Concept

Reflexivity (social theory)

Overview

In epistemology, and more specifically, the sociology of knowledge, reflexivity refers to circular relationships between cause and effect, especially as embedded in human belief structures. A reflexive relationship is multi-directional when the causes and the effects affect the reflexive agent in a layered or complex sociological relationship. The complexity of this relationship can be furthered when epistemology includes religion.

Within sociology more broadly—the field of origin—reflexivity means an act of self-reference where existence engenders examination, by which the thinking action "bends back on", refers to, and affects the entity instigating the action or examination. It commonly refers to the capacity of an agent to recognise forces of socialisation and alter their place in the social structure. A low level of reflexivity would result in individuals shaped largely by their environment (or "society"). A high level of social reflexivity would be defined by individuals shaping their own norms, tastes, politics, desires, and so on. This is similar to the notion of autonomy. (See also structure and agency and social mobility.)

Within economics, reflexivity refers to the self-reinforcing effect of market sentiment, whereby rising prices attract buyers whose actions drive prices higher still until the process becomes unsustainable. This is an instance of a positive feedback loop. The same process can operate in reverse leading to a catastrophic collapse in prices.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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Hence, in the conclusion of a syllogism we restrict a predicate to a certain object, after having thought it in the major in its whole extent under a certain condition. This complete quantity of the extent in relation to such a condition is called universality (universalitas). To this corresponds totality (universitas) of conditions in the synthesis of intuitions. The transcendental conception of reason is therefore…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason
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We propose hypothetically to define "belief" by a different kind of causal efficacy, namely efficacy in causing voluntary movements. (Voluntary movements are defined as those vital movements which are distinguished from reflex movements as involving the higher nervous centres. I do not like to distinguish them by means of such notions as "consciousness" or "will," because I do not think these notions, in any…
Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind
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147.] (γ) When this externality (of actuality) is thus developed into a circle of the two categories of possibility and immediate actuality, showing the intermediation of the one by the other, it is what is called Real Possibility. Being such a circle, further, it is the totality, and thus the content, the actual fact or affair in its all-round definiteness.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Logic of Hegel
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Philosophers who discussed Reflexivity (social theory)

Pierre Bourdieu

Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Italian philosophy.

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