Raymond Smullyan on Self Reference

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.

Melvin Fitting began his scientific career in 1968 and became Professor Emeritus in 2013, working for the entire time at the City University of New York. His work as a logician has included set theory, automated theorem proving, computer language semantics, and philosophical logic. Some of his books in these areas are well known, while others are not as well known as he would like. Following the example of his thesis advisor, Raymond Smullyan, retirement has not meant the end of a research career.