The body constitutes meaning and marks the limits of interpersonal relations

Evidence

But a situation is not a pure contingent given. Quite the contrary, it is revealed only to the extent that the for-itself surpasses it toward itself. Consequently the body-for-itself is never a given which I can know. It is there everywhere as the surpassed; it exists only in so far as I escape it by nihilating myself. The body is what I nihilate. It is the in-itself which is surpassed by the nihilating for-itself and which reapprehends the for-itself in this very surpassing. It is the fact that I am my own motivation without being my own foundation, the fact that I am nothing without having to be what I am and yet in so far as I have to be what I am, I am without having to be. In one sense therefore the body is a necessary characteristic of the for-itself; it is not true that the body is the product of an arbitrary decision on the part of a demiurge nor that the union of soul and body is the contingent bringing together of two substances radically distinct. On the contrary, the very nature of the for-itself demands that it be body; that is, that its nihilating escape from being should be made in the form of an engagement in the world. Yet in another sense the body manifests my contingency; we can even say that it is only this contingency. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 839 (#expands, via linked claim)

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 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The body functions as a sign surpassed toward meaning; The body is constituted as the totality of its meaningful relations to the world; The body-for-the-Other constrains precisely because it can never be grasped — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 916 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• The other’s body is originally given as being-in-situation #corroborates (0.85)
• The body is primarily known as the Other’s body, not one’s own #corroborates (0.80)
• The body cannot be simultaneously an object and the subject that reveals the world #complicates (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 826
• The body is necessary to the for-itself yet manifests its contingency #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 839
• The body-as-metaphor legitimated social hierarchy as naturally given #expands (0.75)