The paper "Some Philosophical Problems from the Standpoint of Artificial Intelligence" by John McCarthy and Patrick J. Hayes explores the philosophical underpinnings of artificial intelligence (AI). The authors argue that designing an intelligent computer program requires a general representation of the world and a formalization of concepts such as causality, ability, and knowledge. They propose a metaphysically and epistemologically adequate representation of the world using a system of interacting automata, which allows for the formalization of these concepts. The first part of the paper discusses the philosophical questions that arise in AI, including the need for a clear understanding of what intelligence is and how it can be achieved. It introduces the concept of a reasoning program (RP) and the Missouri program (MP), which focuses on the epistemological aspects of AI. The authors define three types of adequacy for representations of the world: metaphysically adequate, epistemologically adequate, and heuristically adequate. The second part of the paper presents a formalism for constructing an epistemologically adequate system. It introduces the notions of situations, fluents, causality, actions, and strategies. Fluents are functions that describe properties of situations, and causality is expressed using a fluent *F* that asserts that one situation will follow another. Actions are represented using the situational fluent *result*, and strategies are combinations of actions. The authors provide examples of how these concepts can be used to describe and reason about actions and their outcomes. The third part discusses open problems in extending the formalism, while the fourth part reviews work in philosophical logic and previous efforts to program general intelligence. The paper concludes by emphasizing the importance of philosophical considerations in AI research and the need for a clear understanding of the philosophical problems that arise in the field.The paper "Some Philosophical Problems from the Standpoint of Artificial Intelligence" by John McCarthy and Patrick J. Hayes explores the philosophical underpinnings of artificial intelligence (AI). The authors argue that designing an intelligent computer program requires a general representation of the world and a formalization of concepts such as causality, ability, and knowledge. They propose a metaphysically and epistemologically adequate representation of the world using a system of interacting automata, which allows for the formalization of these concepts. The first part of the paper discusses the philosophical questions that arise in AI, including the need for a clear understanding of what intelligence is and how it can be achieved. It introduces the concept of a reasoning program (RP) and the Missouri program (MP), which focuses on the epistemological aspects of AI. The authors define three types of adequacy for representations of the world: metaphysically adequate, epistemologically adequate, and heuristically adequate. The second part of the paper presents a formalism for constructing an epistemologically adequate system. It introduces the notions of situations, fluents, causality, actions, and strategies. Fluents are functions that describe properties of situations, and causality is expressed using a fluent *F* that asserts that one situation will follow another. Actions are represented using the situational fluent *result*, and strategies are combinations of actions. The authors provide examples of how these concepts can be used to describe and reason about actions and their outcomes. The third part discusses open problems in extending the formalism, while the fourth part reviews work in philosophical logic and previous efforts to program general intelligence. The paper concludes by emphasizing the importance of philosophical considerations in AI research and the need for a clear understanding of the philosophical problems that arise in the field.