Report Number: CS-TR-80-788
Institution: Stanford University, Department of Computer Science
Title: Circumscription - a form of non-monotonic reasoning
Author: McCarthy, John
Date: February 1980
Abstract: Humans and intelligent computer programs must often jump to the conclusion that the objects they can determine to have certain properties or relations are the only objects that do. Circumscripion formalizes such conjectural reasoning.
http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/cs/tr/80/788/CS-TR-80-788.pdf