Abstract
The motivation to do philosophy seems to come from a need to grasp the most basic, the most general, features of the intelligible world. During the last half century, an increasingly encompassing perspective has developed due to this motivation. Theory of reference began as a comparatively narrow and specialized examination of elementary linguistic forms, such as definite descriptions and proper names. Much work in theory of reference still reflects this focus. At the same time, there is a growing realization in technical literature in the field that referring is not wholly reducible to linguistic mechanisms. Without a wide range of abilities to refer, we would be bereft of thoughts, memories, and sensations: The world as we perceive it, remember it, and conceptualize it would, in the absence of appropriate referring capacities, collapse into impossibility. All that we are, have been, and would be receives its form and sense in terms of a multitude of ways of referring which together make it possible for our individual worlds to possess an order, for us to contact others, interpret events, and identify a structure of common experience.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Paul Lorenzen, Normative Logic and Ethics,Bibliographisches Institut, 1969, p. 14. See also his conception of operative logic in Einführung in die operative Logik und Mathematik,Springer Verlag, 1969.
See citations under ‘Bartlett’ in the Bibliography. (This is a variety of self-reference not mentioned in this introduction.)
To this author, these experiments appear, in an almost obvious way, to point toward the relevance of a metalogical analysis of preconditions of possible quantum measurement of (i.e., reference to) the microevents in question.
Cf. Steven J. Bartlett, “Self-reference, Phenomenology, and Philosophy of Science”, Methodology and Science, 13, 3, (1980) 143–167.
See, e.g., the essay by Graham Priest in this volume.
Wilfred Eade Agar, A Contribution to the Theory of the Living Organism, Melbourne University Press, 1943. See also Ludwig Bertalanffy, Modern Theories of Development: An Introduction to Theoretical Biology, trans. by J.H. Woodger, Oxford University Press, 1933;
John Richard Gregg, ed., Form and Strategy in Science,D. Reidel, 1964;
Joseph Henry Woodger, The Axiomatic Method in Biology, Cambridge University Press, 1937, and Biological Principles: A Critical Study, K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1929 ).
See Steven J. Bartlett, “Philosophy as Ideology”, Metaphilosophy, 17, 1 (1986) 1–13.
For further information, see the section “Reflexivity in Law” in the Bibliography.
Kenneth J. Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values, Wiley, 1951;
Collected Papers,Harvard University Press, 1983;
Social Choice and Justice, Harvard University Press, 1983. See also John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, Princeton University Press, 1947;
R. Duncan Luce and Howard Raiffa, Games and Decisions, Wiley 1957.
Benjamin Lee Whorf, “Langage, Mind and Reality”, ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, 9, 3 (1952) 177.
For works describing these, see the Bibliography, “Reflexivity in Literature”.
In Max Beerbohm’s Seven Men,William Heinemann, 1926 (first published in 1919), pp. 3–48.
Allen Wheelis, M.D., How People Change, Harper and Row, 1973, p. 105.
See Steven J. Bartlett, “Narcissism and Philosophy”, Methodology and Science, 19, 1 (1986) 16–26.
Allen Fay, Making Things Better by Making Them Worse,Hawthorne Books, 1978.
See, e.g., Richard Wesley Hamming, Coding and Information Theory, Prentice-Hall, 1980;
Claude E. Shannon, The Mathematical Theory of Communication, University of Illinois Press, 1949;
Steven J. Bartlett, “Lower Bounds of Ambiguity and Redundancy”, Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences, 4, 1–4 (1978) 37–48.
See Paul Greguis, ed., Holography in Medicine,IPC Science and Technology Press, 1976;
Karl H. Pribram, Languages of the Brain: Experimental Paradoxes and Principles in Neurophysiology, Prentice-Hall, 1971.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1987 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bartlett, S.J. (1987). Varieties of Self-Reference. In: Bartlett, S.J., Suber, P. (eds) Self-Reference. Martinus Nijhoff Philosophy Library, vol 21. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3551-8_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3551-8_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-8088-0
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-3551-8
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive