Reflection’s privileged certitude is threatened because the reflected-on consciousness is always past.

Evidence

The goal in short is to overtake that being which flees itself while being what it is in the mode of not-being and which flows on while being its own flow, which escapes between its own fingers; the goal is to make of it a given, a given which finally is what it is; the problem is to gather together in the unity of one regard this unachieved totality which is unachieved only because it is to itself its own non-achievement, to escape from the sphere of the perpetual reference which has to be a reference to itself, and-precisely because it has escaped from the chains of this reference-to make it be as a seen reference-that is, as a reference which is what it is. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 511 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Reflection aims to make the self-coincident being that consciousness can never simply be — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 511; Reflection aims impossibly to unify the for-itself with itself into a totality; Reflection is consciousness attempting to become its own object (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Reflection aims to make the self-coincident being that consciousness can never simply be #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 511
• Reflection aims impossibly to unify the for-itself with itself into a totality #expands (0.85)
• Reflection is a second attempt by the for-itself to found itself #expands (0.85)
• Reflection is consciousness attempting to become its own object #expands (0.80)