Concept

Self-reference

Overview

Self-reference is a concept that involves referring to oneself or one's own attributes, characteristics, or actions. It can occur in language, logic, mathematics, philosophy, and other fields.

In natural or formal languages, self-reference occurs when a sentence, idea or formula refers to itself. The reference may be expressed either directly—through some intermediate sentence or formula—or by means of some encoding.

In philosophy, self-reference also refers to the ability of a subject to speak of or refer to itself, that is, to have the kind of thought expressed by the first person nominative singular pronoun "I" in English.

Self-reference is studied and has applications in mathematics, philosophy, computer programming, second-order cybernetics, and linguistics, as well as in humor. Self-referential statements are sometimes paradoxical, and can also be considered recursive.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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Then follows in the second stage of expression in speech, an analysis of that total idea into its parts, in which these parts are always put into close relations with each other. Such relations are called by grammarians subject and predicate, noun and adjective, verb and adverb, &c. The grammatical meaning of these categories shows clearly that this analysis consists of a system of primary and secondary relations…
Wilhelm Max Wundt, An Introduction to Psychology Translated from the Second German Edition
States what Self-reference is.
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This seems, accordingly, to be the universal practice of all the ancient languages.
Adam Smith, The Essays of Adam Smith
States what Self-reference is.
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Therefore also, simple representation (intuition) is to thinking proper--that is, to knowing by means of abstract conceptions--what willing in itself is to becoming aware of that willing, _i.e._ to consciousness. For this reason, a perfectly clear and distinct consciousness, not only of our own existence but also of the existence of others, only arises with the advent of Reason (the faculty for conceptions), which…
Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature
States what Self-reference is.
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Philosophers who discussed Self-reference

Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

Meta (prefix)

Place in the tradition

Part of American philosophy.

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