Death is the final victory of the in-itself over the for-itself

Evidence

A For-itself which has squeezed out all its nothingness and been reapprehended by the In-itself, a For-itself dissolving into the world—such is the Past which I have to be, such is the avatar of the For-itself. But this avatar is produced in unity with the appearance of a For-itself which nihilates itself as Presence to the world and which has to be the Past which it transcends. What is the meaning of this upsurge? We must guard against seeing here the appearance of a new being. Everything happens as if the Present were a perpetual hole in being—immediately filled up and perpetually reborn—as if the Present were a perpetual flight away from the snare of the “in-itself” which threatens it until that final victory of the in-itself which will drag it into a past which is no longer the past of any For-itself. It is death which is this victory, for death is the final arrest of Temporality by the making-past of the whole system, or, if you prefer, by the recapture of human Totality by the In-self. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 496

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the Past as the for-itself recaptured/reapprehended by the in-itself, and death as that recapture complete — a core ontological definition.
• DEEPTHINKING: The Past as the avatar of the for-itself dissolving into the in-itself, and death as the final arrest of temporality by the whole system, is a dense ontological formulation worth sitting with.
• XREF: Directly sets up Beauvoir’s thematization of death, freedom, and the body’s facticity; the ‘perpetual hole in being’ connects to her ethics of ambiguity. — connects to: At death a life becomes an in-itself whose meaning only others sustain. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 63; 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 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Death converts the for-itself into an in-itself that only others can interpret #expands (0.95) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1259
• Only the Other’s being, not the for-itself, contains death #complicates (0.90) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1272
• The for-itself is only the emptiness where the in-itself detaches #expands (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 576
• The in-itself and for-itself are two radically separated regions of being #expands (0.70)