Simultaneity only becomes possible through another consciousness’s presence

Evidence

But the Other’s look is not only apprehended as spatializing; it is also temporalizing. The appearance of the Other’s look is manifested for me through an Erlebnis which was on principle impossible for me to get in solitude—that of simultaneity. A world for a single for-itself could not comprehend simultaneity but only co-presences, for the for-itself is lost outside itself everywhere in the world, and it links all beings by the unity of its single presence. But simultaneity supposes the temporal connection of two existents which are not bound by any other relation. Two existents which exercise a reciprocal action on one another are not simultaneous because they belong to the same system. Simultaneity therefore does not belong to the existents of the world, it supposes the co-presence to the world of two presents considered as presences-to. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 740

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines simultaneity as distinct from co-presence — the key ontological claim that simultaneity requires two presences-to, not a single for-itself.
• XREF: Foreshadows Sartre’s later claims about the third dimension of temporality; connects to the for-itself’s ekstatic structure developed in later sections. — connects to: Consciousness is necessarily directed at a being other than itself — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 151; The self forms only through engagement with that which denies its unity

Broader Connections

• Consciousness is necessarily directed at a being other than itself #expands (0.88) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 151
• The self forms only through engagement with that which denies its unity #corroborates (0.75)