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.cb TOWARDS A SCIENCE OF COMMON SENSE


	This article is based on the view that another large part of
philosophy can be and should be converted into a science, and
part of it can be a science of %2common sense%1.
What we hope for is analogous to the separation of physics
from philosophy in the seventeenth century and the separation
of psychology in the nineteenth, but we are hoping for something
more fundamental, because the problems we hope to treat scientifically are
closer to the core of philosopy than those treated by either
physics or psychology.
When it becomes a science, it will make steady progress, and even
revolutionary new ideas will subsume old ones as Einstein's ideas
subsumed Newton's.

	Since we don't agree with the majority opinion that the most
important philosophical problems cannot be treated scientifically, we must
offer some excuse as to why two thousand years haven't sufficed to make
philosophy scientific.
In the first place, philosophical problems are difficult and require mathematical
and logical techniques that have been developed recently and
require further development for their full philosophical application.
Second philosophy is often invaded by ideology which weighs ideas for
their emotional content rather than singlemindedly searching for truth, or
worse yet, evaluates them according to their utility in supporting
various claims for political power.

	Before advancing specific ideas, we shall remark that now
may be a favorable time for philosophy to become a science, because
new tools have become available from mathematical logic and
artificial intelligence, and because the irrationalist excesses of
recent intellectual fashion are exciting a counter trend that is
ready to seek truth by scientific methods whereever they may lead.

	Many readers will be irritated by the assumption of the
preceding paragraphs that there is an objective truth to be sought.
This view will be partially substantiated by the rest of this
paper that will partially characterize what we are seeking.  However,
the rest is offered on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.  Some will agree
for their own reasons, others will read on to see what comes of it,
some will read to look for refutations, and others will be so sure
that the existence of %2objective truth%1 must be settled before
it is meaningful to seek it that they will stop now.  Goodbye!  See
you later.

	Why should there be a science of common sense, and why should
it be part of philosophy?  We begin with %2common sense physics%1, and
we compare it with the %2scientific physics%1 of the physicists.

	Suppose that a full coffee pot, sitting on a large seminar table
surrounded by physicists specializing in hydrodynamics, happens to tip
over.  Some of the physicists will jump aside to avoid being scalded,
others will try to rescue papers from the table, and still others will
judge themselves too far from the spill to be affected or to affect it.
Approximately the same events could occur at a seminar of
phenomenologists.  We shall call the knowledge that governed the emergency
action %2common sense hydrodynamics%1, and we are interested in its
relation to %2scientific hydrodynamics%1.
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John McCarthy
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Computer Science Department
Stanford University
Stanford, California 94305

ARPANET: MCCARTHY@SU-AI
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