Objectifying thought severs us from the world it claims to survey.
Evidence
Thus the world by perpetually indicating the senses which I am and by inviting me to reconstitute it impels me to eliminate the personal equation which I am by reinstating in the world the center of mundane reference in relation to which the world is arranged. But by the same stroke I escape—through abstract thought—from the senses which I am; that is, I cut my bonds with the world. I place myself in a state of simple surveying, and the world disappears in the absolute equivalence of its infinite possible relations. The senses indeed are our being-in-the-world in so far as we have to be it in the form of being-in-the-midst-of-the-world. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 856
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: This is the reflexive core of the chapter: the very act of reconstituting the world in thought abolishes the world’s character as world, isolating the surveyor. Dense and paradigm-forming.
- XREF: Sets up the tension between engaged, in-the-midst-of-the-world being and detached surveying — the foundation Beauvoir inherits for describing woman as the inessential Other held at surveying distance. — connects to: Modern observers grasp the world as a representation rather than as lived reality — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 115; The very composure of reflection secretly colludes with a world thought opposes. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 113; The perceived object is irreducible to the consciousness that perceives it. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 142 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Modern observers grasp the world as a representation rather than as lived reality
#expands(0.85) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 115 - The very composure of reflection secretly colludes with a world thought opposes.
#corroborates(0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 113 - Intentionality displaces the subject by merging it with the world
#expands(0.75) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 408 - The perceived object is irreducible to the consciousness that perceives it.
#complicates(0.72) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 142