Nothingness is logically subsequent to being, not its opposite.
Evidence
To oppose being to nothingness as thesis and antithesis, as Hegel does, is to suppose that they are logically contemporary. Thus simultaneously two opposites arise as the two limiting terms of a logical series. Here we must note carefully that opposites alone can enjoy this simultaneity because they are equally positive (or equally negative). But non-being is not the opposite of being; it is its contradiction. This implies that logically nothingness is subsequent to being since it is being, first posited, then denied. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 205
Categorization
- DEFINE: Key distinction between ‘opposite’ and ‘contradiction’ in the being/non-being relation.
- XREF: Feeds directly into Beauvoir’s dialectic of freedom and facticity. — connects to: Nothingness is logically subsequent to being and always supposes a specified being; Being is logically prior to nothingness, which has only borrowed existence. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 208; Nothingness is a perpetual self-referential break within being, not a located entity. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 336 (+8 more)
Broader Connections
- Nothingness is logically subsequent to being and always supposes a specified being
#corroborates(0.95) - Being is logically prior to nothingness, which has only borrowed existence.
#corroborates(0.93) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 208 - Only equally-positive terms can be logical opposites; non-being instead contradicts being.
#corroborates(0.88) - Nothingness is a perpetual self-referential break within being, not a located entity.
#expands(0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 336 - Negation cannot touch the plenitude of being; nothingness is denied at being’s heart
#corroborates(0.85) - Nothingness grounds negation by being itself a negation, not an empty void
#expands(0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 215 - Nothingness is an act of being putting itself into question, unique to consciousness.
#expands(0.78) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 336 - Nothingness is a supported recoil from Being that enables consciousness to exist
#expands(0.78)