Research

  • DebateLab's work is published with the most renowned journals (Journal of Philosophy, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, European Journal for Philosophy of Science) as well as publishers (Oxford University Press) in the field of philosophy.
  • DebateLab's research is truly interdisciplinary, as witnessed by publications in Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence, Proceedings of COMMA or Argument & Computation, as well as joint research projects with both computer scientists and social scientists. 

 

  • DebateLab has successfully acquired international research projects (DFG/SNF, Volkswagen Foundation) and is actively involved in different international research networks (DFG, EU Cost Action).
  • DebateLab welcomes international fellows and visiting scientists on a regular basis (DAAD, Humboldt), organizes international workshops, and has established the Erasmus-collaboration with University of Bern (CH).  
  • DebateLab is developing and curating one of the leading research software tools for argument analysis (argdown.org).

Highlights

AI and Language Models

DebateLab is breaking new grounds by starting to investigate reasoning skills of neural language models such as OpenAI's GPT-2. We've created a blog for our activity in this field.

Deliberation in the Lab

DebateLab cooperates with André Bächtiger (political science, Uni Stuttgart) in a Terra-Incognita-Project (2020) to study both experimentally and computationally the enabling conditions for rational deliberation.

SNF/DFG funded project

A joint project with Claus Beisbart and Georg Brun from Uni Bern (CH) on formal models of reflective equilibrium has been approved by SNF and DFG (2020-23).

Selected Books

written, or containing contributions by scholars associated with DebateLab.

Cover Argumentative Turn
The Argumentative Turn

The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis. Reasoning about Uncertainty. Hansson, Sven Ove & Hirsch Hadorn, Gertrude (Eds.). Published with Springer, 2016.

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cover
Philosophical Logic

Alexandra Zinke's The Metaphysics of Logical Consequence, which critically assesses and reinterprets the notion of deductive inference, is published with Klostermann.

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cover lanius oup
Reasoning in Law

David Lanius' "Strategic Indeterminacy in the Law," a study on the value and function of semantic vagueness in the law, has been published with Oxford University Press.

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Cover Debate Dynamics
Debate Simulations

Debate Dynamics: How Controversy Improves Our Beliefs. Betz, G. Synthese Library. Published with Springer, 2013. [Youtube teaser]

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Current Projects
Title Project Group

David Lanius (PHIL)

David Lanius (PHIL)

Christian Voigt (PHIL), Gregor Betz (PHIL), Sebastian Cacean (WMK), David Lanius (PHIL)

David Lanius (PHIL)

David Löwenstein (Jena), coordinator

Dunja Seselja (Eindhoven) and Rush Stewart (Munich), coordinators

Marcin Lewninski (Lisbon), coordinator

Claus Beisbart (Bern), Gregor Betz (KIT, PHIL), Georg Brun (Bern), Basti Cacean (KIT, PHIL), Andreas Freivogel (Bern), Richard Lohse (KIT, PHIL)

Ka Ho Lam

Tamara Mchedlidze, David Lanius, Andreas Hirblinger

Gregor Betz (PHIL), Michael Hamann (ITI), Tamara Mchedlidze (ITI), Sophie v. Schmettow (ITI)

Felix Kopecky (PHIL)

Corinna Günth

Past Projects
Title Project Group

Dan Singer (as visiting fellow)

Kevin Ashley (as visiting fellow)

Matthew Dentith (as visiting fellow)

Sebastian Cacean (WMK), Annette Leßmöllmann (WMK), Gregor Betz (PHIL)

Alexandra Zinke (Tübingen)