Paradox of Self-Amendment by Peter Suber I follow the practice of American philosophers and Britons generally in using exact quotation. Except in bibliographic citations, commas and periods are included inside quotation marks only when they are part of the quoted source. I would like to use sex-neutral language. But I find "she or he" and "his/her" to be barbaric constructions, and I cannot always arrange to use plurals and hide behind "they" and "them". My solution is to use "she" and "her" as generic pronouns; this is not sex-neutral, but it is compensatory. If we do this for a few centuries, then we can switch back. Or perhaps by then English will have acquired an elegant set of neutral personal pronouns. I have tried to use legal Latin as little as possible. But when a Latin phrase, once learned, frees one from long, awkward, or imprecise paraphrase, then I use it. Phrases used just once are defined in context. Here is a quick glossary of those used more often: ab initio From the beginning. A statute or marriage is void ab initio if some defect in its creation means that it was never legally valid. de jure Officially, overtly, legally. A method of amendment is lawful de jure if it is recognized, say, in the constitution or a judicial interpretation of the constitution. de facto In fact, in practice. A method of amendment is lawful de facto if it is actually used or accepted, even if it violates the letter of the law. ex proprio vigore By its own strength. Contracts or revolutions make law ex proprio vigore if their law-making power need not be recognized by some (other) law to be effective. lex posterior principle The "later law" principle. In an irreconcilable conflict between rules of the same legal rank, this principle tells us to favor the most recent rule. lex specialis principle The "specific law" principle. Like the lex posterior principle, but favoring the more specific of the conflicting rules. lex superior principle The "superior law" principle. In cases of irreconcilable conflict between rules, this principle tells us to favor the rule of superior rank (for example, constitutional rules over statutes) regardless of recency or specificity. pro tanto For so much, in part, to that extent. Rule A repeals rule B pro tanto if A repeals B only to the extent of their irreconcilable conflict, and leaves the rest of B intact. stare decisis Stand by the decision. Stare decisis is the name of the common law doctrine to follow precedent or to treat like cases alike. ultra vires Beyond power or authority. An act or amendment is ultra vires if it is unauthorized or beyond the scope of the power of the body attempting it. Just to err on the side of completeness: a priori is philosophical, not legal, Latin. It means valid prior to, or independently of, experience. For example, while Aristotle believed that the truths of arithmetic were refined generalizations from experience, Plato thought they were a priori truths. I gratefully acknowledge a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that enabled me to revise this book for publication. I thank Douglas R. Hofstadter for publishing my game Nomic and other parts of the third Appendix in his column, "Metamagical Themas," in Scientific American in June 1982, and for inviting me to present my work on reflexivity in law in a colloquium at Indiana University in December of that year. I thank Jean-Pierre Dupuy and Gunther Teubner for inviting me to present the conclusions of this book at a conference in May 1988 on "Paradoxes of Self-Reference in the Humanities, Law, and the Social Sciences" sponsored by the Program of Interdisciplinary Research at Stanford University. I thank the sponsors for permission to use portions of my talk in this Preface and in the Conclusion (Section 21.A). The entire talk is forthcoming in the proceedings of the conference. [It has since appeared and is now available in a web version.] I thank Anthony Davenport and Bill Polansky for research assistance, and Andrew Roazen and Nathan Treadway for help with laser printing. I have profited from the comments made on all or part of this manuscript by Robert Bennett, Anthony D'Amato, Howard DeLong, Michael Dorward, Douglas R. Hofstadter, Michael Retter, Harvey Schweitzer, Gunther Teubner, A.L.P. Thorpe, and Subbarao Visweswaraiah. vii