Exteriority-to-self can be revealed only to a being that is consciousness
Evidence
Therefore a category of “thises” is encountered in the world which have the peculiar property of never being without thereby becoming nothingnesses. The only relation which the For-itself can originally apprehend on these thises is the relation of exteriority to self. For since the exteriority is nothing, a being must exist which is to itself its own relation in order that there may be “exteriority to self.” In short it is impossible for us to define in the pure terms of the In-itself what is revealed to a For-itself as exteriority-to-self. That exteriority can be discovered only by a being which is already to itself over there what it is here—that is, a consciousness. This exteriority-to-self, which appears as a pure disorder of being—that is, as the impossibility which exists for certain “thises” simultaneously to be themselves and to be their own nothingness—this must be indicated by something which exists as a nothing in the world; that is, as a substantiated nothing. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 643
Categorization
- DEFINE: Establishes that exteriority/spatial relation cannot be defined in terms of the In-itself alone — only a consciousness can grasp it.
- XREF: Directly sets up Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity on the for-itself’s relation to situation and otherness. — connects to: Consciousness is necessarily directed at a being other than itself — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 151; Consciousness cannot constitute its object because that object is a full presence outside it — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 148; Consciousness is a being that is conscious of the nothingness of its own being. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 277 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Consciousness cannot constitute its object because that object is a full presence outside it
#corroborates(0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 148 - Consciousness is a being that is conscious of the nothingness of its own being.
#expands(0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 277