Every dyadic relation with an Other rests on a ground of all other consciousnesses

Evidence

Hitherto we have considered the simple case in which I am alone confronting the Other who is also alone. In this case I look at him or he looks at me. I seek to transcend his transcendence or I experience my own as transcended; and I feel my possibilities as dead-possibilities. We form a pair and we are in situation each one in relation to the Other. But this situation has objective existence only for the one or the Other. There is no reverse side to our reciprocal relation. In our description we have not yet taken into account the fact that my relation with the Other appears on the infinite ground of my relation and of his relation to all Others; that is, to the quasi-totality of consciousnesses. As a result my relation to this Other, which I experienced earlier as the foundation of my being-for-others, or the relation of the Other to me can at each instant and according to the motives which intervene be experienced as objects for Others. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1020

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the shift from the simple two-person situation to the Us-object, introducing the ‘third’ as the structural innovation of this chapter.
• XREF: The ‘quasi-totality of consciousnesses’/‘third person’ move prefigures Lacan’s symbolic third and generalizes the gaze beyond the dyad — worth tracing for the Beauvoir backdrop. — connects to: All interpersonal relations rest on an unstable subject-object struggle. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 92; Consciousness and its being form an inseparable dyad — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 364; The nothingness separating self and Other precedes and founds all relation — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 675 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Consciousness and its being form an inseparable dyad #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 364
• The nothingness separating self and Other precedes and founds all relation #complicates (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 675
• Consciousness is a duality that is unity, irreducible to the in-itself #expands (0.75)