News


Fengxiang Cheng 

Ph.D. Candidate at University of Amsterdam
Visiting Ph.D. Student at MBZUAI

Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) at UvA
Machine Learning (ML) Department at MBZUAI

Room F2.08, Building F, Science Park 107, 1098 XG Amsterdam, Netherlands

f.cheng AT uva.nl
• Google Scholar

I pursue my PhD majoring in Logic and AI at University of Amsterdam, where I am fortunate to be supervised by Prof. Robert van Rooij. Before that, I obtained my Master’s degree from Tsinghua University. I was also a visiting Ph.D. Student of Machine Learning Department at MBZUAI supervised by Prof. Kun Zhang and Prof. Mingming Gong, and a Research Intern at Meituan. My research interests include Neuro-Symbolic AI, LLM Logical reasoning, and causal inference. I have several first-author publications appeared in top-tier conferences including IJCAI, AAAI, ACL and EMNLP, some of which have been reported by MIT Technology Review, Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence (CAAI), and front-page coverage by Synced (机器之心). For LLM neuro-symbolic and logical reasoning, I organized AAAI 26 Bridge Program and co-organized ICLR 26 Workshop, also co-hosted IJCAI 25 and AAAI 26 tutorials. In addition, I was selected as a member of IJCAI 25 Doctoral Consortium (only 15 Ph.D. students) and AAAI 26 Doctoral Consortium. Moreover, I participated as principle participant in projects funded by the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (¥3,000,000, No. L257007) and Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission (¥5,000,000, Z251100008425006).

Selected Publications


In the Year of 2026:


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Open-World LLM Logical Reasoning
Ye Mo, Chuan Zhou, Fengxiang Cheng, Jialin Yu, Liangming Pan, Fenrong Liu, Sheng Zhou, Haoxuan Li, Zhouchen Lin, Philip Torr
ICML 2026 (Full, Accepted Rate: 26.6%)

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Text Embedding as Treatment: A Meta Causal Approach for Robust Sentiment Classification
Fengxiang Cheng, Chuan Zhou, Xiang Li, Wenli Wang, Jinkun Chen, Haoxuan Li, Mingming Gong, Kun Zhang
ACL 2026 (Findings, Accepted Rate: 18%)

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Task-Matched Logic Solvers for LLMs: Toward Explainable AI
Fengxiang Cheng, Wei Wang
TOPOI: An International Review of Philosophy (AHCI, JCR Q1, Scopus, 中科院1区Top期刊)

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MAD-Logic: Multi-Agent Debate Enhances Symbolic Translation and Reasoning
Haocheng Yang, Fengxiang Cheng, Tianjun Yao, Mengyue Yang, Jiajun Chai, Xiaohan Wang, Guojun Yin, Wei Lin, Soummya Kar, Fenrong Liu, Haoxuan Li and Yisen Wang
ICLR 2026 (Full, Accepted Rate: 28%)

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LogiConBench: Benchmarking Logical Consistencies of LLMs
Zheng Chen, Chuan Zhou, Fengxiang Cheng, Yip Tin Po, Fenrong Liu, Yisen Wang, Jiajun Chai, Xiaohan Wang, Guojun Yin, Wei Lin, Bo Li, Haoxuan Li and Zhouchen Lin
ICLR 2026 (Full, Accepted Rate: 28%)

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Empowering LLMs with Symbolic Representation and Reasoning
Fengxiang Cheng
AAAI 2026 (Doctoral Consortuim) (Oral)

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Fine-Tuning Sample Order Matters in Propositional Logical Question-Answering
Fengxiang Cheng, Chuan Zhou, Fenrong Liu and Robert Van Rooij
AAAI 2026 (Student Abstract)

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Adaptive Selection of Symbolic Languages for Improving LLM Logical Reasoning
Xiangyu Wang, Haocheng Yang, Fengxiang Cheng* and Fenrong Liu*
AAAI 2026 Workshop on Post-AI Formal Methods    (Oral)    *Corresponding Author

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Enhancing LLMs in Legal Judgment Prediction via Neuro-Symbolic Reasoning
Zhaozuo Liu, Zhengnan Li, Fengxiang Cheng* and Fenrong Liu*
AAAI 2026 Workshop on Language Models for Underserved Communities    * Corresponding Author

In the Year of 2025:


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Empowering LLMs with Logical Reasoning: A Comprehensive Survey
Fengxiang Cheng, Haoxuan Li, Fenrong Liu, Robert van Rooij, Kun Zhang and Zhouchen Lin
IJCAI 2025 (Survey Track, Accepted Rate: 19.6%)    (Oral)

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Mitigating Spurious Correlations via Counterfactual Contrastive Learning
Fengxiang Cheng, Chuan Zhou, Xiang Li, Alina Leidinger, Haoxuan Li, Mingming Gong, Fenrong Liu and Robert Van Rooij
EMNLP 2025 (Findings, Accepted Rate: 39.51%)

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Enhancing the Logical Reasoning Abilities of Large Language Models
Fengxiang Cheng
IJCAI 2025 (Doctoral Consortuim) (Oral)

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Revealing the Limitations of Exploiting Causal Effects to Resolve Linguistic Spurious Correlations
Fengxiang Cheng, Haoxuan Li, Alina Leidinger and Robert van Rooij
AAAI 2025 Workshop on Artificial Intelligence with Causal Techniques

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Efficient First-Order Logic-Based Method for Enhancing Logical Reasoning Capabilities of LLMs
Wanzhen Fu, Haocheng Yang, Fengxiang Cheng* and Fenrong Liu
NeurIPS 2025 Workshop on Foundations of Reasoning in Language Models    * Corresponding Author

Books and Chapters


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Artificial Intelligence Logic (《人工智能逻辑》), edited by Fenrong Liu. Tsinghua University Press, 2025.
Author of the Chapter: "Chapter 14: Large Language Models and Logical Reasoning".
Strategic Emerging Fields "14th Five-Year Plan" Higher Education Textbook Series(战略性新兴领域‘十四五’高等教育系列教材)  

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Nous: Studies in Greco-Roman Philosophy (Series 6), edited by Zhonghe Liang. Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2023.
Translator of the Chapter: "Plotinus on Logos" (L. Gerson).

Tutorials

AAAI 2026 Tutorial on Large Language Models meet Logical Reasoning
Fenrong Liu, Haoxuan Li, Fengxiang Cheng, Chuan Zhou, Mingming Gong and Zhouchen Lin
AAAI 2026    Website   
IJCAI 2025 Tutorial on Empowering LLMs with Logical Reasoning: Challenges, Solutions, and Opportunities
Haoxuan Li, Fengxiang Cheng, Fenrong Liu, Robert van Rooij, Kun Zhang and Zhouchen Lin
IJCAI 2025    Website   

Workshops

IJCAI 2026 Workshop on Logical and Symbolic Reasoning of Large Language Models
Program Chairs: Yisen Wang, Haoxuan Li, Fengxiang Cheng, Chuan Zhou, Fenrong Liu, Mingming Gong, Johan van Benthem and Philip Torr
IJCAI 2026    Website   
ICLR 2026 Workshop on Logical Reasoning of Large Language Models
Organizers: Chuan Zhou, Fengxiang Cheng, Ye Mo, Hao Wang, Licheng Pan, Haocheng Yang and Chunyuan Zheng
ICLR 2026    Website   
AAAI 2026 Bridge Program on Logical and Symbolic Reasoning in Language Models
Organizers: Fengxiang Cheng, Chuan Zhou, Xiang Li, Hao Wang, Yifei Yang, Yifei Yang, Zheng Chen and Haocheng Yang
AAAI 2026    Website   

Patents


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一种增强大语言模型逻辑推理能力的方法和系统
Fenrong Liu, Fengxiang Cheng, Chuan Zhou and Haoxuan Li
Patent Number: ZL 2025 1 1277453.3   

Academic Service


Session Chair: IJCAI 2025

Journal Reviewer: IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE), Transactions on Machine Learning Research (TMLR), Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence (EAAI)

Program Commitee: ICML 2026, NeurIPS 2026, AAAI 2027, ACL 2026

Invited Talk

China University of Political Science and Law, Jimen Logic Forum
Invited by Dr. Jialiang Yan, LLM Logical Reasoning and Applications in Legal Scenarios
Oct 2026
University of Cambridge, CCAIM Machine Learning for Healthcare Summer School 2026
Invited by Dr. Mihaela van der Schaar, Towards LLM Logical Reasoning Evaluation and Improvement
Sep 2026
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Invited by Dr. Qing Jia, Evaluation and Enhancement of Logical Reasoning in LLMs
Sep 2026
Synced (机器之心), Paper Sharing Session
Poster Presentation: Text Embedding as Treatment
Jun 2026
Huang Danian Teahouse (黄大年茶思屋) and Peking University, Paper Sharing Session
Towards LLM Logical Reasoning Evaluation and Improvement
Jun 2026
Tsinghua University, Advances in Logic and Artificial Intelligence Seminar
Invited by Dr. Fenrong Liu, Evaluation and Improvement of Complex Logical Reasoning in LLMs
May 2026
Meituan, Paper Sharing Session
MAD-Logic: Multi-Agent Debate Enhances Symbolic Translation and Reasoning; LogiConBench: Benchmarking Logical Consistencies of LLMs
Mar 2026
Guangdong University of Technology
Invited by Dr. Ruichu Cai, Causal and Logical Reasoning in Large Language Models
Sep 2025
World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC 2025), Elite Debate Session & Top Conference AI Talents Meetup
One of the Panel Chairs at the panel discussion, Closed-door Panel Discussion
Jul 2025
International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AIM 2025), Seattle, USA
Empowering LLMs with Logical Reasoning: A Comprehensive Survey
Jun 2025
Ploutos Research Seminar
Empowering LLMs with Logical Reasoning: A Comprehensive Survey
Jun 2025
Sichuan University, Logic, Cognition and Interaction Seminar
Invited by Dr. Zhaoqing Xu, Empowering LLMs with Logical Reasoning
Mar 2025
Tsinghua University
Norms, Permissions and Obligations: From a Perspective of Dependence
Jun 2024
Tsinghua University, Workshop on Logic, Language, and Meaning (TLLM)
Free Choice Permission under Dependence Logic
Mar 2024

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