Motion cannot be understood while preserving the in-itself’s static identity

Evidence

If we try to clarify our objections to Zeno’s arguments, we establish that they originate in a certain naive conception of motion. We admit that the arrow “passes” at AB, but it does not seem to us that to pass a place is the equivalent of remaining there—i.e., of being there. Yet in this view we are guilty of serious confusion, for we consider that the moving object only passes AB (i.e., it never is there) and at the same time we continue to take for granted that in itself it is. Consequently the arrow simultaneously would be in itself and would not be at AB. This is the origin of the Eleatic Paradox: how could the arrow not be at AB since at AB it is? In other words in order to avoid the Eleatic paradox we must renounce the generally admitted postulate according to which being in motion preserves its being-in-itself. Merely to pass at AB is a being-of-passage. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 640

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘being-of-passage’ as the ontological status of something in motion, distinct from restful presence.
• CANDY: Sartre’s reframing of Zeno’s arrow — the moving thing neither is nor is-not at a place — is a tidy philosophical one-liner.
• XREF: connects to: Treating motion as an accident of being makes rest and motion indistinguishable — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 639; Motion is the least-being that never fully is; Motion cannot be represented by any static image or model — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 508 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Motion cannot be represented by any static image or model #corroborates (0.90) — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 508
• Motion emerges only for the For-itself as the temporal constitution of space #corroborates (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 643
• Motion is the least-being that never fully is #corroborates (0.80)
• A body identical at endpoints can still be transformed during motion #complicates (0.80)
• Motion resists ontological derivation and must be accepted as a contingent fact #corroborates (0.75)
• Identity is positional and processual, never reducible to one fixed position #corroborates (0.75)
• The for-itself depends on the in-itself through an internal relation #complicates (0.70) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1437