Being-in-itself is radically contingent, deriving from nothing and reducible to no necessity.

Evidence

Finally—this will be our third characteristic—being-in-itself is. This means that being can neither be derived from the possible nor reduced to the necessary. Necessity concerns the connection between ideal propositions but not that of existents. An existing phenomenon can never be derived from another existent qua existent. This is what we shall call the contingency of being-in-itself. But neither can being-in-itself be derived from a possibility. The possible is a structure of the for-itself; that is, it belongs to the other region of being. Being-in-itself is never either possible or impossible. It is. This is what consciousness expresses in anthropomorphic terms by saying that being is superfluous (de trop)—that is, that consciousness absolutely can not derive being from anything, either from another being, or from a possibility, or from a necessary law. Uncreated, without reason for being, without any connection with another being, being-in-itself is de trop for eternity. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 166

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines contingency of being-in-itself and introduces the key Sartrean term ‘de trop’ (superfluous).
• XREF: ‘Being is superfluous, de trop’ connects directly to the nausea/absurdity theme that Camus and Beauvoir both take up — the reader is building systematic backdrop to Beauvoir, whose Ethics of Ambiguity receives this contingency. — connects to: Being-in-itself is radically contingent and cannot be derived from anything. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 28; Being-in-itself can found its nothingness but never its being — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 346
• ADDENDUM: The ‘de trop’ quality of contingency — being that nothing explains — connects to the reader’s article on sacrifice, where gratuitous being demands justification through ritual.

Broader Connections

• Being-in-itself can found its nothingness but never its being #qualifies (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 346