Concept
Self-reflection
Overview
Self-reflection is the ability to witness and evaluate one's own cognitive, emotional, and behavioural processes. In psychology, other terms used for this self-observation include "reflective awareness" and "reflective consciousness", which originate from the work of William James.
Self-reflection depends upon a range of functions, including introspection and metacognition, which develop from infancy through adolescence, affecting how individuals interact with others, and make decisions.
Self-reflection is related to the philosophy of consciousness, the topic of awareness, and the philosophy of mind.
The concept of self-reflection is ancient. More than 3,000 years ago, "Know thyself" was the first of three Delphic maxims inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. It is also considered a form of thought that generates new meaning and an opportunity to engage with what seemingly appears incongruous.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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In short, man is most independent when he knows himself to be determined by the absolute idea throughout. It was this phase of mind and conduct which Spinoza called _Amor intellectualis Dei._ 159.] Thus the Notion is the truth of Being and Essence, inasmuch as the shining or show of self-reflection is itself at the same time independent immediacy, and this being of a different actuality is immediately only a shining…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Logic of Hegel
States what Self-reflection is; names Self-reflection.
Here more metaphysic is called for: The Absolute Reason is now supposed to work under limiting conditions of finitude, of a sensitive and temporal organism. The antecedents of reflective thought are not, therefore, determinations of thought pure and undefiled, but of what thought can do when it stoops to assume the yoke of change and of feeling. I pass by the metaphysical problem left unsolved by this flight: Why…
John Dewey, Essays in Experimental Logic
States what Self-reflection is.
In the present context we would merely draw attention to the false assumption in this view that in artistic production every kind of self-reflection upon the artist's own activity was regarded as not merely superfluous, but actually injurious. In such a view the process of creation by talent or genius simply is taken to be a general _state_; or we may define it more precisely as a condition of inspiration.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1
Opens on Self-reflection; names Self-reflection.
Philosophers who discussed Self-reflection
Related ideas
- Belief
- Greek language
- Book of Genesis
- Hamlet
- Philosophy
- Immanuel Kant
- Karl Marx
- Latin
- Life
- Psychology
- Plato
- Diogenes
- Protagoras
- Pessimism
- René Descartes
- Socrates
- Romanticism
- Sigmund Freud
- Sin
- Positivism
- Hebrew Bible
- Aristotle
- Introspection
- Principles of Philosophy
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Continental philosophy.