The for-itself is its past yet cannot posit or thematize it

Evidence

In its second dimension of nihilation, the For-itself apprehends itself as a certain lack. It is this lack and it is also the lacking, for it has to be what it is. To drink or to be drinking means never to have finished drinking, to have still to be drinking beyond the drinking which I am. And when “I have finished drinking,” I have drunk: the ensemble slips into the past. While actually drinking, I am then this drinking which I have to be and which I am not; every designation of myself if it is to be heavy and full, if it is to have the density of the self-identical—every such designation escapes me into the past. If it reaches me in the Present, it is because it divides itself into the Not-yet; it is because it designates me as an unachieved totality which can not be achieved. This Not-yet is gnawed by the nihilating freedom of the For-itself. It is not only being-at-a-distance; it is the whittling down of being. Here the For-itself, which was in advance of itself in the first dimension of nihilation, is now behind itself. Before itself, behind itself: never itself. This is the very meaning of the two ekstases Past and Future, and this is why value in itself is by nature self-repose, non-temporality! — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 482 (#expands, via linked claim)

There is a past only for a present which cannot exist without being its past—back there, behind itself; that is, only those beings have a past which are such that in their being, their past being is in question, those beings who have to be their past. … It is through the for-itself that the past arrives in the world because its “I am” is in the form of an I am me. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 422 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The feeling of self itself becomes a personal and specific feeling. Even if there is a possibility of bringing together feeling’s manifold material, that possibility itself becomes part of the objective content. The form needs to be the content of all that it forms: subjectivity does not reside in its own being, it ‘haunts’ itself. The soul is possessed by the possession of itself. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 374 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The for-itself is fully responsible for its being yet cannot justify or choose it — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 343; The past cannot be constructed from present elements alone — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 411; The past is a for-itself that has hardened into an in-itself — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 434 (+13 more)

Broader Connections

• The For-itself is a lack temporally outstripping and lagging itself #expands (0.90) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 482
• Only the for-itself has a past, the in-itself does not. #corroborates (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 422
• The possible is defined as a lack that qualifies the for-itself against its past. #corroborates (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 624
• Subjectivity cannot reside in its own being but haunts itself #corroborates (0.80) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 374