Obstacles are never absolute but reveal their adversity only against a freely chosen end.

Evidence

Thus it is impossible to determine in each particular case what comes from freedom and what comes from the brute being of the for-itself. The given in-itself as resistance or as aid is revealed only in the light of the projecting freedom. … There is no obstacle in an absolute sense, but the obstacle reveals its coefficient of adversity across freely invented and freely acquired techniques. The obstacle reveals this coefficient also in terms of the value of the end posited by freedom. The rock will not be an obstacle if I wish at any cost to arrive at the top of the mountain. On the other hand, it will discourage me if I have freely fixed limits to my desire of making the projected climb. Thus the world by coefficients of adversity reveals to me the way in which I stand in relation to the ends which I assign myself, so that I can never know if it is giving me information about myself or about it. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1163

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the coefficient of adversity, a core Sartrean term for how brute facticity interacts with freedom.
• XREF: Sets up Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity where the ambiguity of freedom and facticity becomes the basis of ethical action. — connects to: The obstacles that limit freedom are constituted only by freedom’s own posited ends — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1152; Obstacles are indispensable to freedom yet seem to condition it ontologically.; Hopelessness stems from perceiving barriers as insurmountable, not from the barriers themselves — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 287 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• The obstacles that limit freedom are constituted only by freedom’s own posited ends #corroborates (0.95) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1152
• Environmental adversity only reorients choice; it does not cancel freedom #corroborates (0.90)
• Hopelessness stems from perceiving barriers as insurmountable, not from the barriers themselves #expands (0.85) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 287
• Obstacles are indispensable to freedom yet seem to condition it ontologically. #complicates (0.80)