Negation enters the world through questioning, a pre-judicative relation to being.

Evidence

First it is not true that negation is only a quality of judgment. The question is formulated by an interrogative judgment, but it is not itself a judgment; it is a pre-judicative attitude. I can question by a look, by a gesture. In posing a question I stand facing being in a certain way and this relation to being is a relation of being; the judgment is only one optional expression of it. At the same time it is not necessarily a person whom the questioner questions about being; this conception of the question by making of it an intersubjective phenomenon, detaches it from the being to which it adheres and leaves it in the air as pure modality of dialogue. On the contrary, we must consider the question in dialogue to be only a particular species of the genus “question;” the being in question is not necessarily a thinking being. If my car breaks down, it is the carburetor, the spark plugs, etc., that I question. If my watch stops, I can question the watchmaker about the cause of the stopping, but it is the various mechanisms of the watch that the watchmaker will in turn question. What I expect from the carburetor, what the watchmaker expects from the works of the watch, is not a judgment; it is a disclosure of being on the basis of which we can make a judgment. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 189

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the question as a pre-judicative attitude and a relation of being with non-being, not an intersubjective judgment.
• XREF: Connects to Heidegger’s questioning as fundamental mode of Dasein; the non-being disclosed in questioning prefigures the nihilation that grounds human reality. — connects to: Negation arises in consciousness as the nihilation of another’s projected possibility. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 277; Negation is constituted as ekstatic through its relation to the future; The very act of questioning presupposes the possibility of non-being. (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• The very act of questioning presupposes the possibility of non-being. #corroborates (0.90)
• Every question admits in principle the possibility of negation #corroborates (0.85)
• Negation arises in consciousness as the nihilation of another’s projected possibility. #qualifies (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 277
• Negation structures many everyday realities, not just judgments #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 219
• Negation is constituted as ekstatic through its relation to the future #complicates (0.75)
• Negation is presented to intuition as a double nihilation before any judgment is made #complicates (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 193