Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker-Zentrum

ERC-Projekt "Text and Idea of Aristotele's Science of Living Things"

Das Projekt "Text and Idea of Aristotele's Science of Living Things” (TIDA) wird von Prof. Klaus Corcilius geleitet, der dafür eine fünfjährige Förderung des European Research Council erhalten hat.

Ziel des Projektes ist eine neue Gesamtinterpretation von Aristoteles’ Wissenschaft lebendiger Dinge. Das Projekt bricht mit dem methodischen Interpretationsansatz, der die Forschung zu den so genannten „psychologischen“ Schriften des Aristoteles und insbesondere zu seiner berühmten Schrift “De anima" in den letzten fünf Jahrzehnten dominiert hat, und wonach diese Schriften der Philosophie des Geistes zuzurechnen seien. Entgegen diesem Trend will TIDA aufzeigen, dass es in De anima nicht um Philosophie des Geistes als solche geht, und dass ein solcher Ansatz Aristoteles' Denkweise tatsächlich auch fremd wäre; vielmehr geht es in De anima in ersten Linie um die Definition des ersten Prinzips einer viel umfassenderen Wissenschaft vom Lebendigen (Menschen, Tiere und Gewächse). TIDA will herausarbeiten, wie De anima und andere Schriften bei der wissenschaftlichen Erklärung der Phänomene lebendiger Dinge die explanatorische Arbeit teilen, um dann aufzuzeigen, was genau Aristoteles' Wissenschaft lebendiger Dinge zu den grundsätzlichen Fragen der Philosophie des Geistes zu sagen hat. Wie geht Aristoteles aus seiner eher biologischen Perspektive die Fragen und Probleme der Philosophie des Geistes an? 

Methodisch besteht TIDA in einer philosophisch-philologischen Kooperation: Aristoteles' Traktat Über die Seele (De anima) und die zugehörigen Abhandlungen sollen einer neuen und umfassenden philosophischen Interpretation unterzogen werden; gleichzeitig soll der griechische Originaltext von De anima in einer Weise zugänglich gemacht werden, die den gegenwärtigen Standards der Textkritik entspricht. TIDA basiert auf der Überzeugung, dass nur die engste Zusammenarbeit zwischen Philosophen und Philologen zu guten und belastbaren Resultaten führt. Am Ende des Projektes sollen verbesserte Originaltexte und eine neue und philosophisch informativere Perspektive auf Aristotelesʼ Wissenschaft vom Lebendigen stehen. 


Negotiating evidence in exceptional times: The malleability of evidence in academic and public discourses regarding Covid-19 vaccinations

Volkswagen Stiftung: Corona Crisis and Beyond – Perspectives for science, scholarship and society

Lauren Cubellis, PhD, MPH

Sheena F. Bartscherer, MA

This project considers how the evidence and ethics of research and political discourse are negotiated by scientists, policy makers, and the general public in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic has generated an unprecedented situation in which the pressure on data to inform, guide, and correct emerging policy procedures is immense. At the same time, this data is multi-faceted and malleable, sourced from a wide-variety of experts, clinics, and research settings, and moves quickly, influencing institutional responses at state and local levels. The speed at which research on Covid-19 is being produced is both a reflection of and response to the sense of urgency created by a crisis situation. While crisis situations can serve to generate innovation in the face of uncertainty, this innovative energy also challenges established protocols and best practices regarding the production and validation of new evidence. In the current crisis, the negotiation of emergent demands adaptable forms of evaluation and assessment, collaboration across scientific teams, and the rapid synthesis of often contradictory data. As the pandemic continues, research produced in the latter half of 2020 is already being questioned and revised, as the scientific picture of the virus continues to shift. This already complex process is further challenged by the speed at which public and political discourses have made use of emerging evidence regarding Covid-19.

One of the critical questions this project will ask is how such data are translated into actionable practices, and how the measure of such data is taken in terms of quality and legitimacy. What is the value of this data – in the sense that valuing is an ongoing practice of negotiation and justification – under conditions of intense uncertainty? How does the desire, across many levels of society, for positive outcomes influence the structures of research and data collection? What risks and orders of value or worth are being prioritized, and how and by whom are these decisions made under such conditions? Finally, how do scientists, health care providers, and policy makers understand themselves to be acting responsibly (or not) in the absence of a clear narrative around the significance of emerging 

Grounded in neopragmatist discourse analyses and interviews with scientists, policy makers, and the general public in Berlin, this project will address the complex task of understanding responses to emerging data on Covid-19 in the German capital and how these responses have changed and emerged over time. The method itself offers a standardized path to filtering out our interviewees’ argumentative patterns and their applied value systems, making them comparable across social positions, thus helping explain potential differences in public understanding and perception of information, through the differences in the argumentative composition of their public justifications. It will track the focus of Covid-19 related publications and scientific discourses, and how these emergent findings have played a role in public dissemination and social debates about the course of the pandemic. Vaccines – the unprecedented speed of their approval, the scale of their financing, and the sensitive and at times volatile debates regarding their use and uptake by the public, will constitute a central concern of the investigation. Long term goals include insights to the transparency of science and data practices in German institutions and understanding the collaborative terms of their use in current and future public health crises.