Past actions become irrevocable facts the for-itself cannot escape

Evidence

Consequently the first characteristic which strikes us is the reapprehension of the For-itself by Being, as if the For-itself no longer had the strength to sustain its own nothingness. That deep fissure which the For-itself has to be is filled up; the Nothingness which must “be made-to-be” ceases to be, is expelled with the result that Being-For-itself, made past, becomes a quality of the In-itself. … The Past is a fatality in reverse. The For-itself can make itself what it wishes, but it can not escape from the necessity of being irremediably—for a new For-itself—what it has wished to be. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 495

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the Past as ‘a fatality in reverse’ — freedom in the present, determinism retroactively in the past.
• XREF: This is the systematic foundation that Beauvoir’s ethics of ambiguity builds on — the for-itself’s irremediable past conditioning her account of situated freedom. — connects to: The past is value reversed, being fixed in-itself as pure gratuitous fact — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 436; Being past turns subjective states into thing-like objective facts; Freedom can objectify its own past, rupturing temporal continuity with the instant (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• The past is a for-itself that has hardened into an in-itself #corroborates (0.90) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 434
• The past is an in-itself whose content can neither be changed nor added to #corroborates (0.90) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 427
• Being past turns subjective states into thing-like objective facts #expands (0.85)
• Past motives become objective things, collapsing the distinction between cause and motive #corroborates (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1092
• The for-itself is its past yet cannot posit or thematize it #expands (0.82)
• Freedom can objectify its own past, rupturing temporal continuity with the instant #qualifies (0.80)
• Freedom is not self-founded but thrown, creating its own facticity #qualifies (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1156