The desire to know is ultimately a relation of appropriation

Evidence

It is at this point that we encounter the similarity to scientific research: the known object, like the stone in the stomach of the ostrich, is entirely within me, assimilated, transformed into myself, and it is entirely me; but at the same time it is impenetrable, untransformable, entirely smooth, with the indifferent nudity of a body which is beloved and caressed in vain. It remains outside; to know it is to devour it yet without consuming it. We see here how the sexual and alimentary currents mingle and interpenetrate in order to constitute the Actaeon complex and the Jonah complex; we can see the digestive and sensual roots which are reunited to give birth to the desire of knowing. Knowledge is at one and the same time a penetration and a superficial caress, a digestion and the contemplation from afar of an object which will never lose its form, the production of a thought by a continuous creation and the establishment of the total objective independence of that thought. The known object is my thought as a thing This is precisely what I profoundly desire when I undertake my research—to apprehend my thought as a thing and the thing as my thought. The syncretic relation which provides the basis for the ensemble of such diverse tendencies can be only a relation of appropriation. That is why the desire to know, no matter how disinterested it may appear, is a relation of appropriation. To know is one of the forms which can be assumed by to have. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1354

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The ‘devour yet not consume’ structure of knowledge parallels the consumption/appropriation dynamic in the sacrifice piece.
• SEED: Angle: how the epistemology of ‘knowing as having’ shapes academic ownership norms, citation-as-possession.
• XREF: connects to: Knowledge is a form of appropriation by the for-itself; Desire has a double determination toward being and toward appropriating concrete objects — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1363; Deep disciplined attention resists appropriation better than shallow attention does — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 415 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Knowledge is a form of appropriation by the for-itself #corroborates (0.95)
• Desire has a double determination toward being and toward appropriating concrete objects #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1363
• Knowing aims to coincide with being yet is structured as not being it #expands (0.85)
• Deep disciplined attention resists appropriation better than shallow attention does #responds-to (0.75) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 415
• Knowledge of being presupposes the knower’s separation from the being known #qualifies (0.72) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 653