The body cannot be simultaneously an object and the subject that reveals the world

Evidence

Either it is a thing among other things, or else it is that by which things are revealed to me. But it can not be both at the same time. Similarly I see my hand touching objects, but do not know it in its act of touching them. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 826

Categorization

• XREF: This is the ontological split central to the for-itself/in-itself distinction; also prefigures Merleau-Ponty’s and later Beauvoir’s treatment of embodiment. — connects to: The body seen from another’s viewpoint is a thing, not lived — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 923; The body is revealed to us by instrumental things, not by itself — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 867; Self-consciousness need not posit the self as an object — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 10 (+7 more)
• DEFINE: Clarifies the fundamental reason the body-as-lived cannot be grasped as a thing without ceasing to be the revealer.

Broader Connections

• The body seen from another’s viewpoint is a thing, not lived #expands (0.90) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 923
• Self-consciousness need not posit the self as an object #corroborates (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 10
• The body-for-the-Other constrains precisely because it can never be grasped #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 916
• Lived bodily knowledge is absolute and pre-discursive, not built from explicit angles #corroborates (0.80) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 734
• The body is revealed to us by instrumental things, not by itself #complicates (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 867