The formalism of this paper is substantially superseded by that of
Applications of circumscription to formalizing common sense
published in 1986. In particular the latter paper properly treats
variables that are not minimized. References in the literature to
this paper only would better refer to the latter paper in addition or to
the latter paper only.
@article{McC80,
author = "John McCarthy",
title = "Circumscription---A Form of Non-Monotonic Reasoning",
note = {Reprinted in \cite{McC90}},
journal = {Artificial Intelligence},
year = 1980,
volume = 13,
pages = "27--39"}