The for-itself is originally dispersed outside itself and must seek its being elsewhere
Evidence
This double negation, however, is in a sense self-destructive. One of two things happens: Either I make myself not-be a certain being, and then he is an object for me and I lose my object-ness for him; in this case the Other ceases to be the Other-Me—that is, the subject who makes me be an object by refusing to be me. Or else this being is indeed the Other and makes himself not-be me, in which case I become an object for him and he loses his own object-ness. Thus originally the Other is the Not-Me-not-object. Whatever may be the further steps in the dialectic of the Other, if the Other is to be at the start the Other, then on principle he can not be revealed in the same upsurge by which I deny being him. In this sense my fundamental negation can not be direct, for there is nothing on which it can be brought to bear. What I refuse to be can be nothing but this refusal to be the Me by means of which the Other is making me an object. Or, if you prefer, I refuse my refused Me; I determine myself as Myself by means of the refusal of the Me-refused; I posit this refused Me as an alienated-Me in the same upsurge in which I wrench myself away from the Other. But I thereby recognize and affirm not only the Other but the existence of my Self-for-others. Indeed this is because I can not not be the Other unless I assume my being-as-object for the Other. … My wrenching away from the Other—that is, my Self—is by its essential structure an assumption as mine of this Me which the Other refuses; we can even say that it is only that. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 777 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: The for-itself’s lack is internal to it, not imposed from outside; Self-foundation would require existing at a distance from oneself, collapsing into for-itself structures. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 341; In possession the for-itself seeks to become its own foundation as in-itself (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- In possession the for-itself seeks to become its own foundation as in-itself
#expands(0.85) - Encountering the Other reveals the for-itself having an outside and being embedded in being
#corroborates(0.82) - The for-itself becomes itself only by assuming its alienated being-for-others
#expands(0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 777 - Individual identity forms dialogically through a constitutive outside, not autonomously.
#corroborates(0.72) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 363