The Social Uses of Reflexivity: A Study of the Uses of the Word and Its Meanings from 1918 to 1968.

Following their introduction in seventeenth-century England and nineteenth-century France, “reflexivity” and “réflexivité” embarked on two different, yet structured, trajectories in the early twentieth century. While the term “reflexivity” was mainly used in logical positivism, “réflexivité” was primarily associated with the French humanities and a philosophy of the subject. The concept of reflexivity, as we understand it today, only emerged in the post-war period through a complex exchange between English- and French-speaking academic circles.
This paper would like to discuss some of the results of an empirical study of the social uses of the words "reflexivity" and "réflexivité" that was conducted for a PhD in sociology. Establishing two main genealogies of "reflexivity" in the first part of the twentieth century may help fostering a better understanding of the further contrasted uses of a central concept of the human and social sciences. More broadly speaking, this study could help organizing the periodisation of a history of "reflexivity".