Self-Reference

Self-reference, although a topic studied by some philosophers and known to a number of other disciplines, has received comparatively little explicit attention. For the most part the focus of studies of self-reference has been on its logical and linguistic aspects, with perhaps disproportionate emphasis placed on the reflexive paradoxes. The eight-volume Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy, for example, does not contain a single entry in its index under "self-reference", and in connection with "reflexivity" mentions only "relations", "classes", and "sets". Yet, in this volume, the introductory essay identifies some 75 varieties and occurrences of self-reference in a wide range of disciplines, and the bibliography contains more than 1,200 citations to English language works about reflexivity. The contributed papers investigate a number of forms and applications of self-reference, and examine some of the challenges posed by its difficult temperament. The editors hope that readers of this volume will gain a richer sense of the sti11largely unexplored frontiers of reflexivity, and of the indispensability of reflexive concepts and methods to foundational inquiries in philosophy, logic, language, and into the freedom, personality and intelligence of persons.

Contenu

Self-Reference: Reflections on Reflexivity.- Varieties of Self-Reference.- I: Informal Reflections.- Self-Reference and Meaning in a Natural Language.- Logical Rudeness.- The Pragmatic Paradox.- The Irreflexivity of Knowledge.- Argumentum ad Hominem With and Without Self-Reference Douglas Odegard.- II: Formal Reflections.- Formalized Self-Reference.- Quotation and Self-Reference.- Unstable Solutions to the Liar Paradox.- III: Specific Reflections.- Causation and Self-Reference.- Is Determinism Self-Refuting?.- The Equivocation Defense of Cognitive Relativism.- The Role of Retortion in the Cognitional Analyses of Lonergan and Polanyi.- Reflexivity and the Decentered Self.- IV: Bibliography.- A Bibliography of Works on Reflexivity.- About the Authors.