Varieties of Reflection

In her editorial introduction to the special issue 10 years of Viewing from Within: the Legacy of Francisco Varela (Petitmengin, 2009) as well as in her co-authored contribution 'The validity of first-person descriptions as authenticity and coherence' (Petitmengin and Bitbol, 2009), Claire Petitmengin expresses some reservations about the way I have been characterizing reflection in some of my earlier writings. In replying to the criticism, I will use the occasion to amplify some of my previous remarks, pinpoint what I take to be some ambiguities in Petitmengin and Bitbol's own positive proposal, make some additional points that relate directly to the important questions that they raise in their joint paper, and finish off with a few remarks regarding one of the central claims made by Vermersch in his contribution to the special issue.