Presence to being defines the For-itself’s fundamental ontological structure

Evidence

Presence to —— is an internal relation between the being which is present and the beings to which it is present. In any case it can not be a matter of a simple external relation of contiguity. Presence to —— indicates existence outside oneself near to ——. Anything which can be present to —— must be such in its being that there is in it a relation of being with other beings. I can be present to this chair only if I am united to it in an ontological relation of synthesis, only if I am there in the being of the chair as not being the chair. A being which is present to —— can not be at rest “in-itself;” the in-itself cannot be present any more than it can be Past. It simply is. There can be no question of any kind of simultaneity between one in-itself and another in-itself except from the point of view of a being which would be co-present with two in-itselfs and which would have in it the power of presence. The Present therefore can be only the presence of the For-itself to being-in-itself. And this presence can not be the effect of an accident, of a concomitance: on the contrary it is presupposed by all concomitance, and it must be an ontological structure of the For-itself. This table must be present to that chair in a world which human reality haunts as a presence. In other words one cannot conceive of a type of existent which would be first For-itself in order subsequently to be present to being. But the For-itself makes itself presence to being by making itself be For-itself, and it ceases to be presence by ceasing to be for-itself. The For-itself is defined as presence to being. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 440

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the core ontological definition: the For-itself IS presence to the in-itself, not a being that happens to be present.
• XREF: This is the direct ontological core grounding Beauvoir’s notion that consciousness is directed toward something — presence-to-being is the systematic backdrop she presupposes. — connects to: The self is the individualized completion of concrete situated consciousness; Presence to being is a negative internal bond that negates what it confronts — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 444; The for-itself’s presence creates the very distinction between this and that — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 584 (+1 more)