卡尔·波普尔(1957)在他的著作《历史决定论的贫困(英语:The poverty of historicism)》中,将反身性作为一个普遍的科学问题提出,其中强调预言对被预言事件的影响,他称之为“俄狄浦斯效应”,该术语是化用了一个希腊故事,故事中实现神谕预言的事件顺序受到预言本身的很大影响。波普尔最初认为,这种自我实现的预言是社会科学的一个显著特征,但他后来发现自然科学中,尤其是生物学甚至分子生物学中,某种等同于预期的东西开始发挥作用,并可以使预期的事情发生。[2]欧内斯特·内格尔(1961)也采用了这一概念。反身性给科学带来了一个问题,因为如果预测可能导致与预测相关的系统发生变化,则很难通过对比理论预测与实际情景来评估科学假说。这一问题在社会科学中更加棘手。
自90年代以来,反身性已成为建构主义、後結構主義、女性主義和其他国际关系批判方法的明确关注点。[27][25][28][29][30][31]在《The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations》中,帕特里克·撒迪厄斯·杰克逊(Patrick Thaddeus Jackson)确定了当代国际关系研究可以分为四种主要方法,其中之一就是反身性,另外三种是新实证主义、批判现实主义和分析主义。[32]
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