Commonsense Reasoning

Preface

Commonsense reasoning is the sort of reasoning we all perform about the everyday world. We can predict that, if a person enters a kitchen, then afterward the person will be in the kitchen. Or that, if someone who is holding a newspaper walks into a kitchen, then the newspaper will be in the kitchen. Because we make inferences such as these so easily, we might get the impression that commonsense reasoning is a simple thing. But it is very complex.

Reasoning about the world requires a large amount of knowledge about the world and the ability to use that knowledge. We know that a person cannot be in two places at once, that a person can move from one location to another by walking, and that an object moves along with a person holding it. ...