COMMENT ⊗   VALID 00002 PAGES
C REC  PAGE   DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002	nonmon[w85,jmc]		Article for Scientific American on non-monotonic reasoning
C00004 ENDMK
C⊗;
nonmon[w85,jmc]		Article for Scientific American on non-monotonic reasoning

Dear Mr. Flanagan:

	Non-monotonic reasoning is a subject that has been studied
by artificial intelligence researchers for about the last ten years.
I believe the results that have been obtained will be of interest
to Scientific American readers.  Moreover, they are more accessible,
if well explained, to a lay scientific reader than many of the
topics treated in Scientific American.

	Besides my general qualification to write about AI, I am
the originator of one of the three approaches to formalizing
non-monotonic reasoning.  Mine is called circumscription, and is
perhaps the most popular currently.

	The general ideas of non-monotonic reasoning are elaborated
in the non-mathematical sections of my 1980 paper which is enclosed.
However, a capsule summary may be useful.