The body is necessary to the for-itself yet manifests its contingency

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

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sartre’s precise definition of the body-for-itself as that which the for-itself nihilates — the central ontological status of embodiment.
• XREF: This is exactly the ontological backdrop Beauvoir’s The Second Sex builds on — the body as situation rather than pure fact. — connects to: The human body remains contingent and superfluous even in decomposition.; The cogito’s self-apprehension is first a grasp of its own contingency.; One’s own body escapes instrumental utilization unless mediated through the Other. (+17 more)
• ADDENDUM: Not one of the three published articles, so omitted — but the ‘body as situation’ claim is core background for the reader’s Beauvoir project.

Broader Connections

• Being embodied is essential to existence, but no particular body structure is. #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 80
• One’s own body is lived as self, not experienced as an object. #contradicts (0.82) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 733
• Necessity forgets that its own activity posited its passivity #qualifies (0.80) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1107
• The essence of necessity is contingency, grounded in an event #expands (0.75) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 128