# Integrating Causal Reasoning into Automated Fact-Checking

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.13286 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.13286/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 8 of its 20 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 15 Dec 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/lr/reasoning-benchmarks-and-evaluation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [Sentence-BERT: Sentence Embeddings using Siamese BERT-Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.10084/) (2019)
- [Phi-3 Technical Report: A Highly Capable Language Model Locally on Your Phone](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.14219/) (2024)
- [A Survey on Automated Fact-Checking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.11896/) (2021)
- [AVeriTeC: A Dataset for Real-world Claim Verification with Evidence from the Web](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.13117/) (2023)
- [Generating Fact Checking Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.05773/) (2020)
- [DeClarE: Debunking Fake News and False Claims using Evidence-Aware Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.06416/) (2018)
- [Explainable Automated Fact-Checking: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.03870/) (2020)
- [CHECKWHY: Causal Fact Verification via Argument Structure](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.10918/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In fact-checking applications, a common reason to reject a claim is to detect the presence of erroneous cause-effect relationships between the events at play. However, current automated fact-checking methods lack dedicated causal-based reasoning, potentially missing a valuable opportunity for semantically rich explainability. To address this gap, we propose a methodology that combines event relation extraction, semantic similarity computation, and rule-based reasoning to detect logical inconsistencies between chains of events mentioned in a claim and in an evidence. Evaluated on two fact-checking datasets, this method establishes the first baseline for integrating fine-grained causal event relationships into fact-checking and enhance explainability of verdict prediction.