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One of the concepts George Soros emphasizes the most is \u201creflexivity.\u201d Here’s his presentation of the idea from The Age of Fallibility<\/a> (pp. 6-7).<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n \u201dOn the one hand, we seek to understand our situation. I call this the cognitive function. On the other hand, we seek to make an impact on the world. I call this the participating function. The two functions work in opposite directions and they can interfere with each other. The cognitive function seeks to improve our understanding. The participating function seeks to improve our position in the world. If the two functions operated independently of each other, they could in theory serve their purpose perfectly well. If reality were independently given our views could correspond to reality. And if our decisions were based on knowledge, the outcomes would correspond to our expectations. But that is not the case because the two functions intersect, and where they intersect they may interfere with each other. I have given the interference a name: reflexivity. . . .\u201d<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In The Crash of 2008<\/a>, Soros called the participating function, the manipulative function. A number of issues arise from this statement of the reflexivity idea. First, what does it mean to say that \u201cthe two functions work in opposite directions . . . \u201d? What does it mean to say that \u201c. . . they can interfere with each other\u201d? Soros provides many examples at other places in his work of \u201creflexivity.\u201d But I believe that none of these examples makes clear what the terms \u201cintersect\u201d and \u201cinterfere\u201d mean. I’ll return to this point later on.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n Second, Soros says that \u201cIf reality were independently given, then our views could correspond to reality.\u201d But, couldn’t reality be independently given, and still be beyond our understanding so that our views of it don’t correspond to reality? Aren’t there many aspects of reality that humans have no impact on, that our scientific knowledge doesn’t handle very well? <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n Also, this phrase assumes that reality is not independently given. Yet, surely there is a middle ground between reality being independently given and its being determined by the manipulative function. Specifically, certain aspects of reality are clearly independent of human actions. Other aspects of reality can be affected by our actions, but in many, many instances the influence is only very small, even hardly measurable. In still other aspects, we, and others, can have substantial influence on the course of reality. And, in still others, we may find ourselves in positions where our decisions can directly impact reality and we correctly predict and perhaps even control, an intended impact, though even in these instances many of the consequences of our decisions may be unexpected and unintended. So there are many degrees of \u201cindependently given\u201d where we can do little to immediately affect reality, even when we are focusing on social reality, and not on material reality that is beyond the social.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n Further, the fact that our actions can impact reality, i.e. that we can influence what will happen, either substantially or only slightly, doesn’t exclude the logical possibility in any given situation that we can assess it correctly and state the truth about aspects of it, without having or providing a complete description of it. So, the fact that we can impact our situation doesn’t imply that our assessment of it before having an impact on it won’t correspond to the way it is before we act.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n Third, in saying that \u201cif our decisions were based on knowledge, the outcomes would correspond to our expectations,\u201d isn’t Soros assuming that truth is a requirement for using the term \u201cknowledge?\u201d Of course, the classical definition of knowledge is that it is \u201cjustified true belief.\u201d So, truth is a requirement on the classical account; but Soros’s mentor, Popper, denies this JTB account of knowledge<\/a>. In his view, knowledge can be false, and, in fact, most, or at least much, of the time it is. So, on Popper’s view, which I share, and which I’m surprised Soros evidently doesn’t, since it is one of the epistemological bases of Popper’s Open Society and Its Enemies<\/a>, even if our decisions are based on \u201cknowledge,\u201d their outcomes will frequently not match our expectations. Not only that, but such mismatches are critical to learning and to the growth of our knowledge, because they give rise to problems and, for Popper, solutions to problems that we have tested, and not yet refuted, are new knowledge.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n Fourth, returning to the idea of \u201creflexivity\u201d as \u201cinterference\u201d of the two functions with one another, Soros, provides many examples of what it means, and sees the idea of \u201cinterference\u201d as going back to antiquity. But the idea cries out for more development, analysis, and specificity, to clarify the notions of \u201cinterfere,\u201d and \u201cintersect.\u201d He really doesn’t deliver this in his work. So, we can’t really tell whether his quite successful forecasts of problems in the economy, are due to his conceptual framework as he explicates it, or whether that success is due to other notions he uses apart from \u201creflexivity.\u201d <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n To get a better idea of what’s involved in the ideas of \u201creflexivity,\u201d and \u201cinterference,\u201d let’s look at some of the historical development of ideas closely related to reflexivity before Soros. The idea of reflexivity has been around for some time, and is well-recognized in the philosophy of science. This wikipedia entry<\/a> provides a summary of at least part of the modern history of the idea.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n The article indicates that the notion originates much before the 1970s and mentions W. I. Thomas, a noted sociologist, as the originator of the core idea in the 1920s. Robert K. Merton, named one pattern of reflexivity “the self-fulfilling prophecy”, in a famous article appearing in 1948. John Dewey discussed the problem in The Public and Its Problems<\/a>, first published in 1927. And David Easton discussed both the self-fulfilling and “self-denying” prophecies in his well-known, The Political System<\/a>. Ernest Nagel treated the topic well in his 1961 text, The Structure of Science<\/a>. The wikipedia article emphasizes the sociological origins of the idea, and also mentions Soros. But I think its view of reflexivity may be too restrictive. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n The article also mentions Karl Popper’s treatment of “the oedipal effect” in The Poverty of Historicism<\/a>, 1957. However, The Poverty was first published in installments in Journal form in Economica in 1944-45, while Popper was still in New Zealand<\/a>, and both preceded Merton’s famous article, and may well have been available to Merton. Also, Popper actually named his reflexive pattern “the oedipus effect.” <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n\n