Articles

on Articles

Main Publications

Beckers, S. (2025). Actual Causation and Nondeterministic Causal Models. In Proceedings of the 4th Conference on Causal Learning and Reasoning, PMLR.
Beckers, S. (2025). Nondeterministic Causal Models. In Proceedings of the 4th Conference on Causal Learning and Reasoning, PMLR.
Belle, V., Chockler, H., Vallor, S., Varshney, K.R., Vennekens, J., and Beckers, S. (2024). Trustworthiness and Responsibility in AI - Causality, Learning and Verification (Dagstuhl Seminar 24121) Dagstuhl Reports.
Beckers, S., Chockler, H., and Halpern, J.Y. (2024). A Causal Analysis of Harm. In Minds & Machines.
Beckers, S. (forthcoming). What Does It Take To Make A Difference? A Reply To Andreas and Günther. In Journal of Philosophy.
Beckers, S. (2023). Moral Responsibility for AI Systems. In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 36.
Beckers, S., Chockler, H., and Halpern, J.Y. (2023). Quantifying Harm. In Proceedings of the 32nd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
Beckers, S., Halpern, J.Y., and Hitchcock, C. (2023). Causal Models with Constraints. In Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Causal Learning and Reasoning.
von Kügelgen, J., Mohamed, A., and Beckers, S. (2023). Backtracking Counterfactuals. In Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Causal Learning and Reasoning.
Beckers, S., Chockler, H., and Halpern, J.Y. (2022). A Causal Analysis of Harm. In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 35.
Beckers, S. (2022). Causal Explanations and XAI. In Proceedings of the 1st Conference on Causal Learning and Reasoning, PMLR, 177, 90-109.
Beckers, S. (2021). Causal Sufficiency and Actual Causation. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 50, 1341-1374.
Beckers, S. (2021). The Counterfactual NESS Definition of Causation. In Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, vol 35, no 7, 6210-6217. Click here for official version
Beckers, S. (2021). Equivalent Causal Models. In Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, vol 35, no 7, 6202-6209. Click here for official version
Beckers, S., Eberhardt, F., and Halpern, J.Y. (2019). Approximate Causal Abstraction. In Proceedings of the 35th Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI2019). Click here for official version
Beckers, S., and Halpern, J.Y. (2019). Abstracting Causal Models. In Proceedings of the 33rd AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, vol 33, 2678-2685. Click here for official version
Beckers, S. (2018). AAAI: an Argument Against Artificial Intelligence, In Vincent C. Müller (ed.), Philosophy and Theory of Artificial Intelligence 2017, (SAPERE; Berlin: Springer), 235-247. Click here for official version
Beckers, S., and Vennekens, J. (2018). A Principled Approach to Defining Actual Causation, Synthese, 195(2), 835-862. Click here for official version
Beckers, S., and Vennekens, J. (2017). The Transitivity and Asymmetry of Actual Causation, Ergo, 4(1), 1-27.
Beckers, S., and Vennekens, J. (2016). A General Framework for Defining and Extending Actual Causation using CP-logic, International Journal for Approximate Reasoning, 77: 105-126. Click here for official version

Other Publications

Beckers, S. (2017). AAAI: an Argument Against Artificial Intelligence, In Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on AI, Ethics and Society. (This short text is a precursor to the article above with the same title.)
Beckers, S., and Vennekens, J. (2015). Towards a General Definition of Actual Causation Using CP-logic. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Probabilistic Logic Programming co-located with ICLP, volume 1413 of CEUR Workshop Proceedings, 19–38. (Together with the following paper this is a precursor to the IJAR article above.)
Beckers, S., and Vennekens, J. (2015). Combining Probabilistic, Normative, and Causal Reasoning in CP-logic, In Proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Logical Formalizations of Commonsense Reasoning, 32-38.
Beckers, S., and Vennekens, J. (2012). Counterfactual Dependency and Actual Causation in CP-logic and Structural Models: a Comparison. In Proceedings of the Sixth STAIRS, volume 241 of Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, 35–46.
Beckers, S., De Samblanx, G., De Smedt, F., Goedemé, T., Struyf, L., and Vennekens, J. (2012). Parallel hybrid SAT solving using OpenCL. In Proceedings of Benelux Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 11-18.
Beckers, S., De Samblanx, G., De Smedt, F., Goedemé, T., Struyf, L., and Vennekens, J. (2011). Parallel SAT-solving with OpenCL. In Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference on Applied Computing, 435-441.

PhD

This is my PhD dissertation. Most of its content has been published in the articles above.

Beckers, S. (2016). Actual Causation: Definitions and Principles, PhD Dissertation.

Old Stuff

These are some of the papers and dissertations which I wrote as a student, hence they might not be worth spending much (if any) time on.

Talks

on Talks

Invited Talks (regular Conference Talks not included)

2025-07 Invited Keynote Speaker, UAI workshop on ‘Causal Abstractions and Representations’, Rio de Janeiro

2025-07 Invited Keynote Speaker, closing workshop of the ‘Bias, Risk and Opacity in AI Research Project, University of Milan

2025 ‘Personalised Decision-Making in Medicine and Causing Harm’, Invited Speaker, University of Exeter series on ‘Causality’ (online)

2025 ‘Actual Causation in Nondeterministic Causal Models’, Invited speaker, University of Bergen

2024 ‘A Causal Analysis of Harm’, colloquium, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, LMU

2024 ‘Causal Abstractions using Generalized Functions’, Invited speaker, Causal Abstraction, Reasoning, and Extrapolation seminar (online)

2024 ‘Moral Responsibility for AI Systems’, Dagstuhl Seminar on Trustworthiness and Responsibility in AI

2023 ‘What Does It Take To Make A Difference? A Reply to Andreas and Günther’, Invited speaker, PALLMYR, University College London

2023 ‘Moral Responsibility for AI Systems’, Invited speaker, Amsterdam Causality Meeting

2023 ‘Backtracking Counterfactuals’, Invited speaker, Artificial Intelligence, Causality, and Personalised Medicine Symposium, Leibniz AI Lab

2023 ‘Backtracking Counterfactuals’, Invited speaker, Kyoto Causation Workshop, Kyoto University

2023 ‘A Causal Analysis of Harm’, Invited speaker, SIKS course on Human-Centered AI, Utrecht

2023 ‘A Causal Analysis of Harm’, Invited speaker, Causality in Practice, Institute Pascal, Paris

2023 ‘Backtracking Counterfactuals’, Invited speaker, Inspiration Sessions, SAP (online)

2023 ‘Causal Sufficiency and Actual Causation’, Invited speaker, Workshop on Causation and Modality in Logic and Language, University of Amsterdam

2023 ‘Abstracting Causal Models’, Invited speaker, Causality Discussion Group (online)

2022 ‘Causal Explanations and XAI’, Invited speaker, Philosophy and Formal Epistemology Workshop, Carnegie Mellon University, United States

2022 ‘Causal Abstractions and Causal Representation Learning’, Invited speaker, First Workshop on Causal Representation Learning, UAI, Eindhoven

2022 ‘Causal Sufficiency and Actual Causation’, Invited speaker, Online Causal Inference Seminar (online)

2021 ‘The Causal and Epistemic Conditions for Moral Responsibility,’, Invited speaker, Christian List’s Research Seminar, LMU-Munich (online)

2021 ‘Causal Sufficiency and Actual Causation’, Invited speaker, Logic Seminar, University of Milan (online)

2021 ‘Reflections on the Causal Approach to Fair AI’, Invited speaker, AI Challenges to Established Legal Institutions, (online)

2021 ‘Causal Sufficiency and Actual Causation’, Invited speaker, Logic Lunch Seminar Series, Milano Logic Group, (online)

2021 ‘Actual Causation and Moral Responsibility’, Invited speaker, Cognition, Values, and Behaviour Lab Meetings, LMU-Munich, Germany (online)

2020 ‘Accountability in medical autonomous systems: ethical and epistemological challenges for explainable AI’, NIAS Theme group, NIAS seminar, Amsterdam, the Netherlands (online)

2020 ‘Formalizing Non-Reductive Supervenience using Causal Models with Constraints’, Invited speaker, Symposium on Interventionism and Causal Exclusion, Nijmegen, the Netherlands

2019 ‘Causation and the Principle of Alternative Possibilities’, Invited speaker, Free Will and Causality conference, Dusseldorf, Germany

2018 ‘Applying Causal Modeling to Philosophical Issues’, Invited talk, Logic and Metaphysics Workshop, CUNY

2017 ‘Formal Ethics’, Invited talk, Center for Human-Compatible AI, UC Berkeley

2015 ‘A Principled Approach to Defining Actual Causation’, Invited talk, Tilburg Center for Logic, Ethics, and Philosophy of Science, the Netherlands

2015 ‘The Problem of Actual Causation’, Epistemology Reading Group, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT

2014 ‘Actual Causation using CP-logic’, Declarative Languages and AI seminar, University of Leuven, Belgium

2013 ‘Actual Causation using CP-logic’, colloquium, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy

2013 ‘Actual Causation: the CP-logic Approach’, Invited talk, INRIA, Grenoble, France

2013 ‘Actual Causation in Cases of Preemption: the CP-logic Approach’, Center for Logic and Analytic Philosophy colloquium, University of Leuven, Belgium

2012 ‘Parallel hybrid SAT solving using OpenCL’, Declarative Languages and AI seminar, University of Leuven, Belgium

Regular Conference Talks

2023 ‘Causal Models with Constraints’, Workshop on Causal Representation Learning, Tübingen, Germany (poster)

2023 ‘Causal Models with Constraints’, Causal Learning and Reasoning, Tübingen, Germany (poster)

2022 ‘A Causal Analysis of Harm’, NeurIPS, New Orleans, United States (poster)

2022 ‘A Functional Account of Causation: From Type to Token’, Conference of the Philosophy of Science Association, Pittsburgh, United States (poster)

2022 ‘A Functional Account of Causation: From Type to Token’, Conference of the Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice, Ghent, Belgium (poster)

2022 ‘Causal Explanations and XAI’, Philosophy of Science in a Forest, the Netherlands

2022 ‘Causal Explanations and XAI’, Causal Learning and Reasoning, Eureka, United States

2021 ‘The Counterfactual NESS Definition of Actual Causation’, AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, online

2021 ‘Equivalent Causal Models’, AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, online

2019 ‘Formalizing Mental Causation’, EPSA conference, Geneva, Switzerland

2019 ‘Approximate Causal Abstraction’, UAI conference, Tel Aviv, Israel

2019 ‘Abstracting Causal Models’, DIEP Conference, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

2019 ‘Formalizing the Causal Conditions for Moral Responsibility’, REINS closing conference, Utrecht University, the Netherlands

2019 ‘Abstracting Causal Models’, AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Honolulu, United States

2018 ‘Formalizing Mental Causation’, OZSW conference, Enschede, the Netherlands

2018 ‘Causation and the Principle of Alternative Possibilities’, Causes, Norms, and Decisions Workshop, Hannover, Germany

2017 ‘A Formal Approach to Frankfurt-style Cases’, OZSW conference, Doorn, the Netherlands

2017 ‘AAAI: an Argument Against Artificial Intelligence’, Philosophy and Theory of Artificial Intelligence, Leeds, UK

2017 ‘AAAI: an Argument Against Artificial Intelligence’, European Conference for Analytic Philosophy, Munich, Germany

2017 ‘AAAI: an Argument Against Artificial Intelligence’, AAAI Workshop on AI, Ethics and Society, San Francisco

2016 ‘The Transitivity and Asymmetry of Actual Causation’, Philosophy of Science in a Forest, Doorn, the Netherlands

2015 ‘A Principled Approach to Defining Actual Causation’, Conference of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Helsinki, Finland

2015 ‘Combining Probabilistic, Causal, and Normative Reasoning using CP-logic’, AAAI Spring Symposium: Commonsense Reasoning, Stanford University

2013 ‘Dual Inheritance Theory as an Integration of Biology and the Humanities’, Reduction and Emergence in the Sciences conference, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy

2013 ‘A Pragmatic Approach to Causality’, OZSW conference, University of Rotterdam

2013 ‘Actual Causation in Cases of Preemption: the CP-logic Approach’, Graduate Conference in Theoretical Philosophy, University of Groningen, the Netherlands

2012 ‘Actual Causation in Cases of Preemption: the CP-logic Approach’, Great Plains Graduate Conference in Philosophy, Kansas University

2012 ‘Counterfactual Dependency and Actual Causation in CP-logic and Structural Models: a Comparison’, STAIRS conference, Montpellier, France

2012 ‘Parallel hybrid SAT solving using OpenCL’, BNAIC, Maastricht University, the Netherlands

2011 ‘Parallel SAT-solving with OpenCL’, IADIS, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

CV

on CV

Click here to download a PDF version

Sander Beckers

Curriculum Vitae

Google Scholar page

Contact

E-mail: srekcebrednas@gmail.com

Employment

10/2024-?
- Postdoctoral Scholar
  Department of Computer Science, Cornell University
2023-2024
- Postdoctoral Scholar
  Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam
2021-2023
- Postdoctoral Scholar
  Cluster of Excellence in Machine Learning for Science: Ethics and Epistemology of ML, University of Tübingen
2022 Spring
- Visiting Scholar (host: James Woodward)
  Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh
2019-2021
- Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow (supervisor: Stephan Hartmann)
  Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, LMU Munich
2020 Fall
- NIAS-Lorentz Theme-group Fellow
  Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies, Amsterdam
2019 January
- Visiting scholar (host: Frederick Eberhardt)
  Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Caltech
2018-2019
- Postdoctoral scholar (supervisor: Jan Broersen)
  Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Utrecht University
2017 Fall
- Visiting postdoctoral scholar (supervisor: James Conant)
  Institute of Philosophy, Leipzig University
2016-2017
- Visiting B.A.E.F. Fellow (supervisor: Joe Halpern)
  Department of Computer Science, Cornell University
2010-2011
- Researcher at University of Leuven, EAVISE research group
  Project: S.O.S. OpenCL: Multicore Cooking
2008-2009
- (part-time) internship as actuary
  Aon Benfield Belgium and BNP Paribas Belgium, Employee Benefits

Education

2012-2016
- Ph.D. in Computer Science, October 2016
  KULeuven - University of Leuven, Belgium
  Dissertation: Actual Causation: Definitions and Principles
  Supervisors: Hendrik Blockeel and Joost Vennekens
2013 Fall
- Visiting doctoral researcher (supervisor: Stephan Hartmann)
  Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy
2011: Master in Mathematics, University of Leuven
Dissertation: Deductive Reasoning in Guarded FO(ID)
Supervisor: Marc Denecker
2008: Bridge program Mathematics, University of Leuven
2006: Master in Philosophy, University of Leuven
Dissertation: Wittgenstein en het Ethische
Supervisor: Arnold Burms
2005: one semester abroad at Stellenbosch University, South Africa
2004: Bachelor in Philosophy, University of Antwerp

Grants, Fellowships, and Awards

2023
- Best Paper Award: Backtracking Counterfactuals, CLeaR 2023.
Fall-2020
- NIAS-Lorentz Theme Group
2019-2021
- Humboldt Research Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers
2016-2017
- Research Fellowship, Belgian American Educational Foundation
2012-2015
- Ph.D. Grant for Fundamental Research, Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Refereeing

AAAI (PC 2017, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024), AI & Society, AIES conference (2024), AIStats 2022, Analysis (2), Australasian Journal of Logic, CLeaR (2024, 2025), Dialectica, Ergo, Erkenntnis (6), Ethics and Information Technology (2), European Journal for Philosophy of Science (2), FaccT 2023, Information, IJCAI 2020, Journal of Causal Inference, Journal of Logic and Computation, Journal of Machine Learning Research (2), Journal of Philosophical Logic (2), Journal of Philosophy, Journal of Social Philosophy, Kriterion, Mind, Minds and Machines (3), NeurIPS (2023, 2024), Philosophical Studies (3), Philosophy and Theory of Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Science, Synthese (6), Review of Symbolic Logic, The Philosophical Review, UAI (2024, 2025), Various AI workshops for AAAI, NeurIPS, ICML, etc.

Research

Main Publications

Beckers, S. (2025). Nondeterministic Causal Models, CLeaR 2025.

Beckers, S. (2025). Actual Causation and Nondeterministic Causal Models, CLeaR 2025.

Belle, V., Chockler, H., Vallor, S., Varshney, K.R., Vennekens, J., and Beckers, S. (2024). Trustworthiness and Responsibility in AI - Causality, Learning and Verification (Dagstuhl Seminar 24121) Dagstuhl Reports.

Beckers, S., Chockler, H., and Halpern, J.Y. (2024). A Causal Analysis of Harm, Minds and Machines.

Beckers, S. (forthcoming). What Does it Take to Make a Difference? Reply to Andreas and Günther, Journal of Philosophy.

Beckers, S. (2023). Moral Responsibility for AI Systems, NeurIPS 2023.

Beckers, S., Chockler, H, and Halpern, J.Y. (2023). Quantifying Harm, IJCAI 2023.

Beckers, S., Halpern, J.Y., and Hitchcock, C. (2023). Causal Models with Constraints, CLeaR 2023.

von Kügelgen, J., Mohamed, A., and Beckers, S. (2023). Backtracking Counterfactuals, CLeaR 2023.

Beckers, S., Chockler, H, and Halpern, J.Y. (2022). A Causal Analysis of Harm, NeurIPS 2022.

Beckers, S. (2022). Causal Explanations and XAI, Causal Learning and Reasoning 2022.

Beckers, S. (2021). Causal Sufficiency and Actual Causation, Journal of Philosophical Logic.

Beckers, S. (2021). The Counterfactual NESS Definition of Causation, AAAI 2021.

Beckers, S. (2021). Equivalent Causal Models, AAAI 2021.

Beckers, S., Eberhardt, F., and Halpern, J.Y. (2019). Approximate Causal Abstraction, UAI 2019.

Beckers, S. and Halpern, J.Y. (2019). Abstracting Causal Models, AAAI 2019.

Beckers, S. (2018). AAAI: an Argument Against Artificial Intelligence, In Vincent C. Müller (ed.), Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence 2017.

Beckers, S., and Vennekens, J. (2018). A Principled Approach to Defining Actual Causation, Synthese.

Beckers, S., and Vennekens, J. (2017). The Transitivity and Asymmetry of Actual Causation, Ergo.

Beckers, S., and Vennekens, J. (2016). A General Framework for Defining and Extending Actual Causation using CP-logic, International Journal for Approximate Reasoning.

Other Publications

Beckers, S. (2017). AAAI: an Argument Against Artificial Intelligence, AAAI Workshop on AI, Ethics and Society 2017.

Beckers, S., and Vennekens, J. (2015). Towards a General Definition of Actual Causation Using CP-logic. ICLP Workshop on Probabilistic Logic Programming 2015.

Beckers, S., and Vennekens, J. (2015). Combining Probabilistic, Normative, and Causal Reasoning in CP-logic, Symposium on Logical Formalizations of Commonsense Reasoning 2015.

Beckers, S., and Vennekens, J. (2012). Counterfactual Dependency and Actual Causation in CP-logic and Structural Models: a Comparison. _STAIRS 2012.

Beckers, S., De Samblanx, G., De Smedt, F., Goedemé, T., Struyf, L., and Vennekens, J. (2012). Parallel hybrid SAT solving using OpenCL. BNAIC 2012

Beckers, S., De Samblanx, G., De Smedt, F., Goedemé, T., Struyf, L., and Vennekens, J. (2011). Parallel SAT-solving with OpenCL. IADIS International Conference on Applied Computing 2011.

Talks

Invited Talks and Colloquia (regular Conference Talks not included)

2025-07 Invited Keynote Speaker, UAI workshop on ‘Causal Abstractions and Representations’, Rio de Janeiro

2025-07 Invited Keynote Speaker, closing workshop of the ‘Bias, Risk and Opacity in AI Research Project, University of Milan

2025 ‘Personalised Decision-Making in Medicine and Causing Harm’, Invited Speaker, University of Exeter series on ‘Causality’ (online)

2025 ‘Actual Causation in Nondeterministic Causal Models’, Invited speaker, University of Bergen

2024 ‘A Causal Analysis of Harm’, colloquium, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy