Talks
Conferences
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
Invited Talks and Colloquia
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
CV
Sander Beckers
Curriculum Vitae
E-mail: srekcebrednas@gmail.com
Employment
- 2019-current
- 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
- 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
- 2010-2011
- 2008-2009
- (part-time) internship as actuary
Aon Benfield Belgium and BNP Paribas Belgium, Employee Benefits
Education
- 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 and Fellowships
- 2019-2021
- 2019-2021
- 2016-2017
- 2012-2015
Refereeing
AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (Program Committee 2017, 2020, 2021), Erkenntnis, Ethics and Information Technology, European Journal for Philosophy of Science, Information, International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (Program Committee 2020), Journal of Philosophical Logic, Journal of Social Philosophy, Philosophy and Theory of Artificial Intelligence, Synthese, The Philosophical Review
Research
Forthcoming
Beckers, S. (2021). Causal Sufficiency and Actual Causation, Accepted for publication in Journal of Philosophical Logic.
Beckers, S. (2021). The Counterfactual NESS Definition of Causation, Accepted for publication at AAAI2021.
Beckers, S. (2021). Equivalent Causal Models, Accepted for publication at AAAI2021.
Main Publications
Beckers, S., Eberhardt, F., and Halpern, J.Y. (2019). Approximate Causal Abstraction, In Proceedings of the 35th Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI 2019).
Beckers, S. and Halpern, J.Y. (2019). Abstracting Causal Models, In Proceedings of the 33rd AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, vol 33, 2678-2685.
Beckers, S. (2018). AAAI: an Argument Against Artificial Intelligence, In Vincent C. Müller (ed.), Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence 2017, (SAPERE; Berlin: Springer), 235-247.
Beckers, S., and Vennekens, J. (2018). A Principled Approach to Defining Actual Causation, Synthese, 195(2), 835-862.
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.
Other Publications
Beckers, S. (2017). AAAI: an Argument Against Artificial Intelligence, In Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on AI, Ethics and Society.
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.
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.
Talks
2019 ‘Causation and the Principle of Alternative Possibilities’, Invited speaker, Free Will and Causality conference, Dusseldorf, Germany
2019 ‘Formalizing Mental Causation’, EPSA conference, Geneva, Switzerland
2019 ‘Approximate Causal Abstraction’, UAI conference, Tel Aviv, Israel
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 ‘Applying Causal Modeling to Philosophical Issues’, Invited talk, Logic and Metaphysics Workshop, CUNY
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 ‘Formal Ethics’, Invited talk, Center for Human-Compatible AI, UC Berkeley
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 ‘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
2015 ‘Combining Probabilistic, Causal, and Normative Reasoning using CP-logic’, AAAI Spring Symposium: Commonsense Reasoning, Stanford University
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 ‘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: the CP-logic Approach’, Invited talk, INRIA, Grenoble, France
2013 ‘Actual Causation in Cases of Preemption: the CP-logic Approach’, Graduate Conference in Theoretical Philosophy, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
2013 ‘Actual Causation in Cases of Preemption: the CP-logic Approach’, Center for Logic and Analytic Philosophy colloquium, University of Leuven, Belgium
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
2012 ‘Parallel hybrid SAT solving using OpenCL’, Declarative Languages and AI seminar, University of Leuven, Belgium
2011 ‘Parallel SAT-solving with OpenCL’, IADIS, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Teaching
University of Leuven
- Undergraduate program Civil Engineering, exercise classes:
- 2014-2015 Introduction to Programming: Python
- 2012-2013 Introduction to Programming: Java
- Undergraduate program Industrial Engineering, exercise classes:
- 2015: Introduction to the IDP knowledge base system
- 2014-2015 Introduction to Programming: Python
- 2010-2013 Introduction to Programming: C
Utrecht University
- Undergraduate program Philosophy, tutorials:
- 2018-2019: Logic for Philosophers
- 2018-2019: Epistemology and Philosophy of Science
- 2019: Philosophical Reflection on Scientific Models of Man
- Undergraduate program Artificial Intelligence, lectures:
- 2018: Introduction to Statistics
- Master in Artificial Intelligence, tutorials:
- Master in Artificial Intelligence, two guest lectures:
- 2018-2019: Philosophy of AI