The project develops a new overall interpretation of Aristotle's De anima and related writings. In contrast to common readings of recent decades, which understand the text primarily as a contribution to the philosophy of mind, TIDA considers De anima to be a fundamental work within a comprehensive science of living beings – humans, animals and plants. The aim is to determine the role of De anima in conjunction with other writings in explaining living phenomena and to derive Aristotle's biologically based perspectives on classical questions of the philosophy of mind. Methodologically, TIDA relies on close cooperation between philosophy and philology: the texts are both reinterpreted and critically edited according to the latest philological standards. The results are an improved Greek original text and a fresh, scientifically sound view of Aristotle's biology.

Lead: Prof. Dr. Klaus Corcilius

Funding Period: 01 October 2022 - 30 September 2027

The project investigates unconscious regularities in spoken language that are obscured by culturally influenced writing systems but are nevertheless used by the brain to optimise word processing. Building on philosophical approaches (Kant, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty) and Hoffman's thesis ‘Fitness beats truth’, it is shown that writing systems hide linguistic subtleties that are unproblematic for native speakers but hinder second language acquisition. Using Mandarin Chinese as an example, two types of subliminal discrepancies are analysed: between expected and actual pronunciation, and between assumed and real functions of the writing system. With the help of computer-assisted modelling, distributional semantics and statistics, the findings will be incorporated into new methods for more efficient vocabulary teaching in Chinese as a foreign language classes.

Lead: Prof. Dr. Harald Baayen

Funding Period: 01 September 2022 - 31 August 2027

The project examines the movements and networks of refugees and exiles from the revolutions in America and Europe (1770s–1820s). In this ‘turning point’ of political modernity, the political refugee emerged as a mass phenomenon for the first time: over 250,000 people sought refuge abroad for primarily political reasons. The project shows how these migrations shaped central transformations in the Atlantic region – from citizenship and subject status to welfare and early humanitarianism to transnational exile policy. It highlights the Caribbean region as an important reception and transit region and provides the first systematic analysis of exile movements from an Atlantic perspective. Through multilingual, cross-location archival research, new connections between Atlantic and refugee history are created and the results are placed in a long-term global historical context.

Lead: Prof. Dr. Jan Jansen

Funding Period: 01 October 2020 - 30 September 2025

Over the past two decades, both populist movements and conspiracy theories have risen sharply worldwide. Populist leaders often use conspiracy theory rhetoric that resonates with parts of their supporters. Nevertheless, many questions remain unanswered: When, how and why do populists resort to such theories? Are they primarily right-wing? Does their significance change when populists come to power? The EU-funded PACT project investigates the role of conspiracy theories in populist movements in the United States, Brazil, Austria, Hungary, Italy and Poland. Methodologically, the project combines discourse analysis of speeches, party programmes and social media with ethnographic field research to capture the significance of the theories for both leaders and members. The aim is to gain a better understanding of the impact on liberal democracies.

Lead: Prof. Dr. Michael Butter

Funding Period: 01 April 2020 - 30 September 2025

The CrossLingference project combines historical linguistics and linguistic typology to bring together the previously separate approaches of diachronic depth and cross-linguistic breadth. Bayesian hierarchical models are used to extend phylogenetic linguistics to cross-language family analyses: each language line follows its own dynamics, but data from one family informs the analysis of others. At the same time, generalised linear mixed models are adapted to control for both genealogical history and language contact. Agent-based simulations are also used to complement this approach. The approach is applied to the analysis of sound laws for the automatic reconstruction of proto-languages, the investigation of causal relationships between typological variables, and the separation of universal tendencies, historical contingencies and contact influences in word order types and inflectional paradigms.

Lead: Prof. Dr. Gerhard Jäger

Funding Period: 01 October 2019 - 31 March 2024

This five-year project explores how we produce and understand words in everyday conversation – even when they’re drastically shortened, like German würden → wün or Mandarin 要不然 → ui. Instead of breaking speech into abstract “sound-letters,” WIDE analyses the full richness of the acoustic signal, using novel, ultra-wide neural networks with tens of thousands of inputs and outputs. The goal: a model that maps meaning directly from sound, and predicts word production without traditional sound units – across languages like German, Mandarin, and Estonian.

Lead: Prof. Dr. Harald Baayen

Funding Period: 01 September 2017 - 31. August 2022