External objects resist the For-itself’s projects by a measurable degree

Evidence

It remains for us to consider the second problem which we formulated in our Introduction: If the in-itself and the for-itself are two modalities of being, is there not an hiatus at the very core of the idea of being? And is its comprehension not severed into two incommunicable parts by the very fact that its extension is constituted by two radically heterogenous classes? What is there in common between the being which is what it is, and the being which is what it is not and which is not what it is? What can help us here, however, is the conclusion of our preceding inquiry. We have just shown in fact that the in-itself and the for-itself are not juxtaposed. Quite the contrary, the for-itself without the in-itself is a kind of abstraction; it could not exist any more than a color could exist without form or a sound without pitch and without timbre. A consciousness which would be consciousness of nothing would be an absolute nothing. But if consciousness is bound to the in-itself by an internal relation, doesn’t this mean that it is articulated with the in-itself so as to constitute a totality, and is it not this totality which would be given the name being or reality? — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1437 (#expands, via linked claim)

This absolute determination, which is the determination of quality as a profile of the “this,” belongs to the freedom of the For-itself. It is not; it is as “to-be.” Anyone may see this for himself by considering how the revelation of one quality of the thing appears always as a factual gratuity grasped across a freedom. While I can not make this orange peel cease being green, it is I who am responsible for my apprehending it as a rough green or a green roughness. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 598 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Study an object in isolation and you will only be able to bring it back to itself; consequently you can never have perfect knowledge of it. But see it in the midst of beings who are connected with each other in many different ways, and which are isolated from each other in different ways, and you will discover for this object a wider scope of relationships. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 373 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Objective states of affairs become causes only through a for-itself’s project — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1089; The for-itself depends on the in-itself through an internal relation — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1437; Postmodern objects resist restoration to any prior lived context. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 54 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• The for-itself depends on the in-itself through an internal relation #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1437
• The For-itself is responsible for how it apprehends qualities of things #qualifies (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 598
• Objects are only knowable within their network of relations #expands (0.80) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 373
• Postmodern objects resist restoration to any prior lived context. #exemplifies (0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 54
• Partial occlusion by objects is constitutive of their being in a world #expands (0.75)