Human Brain

STEVEN JAMES BARTLETT

Self-reference: Reflections on Reflexivity

Steven J. Bartlett & Peter Suber (Eds.)

Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987. Now published by Springer Science.

 

Self-reference: Reflections on Reflexivity

From the back cover:

 

Even before the early twentieth century, when the first semantic and set-theoretical paradoxes were felt in logic and mathematics, an ever-widening circle of disciplines was affected by problems of self-reference. Problems of self-reference have become important topics in artificial intelligence, in the foundations of mathematics and logic, in the psychology of reflection, self-consciousness, and self-regulation. Epistemology, logic, computer science, information theory, cognitive science, linguistics, legal theory, sociology and anthropology, and even theology have faced explicit self-referential or reflexive challenges to research or doctrine.

 

Self-reference: Reflections on Reflexivity, edited by Steven J. Bartlett and Peter Suber, is the first published collection of essays to give a sense of depth and breadth of current work on this fascinating and important set of issues. The volume contains 13 essays by well-known authors in this field, written on special invitation for this collection. In addition, the book includes the first general bibliography of works on self-reference, comprising more than 1,200 citations.

 

 

CONTENTS

 

Introduction

            Steven J. Bartlett

                        Varieties of Self-reference — to download (932KB) click here

Part I: Informal Reflections

            D. A. Whewell

                        Self-reference and Meaning in a Natural Language

            Peter Suber

                        Logical Rudeness

            Myron Miller

                        The Pragmatic Paradox

            Henry W. Johnstone, Jr.

                        Argumentum ad Hominem with and without Self-reference

            Douglas Odegard

                        The Irreflexivity of Knowledge

Part II: Formal Reflections

            Frederic B. Fitch

                        Formalized Self-reference

            Raymond Smullyan

                        Quotation and Self-reference

            Graham Priest

                        Unstable Solutions to the Liar Paradox

Part III: Specific Reflections

            W. D. Hart

                        Causation and Self-reference

            Joseph M. Boyle, Jr.

                        Is Determinism Self-refuting?

            Olaf Tollefsen

                        The Equivocation Defense of Cognitive Relativism

            Martin X. Moleski, S.J.

                        The Role of Retortion in the Cognitional Analyses of Lonergan and Polanyi

            James E. Swearingen

                        Reflexivity and the Decentered Self

Part IV: Bibliography

            Peter Suber

                        A Bibliography of Works on Reflexivity

          
About the Authors

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