Reflection deepens the reflective-reflected split beyond self-consciousness
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
Categorization
- DEFINE: Distinguishes the evanescent dyad of self-consciousness from the more acute reflected-on/reflective split of reflection.
- XREF: connects to: The three ekstases structure temporality, reflection, and the encounter with the Other — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 73; Reflection cannot be modeled as knowledge of knowledge without regress; Mental imagery itself requires a nihilating withdrawal of consciousness (+21 more)