Expectation constitutes real absence while gratuitous negation stays merely abstract

Evidence

The relation between the inspector’s apparent omnipresence and his real presence is then as follows: the less the inspector is really present, the more he is apparently omnipresent; or, more precisely, the inspector is apparently omnipresent precisely insofar as he is not really present, since a momentary exposure to the eyes of the prisoners is sufficient for him to lose his apparent omnipresence. Here, then, appearance precludes reality. — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 37 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

But we must define more precisely what we understand by this original negation. Actually we should distinguish two types of negation: external negation and internal negation. The first appears as a purely external bond established between two beings by a witness. When I say, for example, “A cup is not an inkwell,” it is very evident that the foundation of this negation is neither in the cup nor in the inkwell. Both of these objects are what they are, and that is all. The negation stands as a categorical and ideal connection which I establish between them without modifying them in any way whatsoever, without enriching them or impoverishing them with the slightest quality; they are not even ever so slightly grazed by this negative synthesis. As it serves neither to enrich them nor to constitute them, it remains strictly external. But we can already guess the meaning of the other type of negation if we consider such expressions as “I am not rich” or “I am not handsome.” Pronounced with a certain melancholy, they do not mean only that the speaker is denied a certain quality but that the denial itself comes to influence the inner structure of the positive being who has been denied the quality. When I say, “I am not handsome,” I do not limit myself to denying with respect to myself taken as wholly concrete, a certain virtue which due to this fact passes into nothingness while I keep intact the positive totality of my being (as when I say, “The vase is not white, it is gray”—“The inkwell is not on the table, it is on the mantelpiece”). I intend to indicate that “not being handsome” is a certain negative virtue of my being. It characterizes me within; as negative it is a real quality of myself—that of not being handsome—and this negative quality will explain my melancholy as well as, for example, my failures in the world. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 573 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Negation’s origin determines whether nothingness is subjective or real; Negation without a future-directed engagement loses all meaning; Abstract essence arrives from the future as the meaning of present negation (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Negation without a future-directed engagement loses all meaning #qualifies (0.85)
• Invisible presence requires real absence to seem omnipresent #corroborates (0.82) — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 37
• External negations leave beings untouched while internal negations constitute the self #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 573
• Abstract essence arrives from the future as the meaning of present negation #expands (0.78)
• Pure negation cannot sustain a collective will without implicit construction #qualifies (0.75)
• The For-itself’s being consists in internal negation rather than self-coincidence #expands (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 445
• Freeing from particularity requires dwelling with the concrete instead of abstract negation #complicates (0.72) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1558