The body is apprehended non-thetically as fatigue while consciousness attends to the world

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 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

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 (#expands, via linked claim)

Even if the body makes its appearance in the treatise at a rather late stage, it is necessary from the outset that consciousness be embodied. Sartre’s phenomenological ontology leads him to distinguish between a being in-itself and a being for-itself. Th e for-itself is an embodied consciousness; that is, it is a consciousness that exists as conscious (of) the world. It can be conscious (of) insofar as it is anchored in the in-itself as an embodied being. Th e body allows consciousness to have experiences and thus to exist. As a result, the body is presented as being the condition of existence for consciousness. I am situated in the world, and my situation, my facticity, is my body. Th e body is “the contingent form which is assumed by the necessity of my contingency” (BN, 408). If I exist, it is necessary that I have a body and that I be in a situation. But it is contingent that I have this body and that I be in this situation. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 97 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The body is a neglected, lateral structure that consciousness surpasses and nihilates; Absorbed activity makes pain present yet un-noticed until reflection.; Coenesthesia is the affective, non-thetic texture of consciousness that projects surpass — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 876 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• The body is necessary to the for-itself yet manifests its contingency #corroborates (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 839
• For Sartre the body forms the inescapable background of all consciousness #expands (0.85) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 98
• Embodiment is the necessary contingent condition anchoring consciousness in the world for Sartre #expands (0.82) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 97
• For Sartre the body is a willed instrument that consciousness commands #contradicts (0.80) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 119
• Practical consciousness is non-reflective and discloses the world as instrumentality #expands (0.78)
• The body functions as a sign surpassed toward meaning #expands (0.72)