Research Groups
Funding Source: Landschaftsverband Rheinland (LVR)
Principal Investiator: Sarah Czirr and Jürgen Wiener (Department of Art History)
Duration: 01/2026 - 03/2027
Cooperating partners: Düsseldorf City Museum, City Archives of the state capital Düsseldorf, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
The withdrawal of the Allied occupation forces in 1925 was a major step toward greater sovereignty for Düsseldorf. Important measures were implemented, and in May 1926, GeSoLei (Exhibition for Health Care, Social Welfare, and Physical Exercise) opened, attracting 7.6 million visitors from Germany and abroad and becoming the largest exhibition of the Weimar Republic. This set new standards for Düsseldorf's cultural and architectural identity and also provided an economic and tourist boost. Its thematic focal points (e.g., “economic welfare,” “colonial hygiene,” “women,” “Jewish hygiene,” “racial hygiene”), the integrated “Great Düsseldorf Art Exhibition,” and the amusement park can be seen as a seismograph of social discourse and challenges. To mark the 100th anniversary, an interdisciplinary research group at HHU Düsseldorf, in cooperation with the Düsseldorf City Museum, is designing an exhibition that sheds light on this major supra-regional event, drawing on global, scientific-historical, and image-scientific theories. The exhibition will present research findings from the DFG-funded project “Democratic Society on Display? The GeSoLei as a Microcosm of the Weimar Republic,” which are based on an examination of the holdings of the City Museum, the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden, the Museum Kunstpalast, and regional and national archives. The selection of exhibits and their presentation in a manner that is as appropriate as possible for the target audience are part of the ongoing research process. The aim is to present key social issues of this first German democracy, which were negotiated and staged here.
Further Information (German only)
Funding Source: DFG
Spokesperson: Gerhard Schurz (Department of Philosophy)
Duration: 2017 -2024
The overall purpose of the research unit is to articulate and elaborate a new understanding of the nature and methodology of metaphysics. Borrowing a term from late 19th century philosophy, the resulting conception of metaphysics is called Inductive Metaphysics. We argue that, in general, metaphysical beliefs should not and cannot be adequately justified solely on a conceptual and a priori basis. Empirical sources and inductive or abductive forms of inference should and in fact do play a much more prominent role in metaphysics than is typically acknowledged. An important share of metaphysical beliefs should be justified a posteriori, based on inductive or abductive inferences from empirical data, embedded in a methodology that resembles that of science, except that metaphysical concepts and theories are transdisciplinary and more general than concepts and theories in science. The research unit aims at developing a systematic account of the methodology and the empirical sources of Inductive Metaphysics.
Funding Source: Manchot Foundation - Manchot Research Group
Principal Investigator: Frank Dietrich (Department of Philosophy/ Düsseldorf Institute for Internet and Democracy)
Duration: 01/2022 - 12/2024
Cooperating partner: HeiCAD, Bochum
The project investigates whether and, if so, to what extent the established philosophical discourse on discrimination is applicable to new forms of disadvantage caused by artificial intelligence methods.
Some problems that arise in the context of AI-assisted decision making, e.g., through the use of biased training data,
can be well captured by established discrimination concepts. In addition, however, there are more complicated phenomena that give rise to novel forms of disadvantage.
For example, in “redundant encoding,” particularly protected characteristics, such as ethnicity, correlate so closely with supposedly unproblematic data, such as zip code, that use of the supposedly unproblematic data results in protected groups being disadvantaged. Further, the use of AI may lead to a systematic disadvantage of “random groups,” such as people with certain shopping behaviors that correlate with non-payment. Here, it needs to be clarified to what extent the conventional understanding of discrimination can be solved by classical characteristics, such as skin color, gender or age.
In all of the phenomenon areas under consideration, we will examine how established concepts of discrimination need to be adapted in order to adequately capture phenomena of AI-based discrimination. The project is part of the “Use Case Law” of the Manchot research group “Decision Making using artificial intelligence methods”.
Funding Source: Manchot Foundation - Manchot Research Group
Principal Investigator: Gerhard Vowe, Marc Ziegele, Stefan Marschall (Department of Social Sciences/ Düsseldorf Institute for Internet and Democracy DIID)
Duration: 01/2019 – 12/2021; 01/2022 - 12/2024
Cooperating partner: HeiCAD, Bochum
The research project “Supporting Political Decisions with Artificial Intelligence” (UPEKI) explores the question of how AI can support political decision-making processes.