Reflection is consciousness attempting to become its own object
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)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Reflective consciousness alone can dissociate itself from what it posits — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 330; Pre-reflective consciousness is itself a form of self-consciousness — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 331; Reflection is the for-itself grounding itself as a for-itself (+16 more)
Broader Connections
- Reflection deepens the reflective-reflected split beyond self-consciousness
#expands(0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 802 - Post-Ego reflection is an uncentered composition where opposed moments illuminate each other
#expands(0.78)