ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Hannah Arendt's criticisms bear quite directly on the concept of reflexivity within contemporary sociological theory. The concept of reflexivity became prominent in Anglo-American sociology in the late 1980s as a result of the so-called structure-agency debate. But its emergence in this later context is quite different from its origins, which lie in American pragmatism, and especially in the philosophy of George Herbert Mead. The differences register the fact that the meaning of the concept has evolved from being originally entirely bound up with the invisible mental activities associated with the self, to being conceived of as a kind of social practice. Indeed, for a very long period in the development of human social life, language was confined to gestures and signals. Language, even its most rudimentary forms however, makes possible the appearance of new objects in the field of experience of the individual organisms.
