Department I
Structural Changes in Systems of Knowledge
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Renn
Executive Director
Department I studies the historical processes of structural changes in systems of knowledge over long periods. More
Department II
Ideals and Practices of Rationality
Prof. Dr. Lorraine Daston
Director
Department II focuses on epistemological and ontological categories (including “scientific object,” “objectivity,” “demonstration” and “observation”) that shape scientific investigation and its standards. More
Department III
Experimental Systems and Spaces of Knowledge
Prof. Dr. Hans-Jörg Rheinberger
Director
The department's research focuses mainly on the history and epistemology of experimental practices, on objects and spaces of knowledge, and on the formation of concepts in the life sciences from the 18th to the 20th centuries. More
Max Planck Research Group
Historicizing Knowledge about Human Biological Diversity in the 20th Century
Prof. Dr. Veronika Lipphardt
Research Group Director
This project examines how human biological diversity was imagined, researched, and described within transnational networks during the twentieth century. The five-year research project brings together scholars from the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. More
Max Planck Research Group
Art and Knowledge in Pre-Modern Europe
Prof. Dr. Sven Dupré
Research Group Director
This Research Group investigates how artists invented and appropriated knowledge, conceived and categorized knowledge, and transmitted and circulated knowledge in the visual and decorative arts in the pre-modern period. It is part of the cooperation of the MPIWG with the three Berlin universities. More
Max Planck Research Group
Modern Geometry and the Concept of Space
Dr. Vicenzo De Risi
Research Group Director
The main research topic of the group concerns the birth of modern geometry as a theory of space in the 18th century, and extends to the scientific and philosophical development of the concept of space itself in the modern age. More
Max Planck Research Group
The Writing of Deaf-Muteness and the Construction of Norms
Dr. Sabine Arnaud
Research Group Director
This project traces the writing and illustration of deaf-muteness and the construction of related norms from the early 17th century to the late 19th century in Western Europe and the United States. Project participants will include scholars from a broad background, including legal history, history of psychology, linguistics, disability studies, and history of medicine. More
MPG Minerva Research Group
Constructions of the brain: The emergence of the neurological adolescent
Dr. Suparna Choudhury
Minerva Research Group Leader
The goal of this project is to develop meaningful interactions between history of science, anthropology and cognitive neuroscience focusing on adolescence as an object of neuroscientific study. This study brings together scholars from the Cerebral Subject Project of the MPIWG and the Berlin School of Mind and Brain. More
TOPOI Junior Research Group
Historical Epistemology of Space
Dr. Matthias Schemmel
Research Group Director
The project, which is a cooperation between the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the MPIWG in the framework of the Excellence Cluster 264 “TOPOI,” aims at a long-term history of basic structures of spatial thinking, ranging from prehistory to the most recent and ongoing scientific revolutions. More
