Reflection

REFLECTION. - It is the act by which thought takes explicit awareness of itself, considering its own activities, its own objects and contents. Reflection therefore brings about a "return" (reflectere, to fold back) of conscious life upon itself.

As defined, reflection is an activity specific to intellectual knowledge (cf. St. Thomas, De verit., q. 1, a. 9: only spiritual substances "redeunt ad essentiam suam reditione completa"); nevertheless it does not seem entirely absent from the lower forms of consciousness, inasmuch as an initial reflection must be joined with attention itself (v.). Leibniz indeed defines reflection as "une attention à ce qui est en nous" (Nouv. Ess., pref., ed. Flammarion, Paris n.d., p. 13). But while in the functions of sensitive life reflection is rather the simple persisting of conscious attention upon data, and has a predominantly passive character and an objective direction, that is, directed only to contents, in intellectual life, on the other hand, reflection presents itself as a new activity, has the character of spontaneity, and turns not only to objects but also to the structures of the subject as such. Intellectual reflection is therefore qualified according to the various directions and the different contents of immediate experience, which constitute its object. If it turns to the forms and processes of consciousness, in order to determine their psychic laws, reflection is properly called introspection ("retrospection" if it takes into consideration the past elements of consciousness): introspection (or psychological reflection) examines the acts and structures of consciousness: of sensations, feelings, thought; the arising, the developing, the ceasing of the various functions; their conditions, causes, circumstances, modalities, purposes, relations, etc. If, on the other hand, it unfolds in the direction of mental contents, reflection is called objective (cf. Ch. Wolff, Psychologia empirica, § 257; the terminology, however, is not universally consistent: by some the term reflection would be reserved for the folding back of consciousness upon its own acts: subjective reflection; cf. A. Lalande [op. cit. in bibl.]). Objective reflection is analysis and penetration of thought into the logico-ontological structures of objects. It investigates the elements and the meaning, on the plane of being, of the data of consciousness (their value as necessity-contingency, principle-cause-effect, existence-possibility, etc.: ontological reflection); or else the conditions and properties of mental contents as objects of thought (their value as universality-singularity, opposition, contradictoriness, subject-predicate, etc.: logical reflection): it is to logical reflection that the "secundae intentiones" of Scholasticism are due, "quae non inveniuntur in rerum natura, sed considerationem rationis consequuntur" (St. Thomas, In Met. Arist., lect. 4, ed. Cathala, n. 547).

Beyond the philosophical meaning, one should note the current use of reflection as an examination prior to a judgment (v.) or to an action, in order to evaluate, on the practical or moral plane, its advisability, its consequences, its effects. It is in this sense, principally, 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 references. In Locke (v.) reflection "is the knowledge which the soul acquires of its own various operations and of their proceedings" (Essay, l. II, ch. 1, § 4): to it are due all the ideas concerning the internal states of the subject: thinking, perceiving, doubting, etc.: rather than reflection properly so called, Lockean reflection is therefore equivalent to inner experience. Hume (v.) calls "impressions of reflection" the states of consciousness (desire, aversion, fear, etc.) deriving not from external causes but from the ideas already present in us (Treatise on human nature, part 1, sec. 2). In Kant (v.) reflection aims at discovering the subjective conditions of knowledge: "transcendental reflection" is therefore "the act by which, comparing representations with the cognitive faculty, one determines whether they belong to the pure understanding or to sensible intuition" (Kritik d. r. Vernunft, part 2, l. II, ch. 3, Append.). In Hegel (v.) reflection, with a metaphysical meaning, is "the relation of spirit to itself," and consciousness constitutes the degree of the reflection of spirit (Enzyclop., § 413). In 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). In Husserl (v.) reflection is "the universal condition of the phenomenological method." Through it the 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, becomes "graspable" and "analyzable," and reveals itself as belonging first of all to the "pure I," insofar as this can direct its gaze upon it (E. Husserl, Ideen zu ein. reiner Phänomenologie, I, sec. 3, ch. 2, § 77 ff.; Ital. trans., Turin 1950, pp. 231-50).

Independently of these systematic acceptations, reflection has an essential meaning in the life of the spirit. It is through it that the actuality of the I (v.) as a self-conscious subject is affirmed on the phenomenological plane: only through reflection does inner life become the object of a conscious contemplation, and do psychic states clarify and define themselves in their structures, meaning, relations, entering into 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 realizes true self-revelation and the possession of itself. It is thus an essential condition of philosophy as the science of the subject and of the object, and of every other theoretical knowledge that places itself beyond the immediacy of experience. The value of reflection in a theory of knowledge (v.) was already pointed out by St. Thomas, who refers the only possible knowledge of truth, as conformity of thought to being, to the reflection that the intellect performs upon itself and upon the subjective-objective conditions of its acts: "secundum hoc cognoscit veritatem intellectus secundum quod supra seipsum reflectitur" (De verit., q. 1, 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 on the moral value of the act, is the element by which its very ethical-personal meaning is measured. In this sense reflection therefore stands, in the various degrees of its intensity and depth, as an intrinsic condition of human acting. Hence also its pedagogical significance: the call to awareness and responsibility for one's own acts, the basis of the child's human formation, is nothing other than a call to a conscious reflection on the principles of action, on its conformity to the norm (v.) and on its individual, personal, social resonances.

Ranzoli, s. v. in Dizion. di scienze filos., 4th ed., Milan 1943, pp. 1093-95 (bibl.); A. Lalande, Réflexion, in Vocab. technique et crit. de la philos., 5th ed., Paris 1947, pp. 884-86; A. Guzzo, L'io e la ragione, part 3, ch. 5, Brescia 1947, pp. 152-66. See also PSYCHOLOGY.