Fascination exemplifies knowing as pure negation, not fusion with the object

Evidence

In fascination, which represents the immediate fact of knowing, the knower is absolutely nothing but a pure negation; he does not find or recover himself anywhere—he is not. The only qualification which he can support is that he is not precisely this particular fascinating object. In fascination there is nothing more than a gigantic object in a desert world. Yet the fascinated intuition is in no way a fusion with the object. In fact the condition necessary for the existence of fascination is that the object be raised in absolute relief on a background of emptiness; that is, I am precisely the immediate negation of the object and nothing but that. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 578

Categorization

• XREF: The fascinated negation anticipates and contrasts with Beauvoir’s account of women’s othering; also pairs with Sartre’s gaze analysis later in this same work. — connects to: Knowing aims to coincide with being yet is structured as not being it; Knowing is the very being of the for-itself, not a relation — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 572; Negation arises in consciousness as the nihilation of another’s projected possibility. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 277 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Knowing aims to coincide with being yet is structured as not being it #corroborates (0.90)
• Negation arises in consciousness as the nihilation of another’s projected possibility. #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 277
• Knowing is the very being of the for-itself, not a relation #complicates (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 572