Being is necessarily defined against what it is not

Evidence

The permanent possibility of non-being, outside us and within, conditions our questions about being. Furthermore it is non-being which is going to limit the reply. What being will be must of necessity arise on the basis of what it is not. Whatever being is, it will allow this formulation: “Being is that and outside of that, nothing.” — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 183

Categorization

• DEFINE: The formulation “Being is that and outside of that, nothing” compresses Sartre’s founding insight that being is constituted by negation.
• DEEPTHINKING: This compact formula — being posited only against its negation — is the hinge of the entire ontology and resists one-sentence summary.
• XREF: connects to: The being of appearances may differ in kind from appearances of being — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 121; ‘Being is what it is’ names only the in-itself, not all being.; Value’s being consists precisely in not having being — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 367 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Identity is constituted through exclusion of what it is not #exemplifies (0.85)
• Value’s being consists precisely in not having being #exemplifies (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 367
• Transcendental imagination holds being and non-being in co-implication as relative non-being #complicates (0.80) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 897
• Non-being has transphenomenal objectivity just as being does. #corroborates (0.75)
• Nothingness is logically subsequent to being and always supposes a specified being #contradicts (0.75)
• Oppressor consciousness defines being as having (to be is to have) #exemplifies (0.75) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 141