The For-itself adds nothing to being except its own negation

Evidence

To realism, on the other hand, we shall grant that it is being which is present to consciousness in knowledge and that the For-itself adds nothing to the In-itself except the very fact that there is In-itself; that is, the affirmative negation. Indeed we have undertaken the task of showing that the world and the instrumental-thing, space and quantity, and universal time are all pure hypostasized nothingnesses which in no way modify the pure being which is revealed through them. In this sense everything is given, everything is present to me without distance and in its complete reality. Nothing of what I see comes from me; there is nothing outside what I see or what I could see. Being is everywhere around me; it seems that I can touch it, grasp it; representation, as a psychic event, is a pure invention of philosophers. But from this being which “invests me” on every side and from which nothing separates me, I am separated precisely by nothing; and this nothing because it is nothingness is impassable. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 652

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the ontology: knowing reveals being as-is; the For-itself contributes only a negation that does not alter being itself.
• XREF: This is the systematic backdrop to Beauvoir’s Ethics of Ambiguity — how the For-itself’s negation grounds freedom without corrupting being. — connects to: The for-itself is defined as an internal negation of the in-itself, bridged through knowledge — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 37; The For-itself derives all its powers precisely from not being Being; The for-itself is the in-itself’s failed self-founding that nihilates it — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 346 (+14 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that ‘the nothing because it is nothingness is impassable’ — being given fully yet unreachable — is a dense paradox central to Sartre’s whole system.

Broader Connections

• The for-itself is only the emptiness where the in-itself detaches #expands (0.90) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 576
• External negations leave beings untouched while internal negations constitute the self #expands (0.88) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 573
• The For-itself is not a substance but the nihilation of a particular In-itself #qualifies (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1432
• The for-itself radically excludes all objectivity by its own mode of being #expands (0.82) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 694
• The in-itself has no need of the for-itself to be #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1439