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Distributed for Center for the Study of Language and Information

Reflection in Rewriting Logic

Metalogical Foundations and Metaprogramming Applications

Reflection, the capacity to represent our ideas and to make them the object of our own thoughts, has for many centuries been recognized as a key mark of human intelligence. The very success and extension of reflective ideas in logic and computer science underscores the need for conceptual foundations.

This book proposes a general theory of reflective logics and reflective declarative programming languages. This theory provides a conceptual foundation for judging the extent to which a computational system is reflective. Manuel Clavel presents a proof of the reflective nature of rewriting logic and provides examples of the potential for reflective programming in a number of novel computer applications. These applications are implemented in Maude, a reflective programming language and environment based on rewriting logic that can define, represent and execute a breadth of logics, languages and models of computation. A general method to easily build theorem-proving tools in Maude is also proposed and illustrated. The book goes on to promote the notion of a "universal theory" that can simulate the deductions of all representable theories within any given logic.

216 pages | © 2000

Language and Linguistics: Formal Logic and Computational Linguistics

Philosophy: Logic and Philosophy of Language


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