The for-itself lacks a for-itself, not an in-itself, in its project of self-identification

Evidence

What the crescent moon lacks in order to be a full moon is precisely a fragment of moon; what the obtuse angle ABC lacks in order to make two right angles is the acute angle CBD. What the for-itself lacks in order to be made a whole with itself is the for-itself. But we are by no means dealing with a strange for-itself; that is, with a for-itself which I am not. In fact since the risen ideal is the coincidence with self, the lacking for-itself is a for-itself which I am. But on the other hand, if I were it in the mode of identity, the ensemble would become an in-itself. I am the lacking for-itself in the mode of having to be the for-itself which I am not, in order to identify myself with it in the unity of the self. Thus the original transcendent relation of the for-itself to the self perpetually outlines a project of identification of the for-itself with an absent for-itself which it is and which it lacks. What is given as the peculiar lack of each for-itself and what is strictly defined as lacking to precisely this for-itself and no other is the possibility of the for-itself. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 373

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies that the ‘lacking’ defining the for-itself is a lack of its own self, and that possibility is precisely this defined lack — a for-itself, not an in-itself.
• XREF: Direct backdrop to Beauvoir’s reworking of the for-itself/self relation; connects to how lack-as-possibility becomes the engine of freedom in The Ethics of Ambiguity. — connects to: The for-itself is the in-itself’s failed self-founding that nihilates it — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 346; The for-itself is defined by self-withdrawal rather than self-identity — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1145; The For-itself’s being consists in internal negation rather than self-coincidence — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 445 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• The for-itself is defined by self-withdrawal rather than self-identity #expands (0.95) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1145
• The For-itself’s being consists in internal negation rather than self-coincidence #expands (0.92) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 445
• The past’s fixed in-itself character requires the for-itself to identify with itself #corroborates (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 427
• The new identification produces a self that did not preexist it. #expands (0.82)