The For-itself becomes itself by negating the Other.

Evidence

These observations are applicable without any essential change to the primary relation of the For-itself with the Other. If in general there is an Other, it is necessary above all that I be the one who is not the Other; and it is in this very negation effected by me upon myself that I make myself be and that the Other arises as the Other. This negation which constitutes my being and which, as Hegel said, makes me appear as the Same confronting the Other, constitutes me on the ground of a non-thetic selfness as “Myself.” We need not understand by this that a Self comes to dwell in our consciousness but that selfness is reinforced by arising as a negation of another selfness and that this reinforcement is positively apprehended as the continuous choice of selfness by itself as the same selfness and as this very selfness. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 775

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines selfness as arising from negation of another selfness, not from a self dwelling in consciousness.
• XREF: Connects to the chapter’s companion treatment of the For-itself and prefigures Beauvoir’s reading of the Same/Other dyad. — connects to: The for-itself constitutes itself through an original negation of the thing — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 571; The Other resists concept-status because he radically negates rather than extends my experience. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 670; I negate the Other who is himself negating me (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• The for-itself becomes itself only by assuming its alienated being-for-others #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 777
• The For-itself’s being consists in internal negation rather than self-coincidence #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 445
• The for-itself is simultaneously nihilation and, via the Other, a thing #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1046
• The Other is constituted by negation as the self which is not myself #corroborates (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 675