REFLECTION. - It is the act by which thought becomes explicitly conscious of itself, considering its own activities, objects, and contents. Reflection therefore effects a “return” (reflectere, to fold back) of conscious life upon itself.
As defined, reflection is a specific activity of intellectual cognition (cf. s. Tommaso, De verit., q. 1a, a. 9: only spiritual substances “redeunt ad essentiam suam reditione completa”); nevertheless, it does not seem entirely absent from the lower forms of consciousness, insofar as an initial reflection is bound up with attention itself (v.). Leibniz defines reflection precisely as “une attention à ce qui est en nous” (Nous. Ess., pref., ed. Flammarion, Paris n.d., p. 13). But whereas in the functions of sensitive life reflection is rather the simple persistence of conscious attention upon data, and is predominantly passive in character and objective in direction, that is, directed only toward contents, in intellectual life reflection presents itself instead as a new activity, has a character of spontaneity, and turns not only toward objects but also toward the structures of the subject as such. Intellectual reflection is therefore qualified according to the various directions and different contents of immediate experience, which constitute its object. If it turns toward the forms and processes of consciousness in order to determine their psychological laws, reflection is properly called introspection (“retrospection” when it considers past elements of consciousness): introspection (or psychological reflection) examines the acts and structures of consciousness: sensations, feelings, and thought; the emergence, development, and cessation of the various functions; their conditions, causes, circumstances, modalities, purposes, relations, etc. If, on the other hand, it is directed toward mental contents, reflection is called objective (cf. Ch. Wolff, Psychologia empirica, § 257; the terminology, however, is not universally consistent: some would reserve the term reflection for the folding back of consciousness upon its own acts: subjective reflection; cf. A. Lalande [op. cit. in bibl.]). Objective reflection is the analysis and penetration of thought into the logical-ontological structures of objects. It investigates the elements and the meaning, on the plane of being, of the data of consciousness (their value in terms of necessity-contingency, principle-cause-effect, existence-possibility, etc.: ontological reflection); or else the conditions and properties of mental contents insofar as they are objects of thought (their value in terms of universality-particularity, opposition, contradiction, subject-predicate, etc.: logical reflection): it is to logical reflection that the scholastic “secundae intentiones” are due, “quae non inveniuntur in rerum natura, sed considerationem rationis consequuntur” (s. Tommaso, In Met. Arist., lect. 4a, ed. Cathala, n. 547).
Beyond the philosophical meaning, mention should be made of the common use of reflection as judgment (v.) or an action, in order to assess its advisability, consequences, and effects on the practical or moral plane. It is chiefly in this sense that one speaks of a “reflective” character and temperament, as opposed to an “impulsive” one.
In the history of thought, reflection has had further systematic treatments. LOCKE, JOHN (v.), reflection “is the Knowledge the Soul hath of its own Operations, and the manner of them” (Essay, bk. II, chap. 1, § 4): to it are due all ideas concerning the subject’s internal states: thinking, perceiving, doubting, etc.; Locke’s reflection therefore amounts, more than to reflection strictly so called, to internal experience. Hume (v.) calls “impressions of reflection” the states of consciousness (desire, aversion, fear, etc.) deriving not from external causes but from ideas already present in us (Treatise on human nature, part 1ᵃ, sect. 2ᵃ). Kant (v.), reflection aims to discover the subjective conditions of knowledge: “transcendental reflection” is therefore “the act by which, comparing representations with the faculty of knowledge, one determines whether they belong to pure understanding or to sensible intuition” (Kritik d. r. Vernunft, part 2ᵃ, bk. II, chap. 3, Append.). Hegel (v.), reflection, with a metaphysical meaning, is “the relation of spirit to itself,” and consciousness constitutes the degree of reflection of spirit (Enzyclop., § 413). Gioberti (v.), reflection is the second moment of human knowledge, which appropriates the object of intuition (“l’ente crea l’esistente”), actively expresses it, and actualizes and develops it in the knowledge of things (cf. Protologia, I, Turin-Paris 1858, p. 153). HUSSERL, EDMUND (v.), reflection is “the universal condition of the phenomenological method.” Through it, inner events (Erlebnisse, present, past, and also future) fall under the “gaze” and “observation” of the I. The entire stream of Erlebnisse (and also reflection insofar as it is itself an Erlebnis) can in this way be subjected to scientific study; it becomes “graspable” and “analyzable” and reveals itself first of all as belonging to the “pure I,” insofar as the latter can direct its gaze toward it (E. Husserl, Idem zu ein. reiner Phänomenologie, I, sect. 3ᵃ, chap. 2, § 77 ff.; Italian trans., Turin 1950, pp. 231-50).
Independently of these systematic meanings, reflection has an essential significance in the life of the spirit. Through it, on the phenomenological plane, I (v.) as a self-conscious subject is affirmed: only through reflection does inner life become the object of conscious contemplation, and do psychic states become clarified and defined in their structures, meaning, and relations, entering the active domain of the subject (immediate experience has its own intrinsic presence to the I, as its actualization and activity, but it is a presence not fully possessed). Reflection is therefore the way by which the spirit achieves true self-revelation and possession of itself. It is thus an essential condition of philosophy as the science of subject and object, and of every other theoretical knowledge that goes beyond the immediacy of experience. The value of knowledge (v.) was already emphasized by s. Tommaso, who relates the only possible knowledge of truth, as conformity of thought to being, to the reflection that the intellect carries out upon itself and upon the subjective-objective conditions of its acts: “secundum hoc cognoscit veritatem intellectus secundum quod supra seipsum reflectitur” (De verit., q. 1ᵃ, a. 9; cf. Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ, q. 85, a. 2; q. 12, a. 2, ad 1).
In relation to action, moreover, reflection, as prior consideration and deliberation concerning the moral value of an act, is an element by which its very ethical-personal significance is measured. In this sense, therefore, reflection, in the various degrees of its intensity and depth, constitutes an intrinsic condition of human activity. Hence also its pedagogical significance: the appeal to awareness and responsibility for one’s own acts, the basis of the child’s human formation, is nothing other than an appeal to conscious reflection upon the principles of action, its conformity to the norm (v.), and its individual, personal, and social resonances.
Ranzoli, s. V. in Dizion. di scienze filos., 4ᵃ ed., Milan 1943, pp. 1093-95 (bibl.); A. Lalande, Réflexion, in Vocab. technique et crit. de la philos., 5ᵃ ed., Paris 1947, pp. 884-86; A. Guzzo, L'io e la ragione, part 3ᵃ, chap. 5, Brescia 1947, pp. 152-66. V. PSICOLOGIA.