At death a life becomes an in-itself whose meaning only others sustain.

Evidence

Sartre agrees that at the moment of death one becomes only his past and hence an in-itself; the meaning of one’s life is henceforth to be determined and sustained only as others are interested in interpreting it. … But he denies that one’s life is free if a God has been able to determine the end of it. … If God is to determine the time, then I shall not have been responsible for making my life what it will have been. Of course, if God does not determine my death, the fact remains that unless I commit suicide, I do not myself determine it. But this undetermined contingency Sartre does not regard as a threat to freedom, rather just one more example of the finitude within which I make myself. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 63

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Death converts the for-itself into an in-itself, a genuinely paradigm-shifting claim about how mortality retroactively fixes meaning — dense enough to sit with.
• XREF: Pays off the earlier in-itself/for-itself distinction (chapter 1) and sets up Beauvoir’s the ‘freedom of others’ and grief themes. — connects to: Death converts the for-itself into an in-itself that only others can interpret — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1259; Only the Other’s being, not the for-itself, contains death — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1272; Contemplating one’s death reveals oneself as the future prey of others. (+14 more)

Broader Connections

• Death converts the for-itself into an in-itself that only others can interpret #corroborates (0.97) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1259
• The meaning death confers on a life stays suspended, awaiting history’s own meaning #expands (0.85)
• The dead body becomes just another object among the world’s forms #expands (0.82) — Karl Ove Knausgaard, A Death in the Family, 2557
• Contemplating one’s death reveals oneself as the future prey of others. #expands (0.80)
• Death is the final victory of the in-itself over the for-itself #corroborates (0.78) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 496
• Only the Other’s being, not the for-itself, contains death #qualifies (0.72) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1272