To endow computers with common sense is one of the major long term goals of Artificial Intelligence research. Although we know how to build programs that excel at certain bounded or mechanical tasks which humans find difficult, such as playing chess, we have very little idea how to program computers to do well at commonsense tasks which are easy for humans. One approach to this problem is to formalize commonsense reasoning using mathematical logic. This is the focus of this special issue of Artificial Intelligence.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• change, action, and causality
• ontologies, including space, time, shape, and matter, and ontologies of networks and structures
• levels of granularity of ontology and reasoning
• large commonsense knowledge bases (including work related to the HPKB (High Performance Knowledge Bases) project and the RKF (Rapid Knowledge Formation) project)
• axiomatizations of benchmark commonsense problems (see the Logic Modelling Workshop at http://www.ida.liu.se/ext/etai/lmw/ and the Commonsense Problem Page at http://www-formal.stanford.edu/leora/cs/ for examples)
• exploration of new commmonsense domains in a preformal way: e.g., discussion of new microworlds, benchmark problems, or "drosophila"
• non-monotonic reasoning
• formal models of probabilistic reasoning
• formal theories of context
• mental attitudes including knowledge, belief, intention, and planning
• belief change, update, and revision
• cognitive robotics
• reasoning about multi-agent systems and social interactions among agents
• applications of formal representations to applications, such as natural language processing
• other mathematical tools for capturing common sense reasoning

The focus of the journal issue is on representation rather than on algorithms, and on formal rather than informal methods. Papers should be rigorous and concrete. While mathematical logic is expected to be the primary lingua franca, we also welcome papers using a rigorous but not logic-based representation of commonsense domains, and papers that apply a pre-formal analysis to commonsense problems in a way offers promise of future formalization.

Technical papers offering new results in the area are especially welcome; object level theories as opposed to meta level results are preferred. However, survey papers, papers studying the relationship between different approaches, and papers on methodological issues such as theory evaluation, are also encouraged.

SUBMISSION: Please follow the instructions given on the Artificial Intelligence web page under Guide for Authors. When submitting the manuscript to Jennet Batten , please include a cover note indicating that this paper is submitted for the special issue on "Logical Formalisms for Common Sense Reasoning."

Submission deadline: November 15, 2001

Editors of the special issue:
Ernest Davis, New York University, davise@cs.nyu.edu
Leora Morgenstern, IBM Watson Labs, leora@steam.stanford.edu