We explore the problems that confront any attempt to explain or explicate exactly what a primitive logical rule of inference is, or consists in. We arrive at a proposed solution that places a surprisingly heavy load on the prospect of being able to understand and deal with specifications of rules that are essentially self-referring. That is, any rule $\rho $ is to be understood via a specification that involves, embedded within it, reference to rule $\rho $ itself. Just how we arrive at this position is explained by reference to familiar rules as well as less familiar ones with unusual features. An inquiry of this kind is surprisingly absent from the foundations of inferentialism—the view that meanings of expressions (especially logical ones) are to be characterized by the rules of inference that govern them.

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什么是推理规则？

我们探索任何试图准确解释或解释推理的原始逻辑规则所面临的问题是， 要么在由. 我们得出了一个提议的解决方案，该解决方案对能够理解和处理本质上是自指. 也就是说，任何规则$\rho $应通过规范来理解，规范中包含对规则的引用$\rho $本身。通过参考熟悉的规则以及不太熟悉的具有不寻常特征的规则来解释我们如何到达这个位置。令人惊讶的是，推理主义的基础缺乏这种探究——即表达的意义（尤其是逻辑意义）的特征在于支配它们的推理规则。