Semiotics has had a profound impact on our comprehension of a wide range of phenomena, from how animals signify and communicate, to how people read TV commercials. This series features books on semiotic theory and applications of that theory to understanding media, language, and related subjects. The series publishes scholarly monographs of wide appeal to students and interested non-specialists as well as scholars. AAS is a peer-reviewed series of international scope.

This book investigates how the media have become self-referential or self-reflexive instead of mediating between the real or fictional worlds about which their messages pretend to be and between the audience that they wish to inform, counsel, or entertain. The concept of self-reference is viewed very broadly. Self-reflexivity, metatexts, metapictures, metamusic, metacommunication, as well as intertextual, and intermedial references are all conceived of as forms of self-reference, although to different degrees and levels. The contributions focus on the semiotic foundations of reference and self-reference, discuss the transdisciplinary context of self-reference in postmodern culture, and examine original studies from the worlds of print advertising, photography, film, television, computer games, media art, web art, and music. A wide range of different media products and topics are discussed including self-promotion on TV, the TV show Big Brother, the TV format "historytainment," media nostalgia, the documentation of documentation in documentary films, Marilyn Monroe in photographs, humor and paradox in animated films, metacommunication in computer games, metapictures, metafiction, metamusic, body art, and net art.

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.

Rich in precursors (Kant and Frege) and stimulated by Castañeda’s study in the logic of self-consciousness and Shoemaker’s seminal paper ‘Self-reference and self-awareness’, the work of the past thirty-five years on self-reference and self-awareness has generated a wealth of deep, sophisticated philosophy. This volume explores the historical anticipations in Kant and Frege, brings four classic contributions together in one place, and offers five new studies. (Series A)

This is not a novel. This is not a short story collection. This is Self-Reference ENGINE. Instructions for Use: Read chapters in order. Contemplate the dreams of twenty-two dead Freuds. Note your position in spacetime at all times (and spaces). Keep an eye out for a talking bobby sock named Bobby Socks. Beware the star-man Alpha Centauri. Remember that the chapter entitled “Japanese” is translated from the Japanese, but should be read in Japanese. Warning: if reading this book on the back of a catfish statue, the text may vanish at any moment, and you may forget that it ever existed. From the mind of Toh EnJoe comes Self-Reference ENGINE, a textual machine that combines the rigor of Stanislaw Lem with the imagination of Jorge Luis Borges. Do not operate heavy machinery for one hour after reading. -- VIZ Media

It is Sunday, the 7th of September 1930. The place is Konigsberg and the occasion is a small conference on the foundations of mathematics. Arend Heyting, the foremost disciple of L. E. J. Brouwer, has spoken on intuitionism; Rudolf Carnap of the Vienna Circle has expounded on logicism; Johann (formerly Janos and in a few years to be Johnny) von Neumann has explained Hilbert's proof theory-- the so-called formalism; and Hans Hahn has just propounded his own empiricist views of mathematics. The floor is open for general discussion, in the midst of which Heyting announces his satisfaction with the meeting. For him, the relationship between formalism and intuitionism has been clarified: There need be no war between the intuitionist and the formalist. Once the formalist has successfully completed Hilbert's programme and shown "finitely" that the "idealised" mathematics objected to by Brouwer proves no new "meaningful" statements, even the intuitionist will fondly embrace the infinite. To this euphoric revelation, a shy young man cautions~ "According to the formalist conception one adjoins to the meaningful statements of mathematics transfinite (pseudo-')statements which in themselves have no meaning but only serve to make the system a well-rounded one just as in geometry one achieves a well rounded system by the introduction of points at infinity.

This book collects, for the first time in one volume, contributions honoring Professor Raymond Smullyan’s work on self-reference. It serves not only as a tribute to one of the great thinkers in logic, but also as a celebration of self-reference in general, to be enjoyed by all lovers of this field. Raymond Smullyan, mathematician, philosopher, musician and inventor of logic puzzles, made a lasting impact on the study of mathematical logic; accordingly, this book spans the many personalities through which Professor Smullyan operated, offering extensions and re-evaluations of his academic work on self-reference, applying self-referential logic to art and nature, and lastly, offering new puzzles designed to communicate otherwise esoteric concepts in mathematical logic, in the manner for which Professor Smullyan was so well known. This book is suitable for students, scholars and logicians who are interested in learning more about Raymond Smullyan's work and life.