•  3255
    Reflexivity: a source-book in self-reference (edited book)
    Distributors for the U.S. and Canada, Elsevier Science Pub. Co.. 1992.
    From the Editor’s Introduction: "The Internal Limitations of Human Understanding." 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 specula…Read more
  •  207
    The Theory of Chaos (review)
    Methodology and Science: Interdisciplinary Journal for the Empirical Study of the Foundations of Science and Their Methodology 21 (4): 300-303. 1988.
    A review of James Glieck's _Chaos: Making a New Science_, noting how nonmonotonic functions self-referentially take on their own values and lead to complexity without randomness.
  •  26
    A review and discussion of Robert E. Butts and Jaakko Hintikka's edited collection "Historical and Philosophical Dimensions of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science."
  •  724
    The species problem and its logic: Inescapable ambiguity and framework-relativity
    Willamette University Faculty Research Website, ArXiv.Org, and Cogprints.Org. 2015.
    For more than fifty years, taxonomists have proposed numerous alternative definitions of species while they searched for a unique, comprehensive, and persuasive definition. This monograph shows that these efforts have been unnecessary, and indeed have provably been a pursuit of a will o’ the wisp because they have failed to recognize the theoretical impossibility of what they seek to accomplish. A clear and rigorous understanding of the logic underlying species definition leads both to a recogni…Read more
  •  368
    Phenomenology of the Implicit
    Dialectica 29 (2‐3): 173-188. 1975.
    This paper marks a juncture between the author’s studies in phenomenology and the transition he made to a study of what he has called a “metalogic of reference.” Published in 1974 in Polish translation, followed by its publication in English in 1975, “Phenomenology of the Implicit” describes the author’s “translation schema” that permits certain of the central goals of Husserlian transcendental philosophy to be transposed to a framework that studies the preconditions of valid reference. The resu…Read more
  •  67
    "Philosophy and Language," by Steven Davis (review)
    Modern Schoolman 54 (4): 406-406. 1977.
  •  17
    "Logic: Depth Grammar of Rationality," by Patrick K. Bastable (review)
    Modern Schoolman 54 (4): 401-402. 1977.
  •  831
    The Worldview of Phenomenology
    Willamette University Faculty Research Website. 1969/2017.
    An invited High Table Address given before the students and faculty of Raymond College, University of the Pacific, Stockton, California, December 10, 1969. An impressionistic and idealistic paper from the author’s youth suggesting how his _de-projective approach to phenomenology_ could lead to an actual, lived, worldview.
  •  195
    Théorie de la relativité de la constitution phénoménologique
    Dissertation, Universite de Paris X (Paris-Nanterre) (France). 1970.
    This is Vol. I in French. Vol. II in English is available separately from this website. The principal objective of the work is to construct an analytically precise methodology which can serve to identify, eliminate, and avoid a certain widespread conceptual fault or misconstruction, called a "projective misconstruction" or "projection" by the author. It is argued that this variety of error in our thinking (i) infects a great number of our everyday, scientific, and philosophical concepts, claim…Read more
  •  145
    A Technique for Determing Closure in Semantic Tableaux
    Methodology and Science: Interdisciplinary Journal for the Empirical Study of the Foundations of Science and Their Methodology 16 (1): 1-16. 1983.
    The author considers the model-theoretic character of proofs and disproofs by means of attempted counterexample constructions, distinguishes this proof format from formal derivations, then contrasts two approaches to semantic tableaux proposed by Beth and Lambert-van Fraassen. It is noted that Beth's original approach has not as yet been provided with a precisely formulated rule of closure for detecting tableau sequences terminating in contradiction. To remedy this deficiency, a technique is pro…Read more
  •  304
    Fenomenologia tego, co implikowane
    Roczniki Filozoficzne 22 (1): 73. 1974.
    [A Polish translation of Steven James Bartlett, “Phenomenology of the Implicit,” Dialectica: Revue international de philosophie de la connaissance, Vol. 29, Nos. 2-3, 1975, pp. 173-188.] This paper marks a juncture between the author’s studies in phenomenology and the transition he made to a study of what he has called a “metalogic of reference.” Published in 1974 in Polish translation, followed by its publication in English in 1975, “Phenomenology of the Implicit” describes the author’s “transl…Read more
  •  1174
    Free Choice: A Self-referential Argument - book review (review)
    Review of Metaphysics (4): 738-740. 1979.
    A book review of _Free Choice: A Self-referential Argument_ by J. M. Boyle, Jr., G. Grisez, and O. Tollefsen. The review concerns the pragmatical self-referential argument employed in the book, and points to the fact that the argument is itself self-referentially inconsistent, but on the level of metalogical self-reference.
  •  3349
    Philosophy as ideology
    Metaphilosophy 17 (1). 1986.
    The psychological-ideological roots of philosophy. ●●●●● 2022 UPDATE: The approach of this paper has been updated and developed further in Chapters 1 and 2 of the author’s 2021 book _Critique of Impure Reason: Horizons of Possibility and Meaning_. The book is available both in a printed edition (under ISBN 978-0-578-88646-6 from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and other booksellers) and an Open Access eBook edition (available through Philpapers under the book’s title and other philosophy online archive…Read more
  •  14
    "Explanation," ed. Stephan Körner (review)
    Modern Schoolman 54 (4): 413-414. 1977.
    This volume brings together four papers by Peter Achinstein, Peter Geach, Wesley Salmon, and J. L. Mackie. Achinstein's paper Is "The Object of Explanation"; Geach's is "Teleological Explanation"; Salmon's is "Theoretical Explanation"; and Mackie's is "Ideological Explanation." /// This review summarizes each author's claims.
  •  197
    Phenomenology and New Rhetoric
    Willamette University Faculty Research Website. 1970/2014.
    This monograph has three purposes. It attempts first to describe in general terms methods of investigation proper to strict phenomenology and to new rhetoric. Second, it describes certain recent developments by the author that lead to a de-projective approach to phenomenology and which are of potential significance in a variety of areas of study, including new rhetoric. Finally, suggestions are made with a view to bringing portions of rigorous phenomenology into close connection with certain of …Read more
  •  382
    A RELATIVISTIC THEORY OF PHENOMENOLOCICAL CONSTITUTION: A SELF-REFERENTIAL, TRANSCENDENTAL APPROACH TO CONCEPTUAL PATHOLOGY. (Vol. I: French; Vol. II: English) Steven James Bartlett Doctoral dissertation director: Paul Ricoeur, Université de Paris Other doctoral committee members: Jean Ladrière and Alphonse de Waehlens, Université Catholique de Louvain Defended publically at the Université Catholique de Louvain, January, 1971. Universite de Paris X (France), 1971. 797pp. The principal objective…Read more
  •  118
    A review and discussion of Robert S. Cohen's edited collection, "Essays in Memory of Imre Lakatos."
  •  1348
    This essay revisits the topic of how we should measure the things that matter, at a time when we continue to mismeasure our lives, as we hold fast to outworn myths of usefulness, popularity, and the desire to influence others. /// Three central, unquestioned presumptions have come to govern much of contemporary society, education, and the professions. They are: the high value placed on usefulness, on the passion to achieve popularity, and on the desire to influence others. In this essay, the …Read more
  •  683
    A study of the psychology of demoralization affecting university faculty in the liberal arts. This form of demoralization is not adequately understood in terms of the concept of career burnout. Instead, demoralization that affects university faculty in the liberal arts requires a broadened understanding of the historical and psychological situation in which these professors find themselves today.
  •  259
    The loss of permanent realities: Demoralization of university faculty in the liberal arts
    Methodology and Science: Interdisciplinary Journal for the Empirical Study of the Foundations of Science and Their Methodology 27 (1): 25-39. 1994.
    This paper examines a largely unrecognized mental disorder that is essentially a disability of values. It is their daily contact with this pathology that leads many university liberal arts faculty to demoralization. The deeply rooted disparity between the world of the traditional liberal arts scholar and today’s college students is not simply a gulf across which communication is difficult, but rather involves a pathological impairment in the majority of students that stems from an exclusionary f…Read more
  •  708
    Acedia: The Etiology of Work-engendered Depression
    New Ideas in Psychology 8 (3): 389-396. 1990.
    There has been a general failure among mental health theorists and social psychologists to understand the etiology of work-engendered depression. Yet the condition is increasingly prevalent in highly industrialized societies, where an exclusionary focus upon work, money, and the things that money can buy has displaced values that traditionally exerted a liberating and humanizing influence. Social critics have called the result an impoverishment of the spirit, a state of cultural bankruptcy, and …Read more
  •  338
    Barbarians at the Door: A Psychological and Historical Profile of Today's College Students
    Methodology and Science: Interdisciplinary Journal for the Empirical Study of the Foundations of Science and Their Methodology 26 (1): 18-40. 1993.
    A psychological and historical study of college students from the standpoint of the psychology and history of American higher education and of liberal arts values.
  •  374
    Lower Bounds of Ambiguity and Redundancy
    Poznań Studies in the Philosophy of Science 4 (1-4): 37-48. 1978.
    The elimination of ambiguity and redundancy are unquestioned goals in the exact sciences, and yet, as this paper shows, there are inescapable lower bounds that constrain our wish to eliminate them. The author discusses contributions by Richard Hamming (inventor of the Hamming code) and Satosi Watanabe (originator of the Theorems of the Ugly Duckling). Utilizing certain of their results, the author leads readers to recognize the unavoidable, central roles in effective communication, of redundancy…Read more
  •  209
    Towards a Unified Concept of Reality
    ETC: A Review of General Semantics 32 (1): 43-49. 1975.
    This is a study of the relativity of facts in relation to the frameworks of reference in terms of which those facts are established. In this early paper from 1975, intended for a less technical audience, the author proposes an understanding of facts and their associated frameworks in terms of complementarity. This understanding of facts leads to an integrated yet pluralistic concept of reality. In the Addendum, readers will find a partial listing of related publications by the author that extend…Read more
  •  614
    A combined psychological-epistemological study of the blocks that stand in the way of the human recognition of the sentience and legal rights of non-human animals. Originally published in the Lewis and Clark law journal, Animal Law, and subsequently translated into German and into Portuguese.
  •  860
    Paratheism: A Proof that God neither Exists nor Does Not Exist
    Willamette University Faculty Research Website: Http://Www.Willamette.Edu/~Sbartlet/Documents/Bartlett_Paratheism_A%20Proof%20that%20God%20neither%20Exists%20nor%20Does%20Not%20Exist.Pdf. 2016.
    Theism and its cousins, atheism and agnosticism, are seldom taken to task for logical-epistemological incoherence. This paper provides a condensed proof that not only theism, but atheism and agnosticism as well, are all of them conceptually self-undermining, and for the same reason: All attempt to make use of the concept of “transcendent reality,” which here is shown not only to lack meaning, but to preclude the very possibility of meaning. In doing this, the incoherence of theism, atheism, and …Read more
  •  731
    NOTE TO THE READER - December, 2021 ●●●●● After a long period of time devoted to research in other areas, the author returned to the subject of this paper in a book-length study, CRITIQUE OF IMPURE REASON: Horizons of Possibility and Meaning. In this book (Chapter 11, “The Metalogic of Meaning”), the position developed in the 1982 paper, "Referential Consistency as a Criterion of Meaning", has been substantively revised and several important corrections made. It is recommended that readers rea…Read more
  •  495
    The Ecological Pathology of Man
    Mentalities/Mentalités: An Interdisciplinary Journal 20 (2): 1-18. 2006.
    This paper, "The Ecological Pathology of Man," is an expanded excerpt from the author's book, "The Pathology of Man: A Study of Human Evil." ¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶ When taken as a serious and dispassionate object of study from the standpoint of the science of pathology, the human species is easily recognized as a global pathogen. Incontrovertible evidence on all sides tells us this, and yet we have steadfastly avoided an honest look in the mirror. We so often choose—willfully and with strong convictions sust…Read more
  •  400
    Conviction and Rationality
    Willamette University Faculty Research Website. 2016.
    A short paper presented before the Fellows of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions during the academic year 1969-70, with an Introductory Note written nearly 50 years later. The paper describes the author's enduring personal philosophical precept; it is also an implicit encomium to individuals whose psychology establishes a dependable bridge between their rational convictions and their conduct.
  •  545
    The Idea of a Metalogic of Reference
    Methodology and Science: Interdisciplinary Journal for the Empirical Study of the Foundations of Science and Their Methodology 9 (3): 85-92. 1976.
    This paper sought to state in a concise and comparatively informal, unsystematic, and more accessible form the more technical approach the author developed during a research fellowship in 1974-75 at the Max-Planck-Institut in Starnberg, Germany. ●●●●● The ideas presented in this paper are more fully developed in later publications by the author which are listed in the two-page addendum to this paper. ●●●●● UPDATED NOTE TO THE READER - December, 2021 ●●●●● Readers will find a more fully develope…Read more