==================================================================
============== THEMA 2026: Call for Papers =======================
Workshop on Theory and Methods for Abstraction (THEMA 2026)
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Deadline for submission: April 27, 2026
Workshop: July 24, 2026
https://abstraction.cognitive-logics.org/thema2026/
Co-located with the 23rd International Conference on Principles of
Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR 2026) as part of the
Federated Logic Conference (FLoC 2026).
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Aims and Scope
----------------------
Abstraction is a process that is exploited in human reasoning and
understanding. Although the word itself comes from the meaning of "to
draw away", there is no precise definition that is able to cover all the
meanings that it gains depending on its utilisation. Various meanings of
abstraction are interpreted in different disciplines such as Philosophy,
Cognitive Science, Biomimetics, Mathematics and AI, with the shared
consensus of the aim to distil the essential.
From the early days of AI research, including in the work of Alan
Turing, such abstraction learning has been seen as a crucial heuristic
for problem-solving. First, the problem is solved in a relaxed or
reduced space, and then the abstract solution is used to guide the
search for a solution in the original space. Since the success in
solving a problem relies on how "good" the abstraction is, theoretical
approaches for defining abstractions with desired properties have been
and continue to be investigated while adhering to certain principles of
simplification and/or generalization. Abstraction is also being used as
a representation technique. Having different layers of representation
that enable reasoning at a high level and refining to more low-level
details only when necessary, e.g., in Robotics, allows one to determine
the focus points of the problem. While usually the representation
decisions are left to the experts, there are also methods, e.g. in Model
Checking, to automatically find abstractions that allow one to check
desired properties of the system at the abstract level. More recently,
abstraction is becoming an essential technique for AI systems to present
a "model of self", overviewing their complex structures via showing the
key elements making it easier for humans to understand their
decision-making.
This workshop aims to bring together researchers from different
sub-areas of KR and related communities who work on different aspects of
abstraction in their respective areas, with the goal of exchanging
theories and methods.
The following lists topics (but is not limited to these):
*Formation of concepts
*Symbol learning
*Inductive reasoning
*Abstraction and analogical reasoning
*Abstraction and generalization as operations
*The role of abstraction in knowledge
*Formal logical and philosophical foundations of abstraction
*Abstraction in ontological and conceptual modelling
*Systems which employ different levels of granularity
*Forgetting and marginalization
*Human-inspired theories of perception
*Application of abstraction in verification and software engineering
Workshop Organizers and Co-Chairs
--------------------------------------------------
Oliver Kutz University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
Zeynep G. Saribatur TU Wien, Austria
Kai Sauerwald University of Hagen, Germany
Important Dates
----------------------
Paper submission: April 27, 2026
Notification: May 28, 2026
Workshop: July 24, 2026
Submission and Publication Details
-----------------------------------------------
We invite short (6 pages) and long papers (13 pages) of unpublished
work, or extended abstracts (2 pages) of already published works or
works in progress. Reviewing will be single-blind, but anonymous
submissions are possible.
* All submissions should be formatted in CEUR style (one-column style)
without enabled header and footer. The author kit can be found at
http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-XXX/CEURART.zip. Papers must be submitted in PDF
only and should include an statement regarding usage of AI (see CEUR AI
policy). For the camera-ready versions, one must also provide the LaTeX
sources.
*Link the submission site will be announced on the webpage:
https://abstraction.cognitive-logics.org/thema2026/call.html
Authors of all accepted original contributions can opt to publish their
work on CEUR proceedings. Accepted non-original contributions will be
given visibility on the workshop website, including a link to the
original publication, if already published.
Following the workshop, there will be an open call for inclusion in a
special issue of the German Journal of Artificial Intelligence (KI).
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