Reflection cannot be modeled as knowledge of knowledge without regress

Evidence

The reflective nihilation, however, is pushed further than that of the pure for-itself as a simple self-consciousness. In self-consciousness, in fact, the two terms of the dyad “reflected-reflecting” (reflété-reflétant) were so incapable of presenting themselves separately that the duality remained perpetually evanescent and each term while positing itself for the other became the other. But with reflection the case is different since the “reflection-reflecting” which is reflected-on exists for a “reflection-reflecting” which is reflective. Reflected-on and reflective, therefore, each tend toward independence, and the nothing which separates them tends to divide them more profoundly than the nothingness which the For-itself has to be separates the reflection from the reflecting. Yet neither the reflective nor the reflected-on can secrete this separating nothingness, for in that case reflection (reflexion) would be an autonomous for-itself coming to direct itself on the reflected-on, which would be to suppose an external negation as the preliminary condition of an internal negation. There can be no reflection if it is not entirely a being, a being which has to be its own nothingness. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 802 (#expands, via linked claim)

I think it is different when you genuinely feel the pressure on our language, to show its workings, to open itself to accessibility, to open a window, not to disable, not to close out, etc. But this cannot be done at the expense of serious thinking, because the last thing that we want is a rousing populist work that doesn’t tell us anything. My main problem with a great deal of work in Cultural Studies is that it didn’t tell us anything new. It was a circular exercise and the wonderful thing was that you could arrive back at the beginning by a very long and intellectually rewarding route: The bourgeoisie produces bourgeois culture which exercises bourgeois hegemony. Hooray! That is the last thing that anybody out there needs: to be told what they already know. They need the production of new knowledges. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 266 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Thus reflection or the attempt to recover the for-itself by a turning back on itself results in the appearance of the for-itself for the for-itself. The being which wants to find a foundation in being is itself the foundation only of its own nothingness. The ensemble consequently remains a nihilated in-itself. At the same time the turning back of being on itself can only cause the appearance of a distance between what turns back and that on which it turns. This turning back upon the self is a wrenching away from self in order to return to it. It is this turning back which effects the appearance of reflective nothingness. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 513 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Reflection deepens the reflective-reflected split beyond self-consciousness — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 802; Reflective self-recovery produces only distance and reflective nothingness — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 513; Circular theory that only restates known conclusions produces no genuine knowledge — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 266 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Reflection deepens the reflective-reflected split beyond self-consciousness #expands (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 802
• Circular theory that only restates known conclusions produces no genuine knowledge #corroborates (0.72) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 266
• Reflective self-recovery produces only distance and reflective nothingness #expands (0.70) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 513