Nothingness grounds negation by being itself a negation, not an empty void

Evidence

But where does “human reality” get its power of emerging thus in non-being? Without a doubt Heidegger is right in insisting on the fact that negation derives its foundation from nothingness. But if nothingness provides a ground for negation, it is because nothingness envelops the not within itself as its essential structure. In other words, it is not as undifferentiated emptiness or as a disguised otherness12 that nothingness provides the ground for negation. Nothingness stands at the origin of the negative judgment because it is itself negation. It founds the negation as an act because it is the negation as being. Nothingness can be nothingness only by nihilating itself expressly as nothingness of the world; that is, in its nihilation it must direct itself expressly toward this world in order to constitute itself as refusal of the world. Nothingness carries being in its heart. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 215

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies Sartre’s core move: nothingness is not an empty correlate of negation but is itself constituted as negation, carrying being in its heart.
• XREF: Connects to Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit and the ‘nothing’ in ‘What is Metaphysics?’, plus later German Idealism critiques. — connects to: Nothingness is logically subsequent to being, not its opposite. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 205; Negation cannot touch the plenitude of being; nothingness is denied at being’s heart; Nothingness is logically subsequent to being and always supposes a specified being (+19 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 215

Broader Connections

• Nothingness is logically subsequent to being and always supposes a specified being #qualifies (0.80)
• Nothingness is a supported recoil from Being that enables consciousness to exist #corroborates (0.78)
• Nothingness is expelled from being yet gives the world its outlines #expands (0.75)