The body is a neglected, lateral structure that consciousness surpasses and nihilates

Evidence

Sartre illustrates this with the example of reading with pain in the eyes. If I am reading while my eyes are in pain, the pain colors my experience of reading. I do not know my pain, I live it. My body is constantly present as me. I am not conscious of it, but as conscious, I exist as my body. “To be conscious is always to be conscious of the world, and the world and body are always present to my consciousness although in diff erent ways” (BN, 439–40). As I am reading with pain in my eyes, my body is always present; it forms the background of my consciousness, a painful one as my eyes hurt. I can pay attention to the pain and make it the focus of my experience, or I can focus on the reading itself. But even if I choose the latter, the pain is not expelled from my consciousness. If my body or one of its parts hurts, my consciousness is a hurtful consciousness. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 98 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The body is apprehended non-thetically as fatigue while consciousness attends to the world; For Sartre the body forms the inescapable background of all consciousness — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 98

Broader Connections

• The body is apprehended non-thetically as fatigue while consciousness attends to the world #expands (0.85)
• For Sartre the body forms the inescapable background of all consciousness #complicates (0.80) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 98