The body functions as a sign surpassed toward meaning
Evidence
Consciousness of the body is comparable to the consciousness of a sign. The sign moreover is on the side of the body; it is one of the essential structures of the body. Now the consciousness of a sign exists, for otherwise we should not be able to understand its meaning. But the sign is that which is surpassed toward meaning, that which is neglected for the sake of the meaning, that which is never apprehended for itself, that beyond which the look is perpetually directed. Consciousness (of) the body is a lateral and retrospective consciousness of what consciousness is without having to be it (i.e., of its inapprehensible contingency, of that in terms of which consciousness makes itself a choice) and hence it is a non-thetic consciousness of the manner in which it is affected. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 874
Categorization
- DEFINE: Explains the body via the structure of the sign — surpassed, neglected, never apprehended for itself.
- XREF: Echoes the linguistic-turn move (signifier surpassed toward signified) that later structuralism borrows from this Husserl-Sartre lineage. — connects to: The body constitutes meaning and marks the limits of interpersonal relations; The body is apprehended non-thetically as fatigue while consciousness attends to the world; Language is spirit’s perfect expression while the human figure is only its first appearance — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 543 (+4 more)
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: The body constitutes meaning and marks the limits of interpersonal relations; The body is apprehended non-thetically as fatigue while consciousness attends to the world; Language is spirit’s perfect expression while the human figure is only its first appearance — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 543 (+4 more)