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C00002 00002	%common[e89,jmc]		What is common sense?
C00004 00003	\smallskip\centerline{Copyright \copyright\ 1989\ by John McCarthy}
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%common[e89,jmc]		What is common sense?
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\title{What is Common Sense?}

	In 1958 I gave a lecture entitled ``Programs with Common
Sense'' (McCarthy 1959) in which I claimed that the key problem
for AI was to understand common sense well enough to make
programs that have it.  This paper also advocated formalizing
common sense knowledge and reasoning in mathematical logic and
gave a few informal examples of the logical expression of facts
and of logical reasoning applied to common sense.  This activity
was well regarded but not emulated much for a long time, because
it proved very difficult.  Specifically, no-one succeeded in
writing down the facts of common sense knowledge in a form
that was logical, plausible and reasonably general.

	Since the late 1970, with the discovery of formalized
nonmonotonic reasoning, the problem has become easier, some
progress has been made and some tens of people are working on
the problem.

	The object of this paper is to try to pin down what
common sense is.
\smallskip\centerline{Copyright \copyright\ 1989\ by John McCarthy}
\smallskip\noindent{This draft of COMMON[E89,JMC]\ TEXed on \jmcdate\ at \theTime}
%File originated on 04-Sep-89
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