n. A bending back; a turning.n. The act of reflecting, or the state of being reflected; specifically, in physics, the change of direction which a ray of light, radiant heat, or sound experiences when it strikes upon a surface and is thrown back into the same medium from which it approached.n. That which is produced by being reflected; an image given back from a reflecting surface.n. The act of shining.n. The turning of thought back upon past experiences or ideas; attentive or continued consideration; meditation; contemplation; deliberation: as, a man much given to reflection.n. A mental process resulting from attentive or continued consideration; thought or opinion after deliberation.n. A kind of self-consciousness resulting from an outward perception, whether directly or indirectly; the exercise of the internal sense; the perception of a modification of consciousness; the faculty of distinguishing between a datum of sense and a product of reason; the consideration of the limitations of knowledge, ignorance, and error, and of other unsatisfactory states as leading to knowledge of self; the discrimination between the subjective and objective aspects of feelings.n. Reid endeavored to revive the Ramist use of the word, for which he is condemned by Hamilton. Kant, in his use of the term, returns to something like the Thomist view, for he makes it a mode of consciousness by which we are made aware whether knowledge is sensuous or not. Kant makes use of the term reflection to denote a mode of consciousness in which we distinguish between the relations of concepts and the corresponding relations of the objects of the concepts. Thus, two concepts may be different, and yet it may be conceived that their objects are identical; or two concepts may be identical, and yet it may be conceived that their objects (say, two drops of water) are different, Mr. Shadworth Hodgson, in his “Philosophy of Reflection,” 1878, uses the term to denote one of three fundamental modes of consciousness, namely that in which the objective and subjective aspects of what is present are discriminated without being separated as person and thing.n. That which corresponds to and reflects something in the mind or in the nature of any one.n. Reproach cast; censure; criticism.n. In anatomy: Duplication; the folding of a part, as a membrane, upon itself; a bending back or complete deflection.n. That which is reflected; a fold: as, a reflection of the peritoneum forming a mesentery.n. In zoology, a play of color which changes in different lights: as, the reflections of the iridescent plumage of a humming-bird.n. Synonyms Rumination, cogitation.n. See remark, n.To reflect.
