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reflexivity

reflexivity

9.9
A relation that links every item to itself
  • noun
  • /rɪˌflɛkˈsɪvɪti/
  • Specialized
translation icon : reflexividad
  • Most basically, reflexivity describes the capacity of any system of signification, including a human being—an anthropologist—to turn back upon or to mirror itself.

Examples

  • Because reflexivity guarantees that S is in its own equivalence class.

  • "This addition made the initial set of concepts somewhat open-ended since 'identity' suggests a different mode of reflexivity (than 'tradition,' 'art,' 'text,' 'genre,' 'performance,' 'group,' or 'context') in that it enables us to think and talk not so much about expressive culture per se as about values and interests associated with it.

    Academic text (2016)
  • The first of these is self-reflexivity, by which the work of art is turned on itself and ultimately on the very notion of art.

    Academic text (2001)
  • It's the reasoning faculty with a sort of reflexivity applying to itself that's able to do that.

  • In essence, we are driving our global system into a state of immediate reflexivity that will react to our innermost expressions through technology.

    Blog text (8)
  • Soros (1987) calls it the "reflexivity principle" in the field of money markets.

    Academic text (1991)
  • Popper (the poverty of historicism) and Soros (with his, much underrated in my view, theory of reflexivity) have explained this type of point well.

    Blog text (8)
  • In his theoretical work describing the Panopticon, Foucault also identifies in its operation a self-policing reflexivity, and it is a useful coincidence that he describes its final, most potent architectural form as a transparent structure similar to E2.

    Academic text (2018)
  • The property of reflexivity ensures that every element is related to itself in a mathematical relation.

  • In logic, reflexivity is essential because it establishes a relation between an element and itself.

Synonyms

reflexiveness
vsreflexivity
  • Specialized
9.3

A relation that links every object to itself

is the same concept but uses a different noun form

Surface Forms

reflexivity singular
reflexivities plural

Morphology

reflexivity = reflexive (transparent) = reflex + ive + ity

Standard noun formation by adding '-ity' to the adjective 'reflexive'; the meaning 'the quality or state of being reflexive' is directly derived.

Etymology

Reflexivity comes from the parts re- 'back' and flex 'bend', and is like reflect which means 'bend back'. So in mathematics it means the relation 'bends back' to the same thing, that is, every element is related to itself.