Reflexivity: a source-book in self-reference

New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Distributors for the U.S. and Canada, Elsevier Science Pub. Co. (1992)
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Abstract

From the Editor’s Introduction: "The Internal Limitations of Human Understanding." We carry, unavoidably, the limits of our understanding with us. We are perpetually confined within the horizons of our conceptual structure. When this structure grows or expands, the breadth of our comprehensions enlarges, but we are forever barred from the wished-for glimpse beyond its boundaries, no matter how hard we try, no matter how much credence we invest in the substance of our learning and mist of speculation. The limitations in view here are not due to the mere finitude of our understanding of ourselves and of the world in which we live. They are limitations that come automatically and necessarily with any form of understanding. They are, as we shall see, part and parcel of any organization or ordering of data that we call information. The consequences of these limitations are varied: As a result of them, hermeneutics cannot help but be hermetic; scientific theories of necessity are circumscribed by the boundaries of the ideas that define them; formal systems must choose between consistency and comprehensiveness; philosophical study, because it includes itself within its own proper subject matter, is forced to be reflexive in its self-enclosure. The fundamental dynamic shared by all forms of understanding testifies to an internal limitative keystone.

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Steven James Bartlett
Willamette University

Citations of this work

Semantics and Truth.Jan Woleński - 2019 - Cham, Switzerland: Springer Verlag.
The species problem and its logic: Inescapable ambiguity and framework-relativity.Steven James Bartlett - 2015 - Willamette University Faculty Research Website, ArXiv.Org, and Cogprints.Org.
A Primer on Bartlett's CRITIQUE OF IMPURE REASON.Steven James Bartlett - 2021 - Willamette Univesity Faculty Research Website.

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References found in this work

From a Logical Point of View.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1953 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Knowledge and belief.Jaakko Hintikka - 1962 - Ithaca, N.Y.,: Cornell University Press.
Uber Sinn und Bedeutung.Gottlob Frege - 1892 - Zeitschrift für Philosophie Und Philosophische Kritik 100 (1):25-50.
On referring.Peter F. Strawson - 1950 - Mind 59 (235):320-344.

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