Reflexivity. A Source-Book in Self-Reference

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.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Role of Reflexivity in Understanding Human Understanding (Steven J. Bartlett)

Part I: Semantical Self-reference

Paradox (W.V.Quine); The Theory of Types (Paul Weiss); A System which Can Define its Own Truth (John Myhill); Heterologicality (Gilbert Ryle); Some Reflections on Reflexivity (Jørgen Jørgensen); On Non-translational Semantics (R.M. Martin); Languages in which Self-reference Is Possible (Raymond M. Smullyan); On a Family of Paradoxes (A.N. Prior); A Note on Self-referential Statements (Nicolas Rescher); Towards a Solution to the Liar Paradox (Robert L. Martin); Presupposition, Implication, and Self-reference (Bas C. van Fraassen)

Part II: Pragmatical Self-reference

Pragmatic Paradoxes (D.J. O'Connor); Mr. O'Connors's "Pragmatic Paradoxes" (L. Jonathan Cohen); Pragmatic Paradoxes (Peter Alexander); Fugitive Propositions (Austin Duncan-Jones); Pragmatic Paradoxes and Fugitive Propositions (D.J. O'Connor); Pragmatic Implication (C.K. Grant); On Self-reference (W.D. Hart)

Part III: Metalogical Self-reference

Self-reference in Philosophy (Frederick B. Fitch); Universal Metalanguages for Philosophy (Frederick B. Fitch); The Idea of a Metalogic of Reference (Steven J. Bartlett); Referential Consistency as a Criterion of Meaning (Steven J. Bartlett)

Part IV: Computational Self-reference

First Order Theories of Individual Concepts and Propositions (J. McCarthy); Foundations of a Functional Approach to a Knowledge Representation (Hector J. Levesque); A Computational Theory of Belief Introspection (Kurt Konolige); Languages with Self-reference, I: Foundations (Donald Perlis); Languages with Self-reference, II: Knowledge, Belief, and Modality (Donald Perlis)

Part V: Self-referential Argumentation

Cosmic Necessities (Paul Weiss); On the Self-reference of a Meaning Theory (Robert J. Richman); Argumentation and Inconsistency (Henry W. Johnstone, Jr.) ; On Self-reference and a Puzzle in Constitutional Law (Alf Ross); Self-referential Inconsistency, Inevitable Falsity, and Metaphysical Argumentation (Joseph M. Boyle, Jr.)