A generalization of collapsible cases of circumscription (Q1115424)

Circumscription, proposed by McCarthy as a formalism intended to capture the nonmonotonicity aspects of common-sense reasoning, is a second-order formula expressing the minimality of the extension of a particular predicate or set of predicates. In many cases of interest, as for instance the case of solitary formulas, it is known that circumscription is collapsible to a first-order formula. The paper is aimed to point out a general case when circumscription is collapsible to a first-order formula, most of already known cases being special instances of it.