Being-seen-by-the-Other is the foundational relation from which the Other-as-object is derived
Evidence
Thus this relation which I call “being-seen-by-another,” far from being merely one of the relations signified by the word man, represents an irreducible fact which can not be deduced either from the essence of the Other-as-object, or from my being-as-subject. On the contrary, if the concept of the Other-as-object is to have any meaning, this can be only as the result of the conversion and the degradation of that original relation. In a word, my apprehension of the Other in the world as probably being a man refers to my permanent possibility of being-seen-by-him; that is, to the permanent possibility that a subject who sees me may be substituted for the object seen by me. “Being-seen-by-the-Other” is the truth of “seeing-the-Other.” Thus the notion of the Other can not under any circumstances aim at a solitary, extra-mundane consciousness which I can not even think. The man is defined by his relation to the world and by his relation to myself. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 722
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines the ontological priority: being-seen-by-another is the original relation; seeing-the-Other-as-object is its degradation.
- XREF: This inversion of the Other-as-object from an original being-seen relation sets up Beauvoir’s account of how the Other is encountered in gendered experience. — connects to: The Other’s look proves a beyond-the-world realm irreducible to spatial relations; The Other-as-object reinforces the world’s objectivity while the Other-as-look dissolves it; The Other-as-object resists reduction to his underlying subjectivity (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Being-seen produces essential modifications in the for-itself’s structure
#expands(0.90) - Encountering another person makes one an object in their world
#corroborates(0.88) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 676 - Identity is constituted through relation to what is other and different from itself
#expands(0.85) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 378 - The Other’s presence resists phenomenological reduction and doubt
#corroborates(0.82)