Sartre’s For-itself is a radicalized version of Plato’s Other.

Evidence

Th e future is the world. A for-itself, whatever it may be, grasps an aspect of the world only as an opportunity to annihilate in the in-itself the lack that it itself is. Whatever the object considered may be, it is a plea to the for-itself to project itself beyond it as causa sui. Were it an armchair that “stretches out its arms to us,” to have the project of sitting down in it is to project oneself into that armchair as the existent which has determined itself to exist as seated in an armchair, and which will exist as seated with the plenitude of the in-itself. (WD, 214-15;26 CG, 444) Near the beginning of She Came to Stay, Beauvoir describes a similar scene in a deserted theatre: Th e safety-curtain was down; the walls smelled of fresh paint; the redplush seats were lined up in their rows, motionless and expectant. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 240 (#expands, via linked claim)

To make this point, he begins by dividing all of being into two realms. One is that of the pour-soi (‘for-itself’), defined only by the fact that it is free. This is us: it is where we find human consciousness. The other realm, that of the en-soi (‘in-itself’), is where we find everything else: rocks, penknives, bullets, cars, tree roots. (Sartre does not say much about other animals, but they too, from sponges to chimpanzees, seem mostly to be in this group.) These entities have no decisions to make: all they have to do is to be themselves. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 496 (#expands, via linked claim)

For Sartre, the in-itself and the for-itself are as opposed as matter and antimatter. Heidegger at least wrote about Dasein as a kind of being, but for Sartre the for-itself is not a being at all. It is a ‘nothingness’, a vacuum-like hole in the world. Gabriel Marcel memorably described Sartre’s nothingness as an ‘air-pocket’ in the midst of being. It is, however, an active and specific nothingness — the sort of nothingness that goes out and plays soccer. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 497 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Sartre divides being into free for-itself consciousness and inert in-itself matter — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 496; Sartre’s concept of the for-itself projects itself toward objects as lacks. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 240; Sartre’s for-itself is an active nothingness, unlike Heidegger’s Dasein — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 497

Broader Connections

• Sartre divides being into free for-itself consciousness and inert in-itself matter #expands (0.80) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 496
• Sartre’s concept of the for-itself projects itself toward objects as lacks. #expands (0.80) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 240
• Sartre’s for-itself is an active nothingness, unlike Heidegger’s Dasein #expands (0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 497