Knowing assimilates its object without destroying its in-itself structure

Evidence

In knowing, consciousness attracts the object to itself and incorporates it in itself. Knowledge is assimilation. The writings of French epistomology swarm with alimentary metaphors (absorption, digestion, assimilation). There is a movement of dissolution which passes from the object to the knowing subject. The known is transformed into me; it becomes my thought and thereby consents to receive its existence from me alone. But this movement of dissolution is fixed by the fact that the known remains in the same place, indefinitely absorbed, devoured, and yet indefinitely intact, wholly digested and yet wholly outside, as indigestible as a stone. For naive imaginations the symbol of the “digested indigestible” is very important; for example, the stone in the stomach of the ostrich or Jonah in the stomach of the whale. The symbol represents the dream of a non-destructive assimilation. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1353

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sartre’s alimentary model of knowledge as non-destructive assimilation, opposing the work of art’s mode.
• XREF: Resonates with Freud’s oral stage/incorporation and with the general theme of small acts of decorum toward corpses in my reading purpose. — connects to: The cognizable object intermediates rather than terminates cognitive acts — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 229; Knowing aims to coincide with being yet is structured as not being it; Sense perception receives forms of things without their matter — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 433 (+3 more)
• CANDY: The ‘digested indigestible’ symbol (ostrich stone, Jonah in the whale) is a vivid, literal image of a philosophical paradox.

Broader Connections

• Healthy cognition requires a reciprocal exchange between subject and object that projection destroys #expands (0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 150
• The cognizable object intermediates rather than terminates cognitive acts #expands (0.75) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 229
• Knowing aims to coincide with being yet is structured as not being it #complicates (0.75)
• Sense perception receives forms of things without their matter #expands (0.75) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 433