Ontology cannot prove that being’s self-foundation is the meaning of consciousness’ nihilation

Evidence

Thus ontology teaches us two things: (1) If the in-itself were to found itself, it could attempt to do so only by making itself consciousness; that is, the concept of causa sui includes within it that of presence to self—i.e., the nihilating decompression of being; (2) Consciousness is in fact a project of founding itself; that is, of attaining to the dignity of the in-itself-for-itself or in-itself-as-self-cause. But we can not derive anything further from this. Nothing allows us to affirm on the ontological level that the nihilation of the in-itself in for-itself has for its meaning—from the start and at the very heart of the in-itself—the project of being its own self-cause. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1436

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the precise distinction between what ontology can establish (that consciousness is a project of founding itself) and what it cannot (that this project was intended by the in-itself).
• XREF: Sets up the systematic backdrop for Beauvoir’s ethics, where this ontological limit bears on whether freedom can be grounded morally. — connects to: Even the ontological question reduces being itself to another phenomenon — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 122; Ontology terminates where psychoanalysis’s first principles begin. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1347; An ethics cannot be derived directly from ontological descriptions