Rolf Pfister, M.A., Dipl. sc. pol. Univ.

PhD project

Title: "The creation of theoretical concepts in science and their formalization in AI".

Theoretical concepts - such as gravity, the atomic nucleus or evolution - are of great importance in science, as they make it possible to predict new, unobserved entities and increase the explanatory power of scientific theories. However, there is still no consensus on how new theoretical concepts are introduced, a process often referred to as abduction. My research focuses on analysing and determining how abduction works and which methods are used to introduce new theoretical concepts in science. Furthermore, I am investigating how these methods can be formalized and made applicable in artificial intelligence to support scientific progress through AI.