Possibility is a concrete property of already existing beings, not a subjective construct

Evidence

But this represented-being of the possible can not account for its nature; on the contrary it destroys its nature. In the everyday use which we make of the possible, we can in no way apprehend it either as an aspect of our ignorance or as a non-contradictory structure belonging to a world not realized and at the margin of this world. The possible appears to us as a property of beings. After glancing at the sky I state, “It is possible that it may rain.” I do not understand the “possible” here as meaning “without contradiction with the present state of the sky.” This possibility belongs to the sky as a threat; it represents a surpassing on the part of these clouds, which I perceive, toward rain. The clouds carry this surpassing within themselves, which means not that the surpassing will be realized but only that the structure of being of the cloud is a transcendence toward rain. The possibility here is given as belonging to a particular being for which it is a power. This fact is sufficiently indicated by the way in which we say indifferently of a friend for whom we are waiting, “It is possible that he may come” or “He can come.” Thus the possible can not be reduced to a subjective reality. Neither is it prior to the real or to the true. It is a concrete property of already existing realities. In order for the rain to be possible, there must be clouds in the sky. To suppress being in order to establish the possible in its purity is an absurd attempt. The frequently cited passage from not-being to being via possibility does not correspond to the real. To be sure, the possible state does not exist yet; but it is the possible state of a certain existent which sustains by its being the possibility and the non-being of its future state. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 378

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sartre defines the possible as a property of already-existing realities that carries a surpassing-toward, distinguishing it from both logical non-contradiction and subjective ignorance.
• XREF: Connects to the Milgrom/legal-theory material on possibility as threat and power — and more directly to Beauvoir’s existentialist ethics, where possibility attaches to situated human realities. — connects to: Lack is not accidental to human reality but constitutes its original mode of being. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 360; Possibility arises only through a being that comprehends and embodies its own possibles. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 382; Leibnizian possibility is epistemic, relative only to our ignorance (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Necessity cannot be derived from possibility because possibility is epistemic, not ontological. #contradicts (0.95)
• The possible becomes real only through a person’s project, not as pre-existing logical possibility #qualifies (0.85)
• Freedom, not happiness, is the measure of human possibility #expands (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 64