member of the Board of Directors of the Scientific Center: Institute for Research in Philosophy of Religion (IRF) at Goethe University

    1999-2009: Project leader and deputy speaker of the DFG-funded research college SFB 435 “Knowledge Culture and Social Change” at Goethe University

    1999-2003: Director of the “Institute for Religious Philosophical Research (IRF)” at Goethe University

    From 1996 to 1997 and from 2007 to 2009 Dean of the Department of Philosophy and History at Goethe University (1996-1997: merger of the Departments of Philosophy and History)

    Since 1994: Professor of Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy at Goethe University and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy at Saint Louis University, St. Louis/USA (Graduate Faculty)

  • Publikationen

    Auswahl

    Lutz-Bachmann, Matthias 2021: Hoffnung aus Vernunft. Kants Hoffnung auf ein “ethisches Gemeinwesen”, in: Gruber, Franz/ Knapp, Markus (Hrsg.): Wissen und Glauben, Freiburg i.Br., S. 145-205.

    Lutz-Bachmann, Matthias 2022: Die Frage nach Gott in der postsäkularen Konstellation, in: Viertbaur, Klaus/ Lang, Stephan (Hrsg.), Gott nach Kant?, Hamburg, S. 44-74.

    Lutz-Bachmann, Matthias 2024: Die Transformation des Konzepts des “Gerechten Kriegs” (Bellum iustum) in der Geschichte der Philosophie: Von Thomas von Aquin bis zur Schule von Salamanca, in: Martín Gómez, María (Hrsg.), El pensiamento vivo de la Escuela de Salamanca: Filosofia y Guerra, Granada, S. 5-26.

    Lutz-Bachmann, Matthias 2025: Ius naturale und Lex naturalis bei Autoren der “Schule von Salamanca”, in: Lutz, Ralf u.a. (Hrsg.): Natur und Vernunft. Zur Wiederentdeckung naturrechtlichen Denkens in der Ethik, Berlin/Boston, S. 113-130.

    Lutz-Bachmann, Matthias 2026: Machtpolitik und Religion. Der Streit um den Victoria-Altar in der kaiserzeitlichen Spätantike und seine Implikationen für ein Konzept des “Dialogs der Religionen”, in: Fidora, Alexander (Hrsg): Religionsdialoge und Wissensordnungen in Antike, Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit.

    Lutz-Bachmann, Matthias (Hrsg.): Religionsdialoge und Wissensordnungen in Antike, Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, Tübingen, S. 5-54.

News from the research center

Event
19.06.2026 | Frankfurt

„Dass niemand wirklich frei ist, bevor es nicht alle sind.“

Symposium

International Symposium in Memory of Jürgen Habermas. Featuring international panels on the rise of authoritarianism and the threats to democracy as well as on the communicative turn in philosophy and sociology, followed by a keynote from by Axel Honneth.

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Event
23.06.2026 | Frankfurt am Main

AI Truth Regimes

Panel Discussion

Artificial intelligence is currently transforming the way knowledge and truth are produced and understood. With the advent of AI, people are progressively transitioning from being active subjects and producers of epistemic processes to becoming their mere objects. The of this discussion will be critical engagements towards these developments as well as opportunities for resistance. With Antonio Somaini, Júlia Nueno Guitart (Forensic Architecture) and Medico International.

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Event
23./24.06.2026 | Frankfurt am Main

The Legacy of Kant’s Political Philosophy

Workshop

A two-day workshop on Howard Williams‘ new book about Immanuel Kant‘s political philosophy.

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Event
23.06.2026 | Frankfurt am Main

Wehrhafte Demokratie: Chancen und Grenzen des Parteiverbots

Panel Discussion

Im Mittelpunkt des Abends steht die Frage, ob und unter welchen verfassungsrechtlichen, politischen und gesellschaftlichen Voraussetzungen ein Verbot einer demokratisch gewählten, rechtsnational ausgerichteten Partei als legitimes Mittel in Betracht gezogen werden kann oder nicht. Ausgehend von den normativen Grundlagen des Parteienverbots im Grundgesetz, möchten wir die hohen rechtlichen Hürden und demokratietheoretischen Spannungsfelder dieser Maßnahme erörtern – zwischen Pluralismus und Selbstverteidigung, zwischen Meinungsfreiheit und Schutz der freiheitlichen demokratischen Grundordnung.

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Event
22.06.2026 | Frankfurt am Main

Rechtsextremismus und Polizei - Erscheinungsformen, Umgangsweisen, Perspektiven

Panel Discussion

Die Diskussion knüpft an den Sammelband „Rechtsextremismus als Herausforderung für Polizei und Gesellschaft“ an, der aktuelle Perspektiven aus Wissenschaft, Praxis und Zivilgesellschaft zusammenführt.

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News
18.05.2026

Videopodcast-Reihe „Our Planet, Our Health“ gestartet

Mit „Our Planet, Our Health“ startet eine neue Videopodcast-Reihe zu Fragen globaler Gesundheitsgerechtigkeit. Die Reihe, gehostet von Dr. Romina Rekers, ist eine Initiative des Global Health Justice Postdoctoral Programme (GHJ), gefördert von der Höppschen Stiftung.

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Publication
12.05.2026 | Online article

Disinhibited Informalization: Talk Radio, Bro Podcasts and the Aesthetics of Populism

This essay by Johannes Völz is a revised and updated translation of “Enthemmte Informalisierung: Talk Radio, Bro-Podcasts und die Ästhetik des Populismus,” WestEnd: Neue Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 22.2 (2025): 3–24. It is published here as part of the b2o Review’s “Stop the Right” dossier.

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Event
25./26.06.2026 | Frankfurt

DGTF Conference 2026: Shifting Regimes, Changing Orders

Conference

Conference as part of WDC 2026 in collaboration with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Designtheorie und -forschung (DGTF), Kunstgewerbemuseum/Design Campus SKD and Design and Democracy

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