Procedural Reflection in Programming Languages Volume I

Abstract

We show how a computational system can be constructed to "reason," effectively and consequentially, about its own inferential processes. The analysis proceeds in two parts. First, we consider the general question of computational semantics, rejecting traditional approaches, and arguing that the declarative and procedural aspects of computational symbols (what they stand for, and what behaviour they engender) should be analysed independently, in order that they may be coherently related.