Human reality arises as a lack of an impossible self-totality

Evidence

Thus this perpetually absent being which haunts the for-itself is itself fixed in the in-itself. It is the impossible synthesis of the for-itself and the in-itself; it would be its own foundation not as nothingness but as being and would preserve within it the necessary translucency of consciousness along with the coincidence with itself of being-in-itself. It would preserve in it that turning back upon the self which conditions every necessity and every foundation. But this return to the self would be without distance; it would not be presence to itself, but identity with itself. In short, this being would be exactly the self which we have shown can exist only as a perpetually evanescent relation, but it would be this self as substantial being. Thus human reality arises as such in the presence of its own totality or self as a lack of that totality. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 362

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the impossible synthesis (God/manque) as lack of an evanescent self, which grounds Sartre’s concept of human reality as lack.
• XREF: This ‘impossible synthesis’ is the direct backdrop to Beauvoir’s account of the ethical subject in The Second Sex and The Ethics of Ambiguity; the reader’s stated reading purpose names exactly this connection. — connects to: Sincerity is an unrealizable ideal because human reality never coincides with identity. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 296; Desire proves human reality is constituted as a lack — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 354; Lack is the deepest internal negation and appears only with human reality. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 352 (+15 more)

Broader Connections

• Human reality is an abortive project toward being its own self-cause #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1440
• Human reality becomes a totality only by surpassing each concrete negation #qualifies (0.80)
• The possible is a lack constitutive of consciousness itself #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 385
• Selfness arises when the possible I am is reflected as absent-presence #expands (0.75)
• Life can only enter reality through forms that inherently contradict it #corroborates (0.70) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 866