Vladimir Alexandrovich Lefebvre (Влади́мир Алекса́ндрович Лефе́вр, 22 September 1936 in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

– 9 April 2020) was a mathematical psychologist at the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, U ...

. With his wife, V. I. Dubovskaya, Lefebvre left USSR for USA in 1974. He created

equation In mathematics, an equation is a mathematical formula that expresses the equality of two expressions, by connecting them with the equals sign . The word ''equation'' and its cognates in other languages may have subtly different meanings; for ...

s to predict the large-scale consequences of individual actions. Among the

parameter A parameter (), generally, is any characteristic that can help in defining or classifying a particular system (meaning an event, project, object, situation, etc.). That is, a parameter is an element of a system that is useful, or critical, when ...

s in the equations are the

self image Self-image is the mental picture, generally of a kind that is quite resistant to change, that depicts not only details that are potentially available to an objective investigation by others (height, weight, hair color, etc.), but also items that ...

of the individual and the action as perceived via this self-image. The result is a

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

expressing the probability that the individual in question will perform a specific action. Lefebvre's mathematical approach to

social psychology Social psychology is the methodical study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. Although studying many of the same substantive topics as its counterpart in the field ...

is often referred to as

reflexive theory Reflexive, or the property reflexivity, may refer to: Fiction *Metafiction Grammar * Reflexivity (grammar): **Reflexive pronoun, a pronoun with a reflexive relationship with its self-identical antecedent **Reflexive verb, where a semantic agent a ...

- presumably due to the 'reflexive' nature of taking into account subjects' self-image(s). Lefebvre developed Reflexive Theory as a military researcher in the former

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, where he was born and educated prior to coming to the United States. According to

Jonathan Farley Jonathan may refer to: *Jonathan (name), a masculine given name Media * ''Jonathan'' (1970 film), a German film directed by Hans W. Geißendörfer * ''Jonathan'' (2016 film), a German film directed by Piotr J. Lewandowski * ''Jonathan'' (2018 ...

, a mathematician at Stanford doing applied work on

national security National security, or national defence (national defense in American English), is the security and Defence (military), defence of a sovereign state, including its Citizenship, citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of ...

issues, Lefebvre's Reflexive Theory was a Soviet alternative to

game theory Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions. It has applications in many fields of social science, and is used extensively in economics, logic, systems science and computer science. Initially, game theory addressed ...

which had been widely adopted by the American defense establishment. Lefebvre created a mathematical theory of ethical cognition. This theory uses a three level structure: the person, the person’ perception and the person’s perception of their communication partner. This theory was used in negotiations by the governments of the US and the Soviet Union during the break-up of the Soviet Union.

References

External links

The Mathematics of Social Ethics: Reflexive Theory and 'The Torturer's Dilemma'
- an introductory overview of '

' (as applied to issues in the War on Terrorism) a
Econophysics BlogVladimir Lefebvre, PhD
- Vladimir Lefebvre bio at the

Center for Advanced Defense Studies The Center for Advanced Defense Studies is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal ...

1936 births 2020 deaths Russian mathematicians Soviet emigrants to the United States University of California, Irvine faculty {{russia-mathematician-stub