An absorbed person appears as a closed Gestalt, a thinglike object for me.

Evidence

With the appearance of the Other’s look I experience the revelation of my being-as-object; that is, of my transcendence as transcended. A me-as-object is revealed to me as an unknowable being, as the flight into an Other which I am with full responsibility. But while I can not know nor even conceive of this “Me” in its reality, at least I am not without apprehending certain of its formal structures. In particular I feel myself touched by the Other in my factual existence; it is my being-there-for-others for which I am responsible. This being-there is precisely the body. Thus the encounter with the Other does not only touch me in my transcendence: in and through the transcendence which the Other surpasses, the facticity which my transcendence nihilates and transcends exists for the Other; and to the extent that I am conscious of existing for the Other I apprehend my own facticity, not only in its non-thetic nihilation, not only in the existent, but in its flight towards a being-in-the-midst-of-the-world. The shock of the encounter with the Other is for me a revelation in emptiness of the existence of my body outside as an in-itself for the Other. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 913 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In his first example, Sartre asks us to imagine walking in a park. If I’m alone, the park arranges itself comfortably around my point of view: everything I see presents itself to me. But then I notice a man crossing the lawn towards me. This causes a sudden cosmic shift. I become conscious that the man is also arranging his own universe around himself. As Sartre puts it, the green of the grass turns itself towards the other man as well as towards me, and some of my universe drains off in his direction. Some of me drains off too, for I am an object in his world as he is in mine. I am no longer a pure perceiving nothingness; I have a visible outside, which I know he can see. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 676 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Thus the appearance of the look is apprehended by me as the upsurge of an ekstatic relation of being, of which one term is the “me” as for-itself which is what it is not and which is not what it is, and of which other term is still the “me” but outside my reach, outside my action, outside my knowledge. This term, since it is directly connected with the infinite possibilities of a free Other, is itself an infinite and inexhaustible synthesis of unrevealed properties. Through the Other’s look I live myself as fixed in the midst of the world, as in danger, as irremediable. But I know neither what I am nor what is my place in the world, not what face this world in which I am turns toward the Other. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 742 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Being seen by the Other freezes my lived situation into a fixed in-itself form; The Other’s look reveals my body as an object-for-others — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 913; The Other’s gaze imposes unchosen determinations on my being — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1229 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• The Other’s look reveals my body as an object-for-others #corroborates (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 913
• Encountering another person makes one an object in their world #corroborates (0.85) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 676
• The Other’s gaze imposes unchosen determinations on my being #corroborates (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1229
• The look splits me into a for-itself and an unknowable being-for-others #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 742
• The Other’s objective body cannot itself produce my objectification under his gaze #expands (0.75)
• The Other’s perspective reveals my own body as merely worldly #corroborates (0.75)
• Auditory Gestalt perception mirrors vision through spectral-pitch contours #expands (0.75) — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 2043