Abstract.
  It has  been  pointed out  several  times in  the past  that
eleven-dimensional  Chern-Simons  Supergravity  would make  a  natural
candidate for M Theory, due to its appealing good behaviour as a gauge
theory.   However, according  to our  current understanding  of String
Theory and  M Theory, in  that case it  should be possible  to recover
standard Cremmer-Julia-Scherk  Supergravity as  some kind of  limit of
Chern-Simons  Supergravity.  All  efforts  notwithstanding  the  issue
remains  open until  now.   Solving this  problem  turns out  to be  a
relevant consistency  condition, necessary to test whether  in fact, a
Chern-Simons Supergravity  theory could  provide us with  a consistent
action  principle for M Theory.   A possible  solution to  the problem
could be  to compare  not the dynamics  of both theories  but directly
their   action  principles.   Perhaps   standard  supergravity   could
correspond to a sector of a Chern–Simons theory in d = 11, where other
terms in the action could  correspond to higher order corrections in a
lenght parameter.