For idealism the object’s objective being is constituted by absence, not plenitude

Evidence

It is an impossibility on principle for the terms of an infinite series to exist all at the same time before consciousness, along with the real absence of all these terms except for the one which is the foundation of objectivity. If present these impressions—even in infinite number—would dissolve in the subjective; it is their absence which gives them objective being. Thus the being of the object is pure non-being. It is defined as a lack. It is that which escapes, that which by definition will never be given, that which offers itself only in fleeting and successive profiles. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 149

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The paradox that absence constitutes objective being — a genuinely dense, non-intuitive ontological move worth sitting with.
• QUESTION: This inverts the usual intuition about objectivity as robust presence; worth chasing how the for-itself’s identity ends up in the same lack-structure.
• XREF: connects to: An object’s objectivity rests on a principle binding its infinite appearances; Idealism reduces the object to non-being, a lack defined by absence — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 148; Absence is not given by objects but posited by a consciousness that negates (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Idealism reduces the object to non-being, a lack defined by absence #corroborates (0.90) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 148
• Absence is not given by objects but posited by a consciousness that negates #expands (0.85)
• The For-itself is not a substance but the nihilation of a particular In-itself #exemplifies (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1432
• Absence is a mode of being between human-realities, not between persons and places #qualifies (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 765