Anguish reveals that man is separated by nothingness from his essence.
Evidence
What we should note at present is that freedom, which manifests itself through anguish, is characterized by a constantly renewed obligation to remake the Self which designates the free being. … Anguish as the manifestation of freedom in the face of self means that man is always separated by a nothingness from his essence. We should refer here to Hegel’s statement: “Wesen ist was gewesen ist.” Essence is what has been. Essence is everything in the human being which we can indicate by the words—that is. … Essence is all that human reality apprehends in itself as having been. It is here that anguish appears as an apprehension of self inasmuch as its exists in the perpetual mode of detachment from what is; better yet, in so far as it makes itself exist as such. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 244
Categorization
- DEFINE: Core ontological definition: essence = what has been (‘that is’), while the act always surpasses essence, leaving man detached from it by nothingness — a load-bearing distinction for the entire ontology.
- XREF: Connects directly to Beauvoir’s ethics — the for-itself’s perpetual surpassing of essence is the ground for her account of freedom and ambiguity. Also echoes Heidegger’s temporality of being. — connects to: Anguish reveals the double nihilation that suspends the world in nothingness — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 213; Anguish arises when consciousness sees itself cut from its essence by nothingness — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 246; An essence is radically severed from the single appearance that manifests it
Broader Connections
- Anguish arises when consciousness sees itself cut from its essence by nothingness
#corroborates(1.00) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 246 - An essence is radically severed from the single appearance that manifests it
#expands(0.75)