The for-itself unifies scattered negations into a detotalized polyvalent negation

Evidence

Concerning the For-itself as such we should never say, “It is” in the sense that we say, for example, “It is nine o’clock;” that is, in the sense of the total equivalence of being with itself which posits and suppresses the self and which gives the external aspect of passivity. For the For-itself has the existence of an appearance coupled with a witness of a reflection which refers to a reflecting without there being any object of which the reflection would be the reflection. The For-itself does not have being because its being is always at a distance: its being is there in the reflecting, if you consider appearance, which is appearance or reflection only for the reflecting; it is there in the reflection if you consider the reflecting, which is no longer in itself anything more than a pure function of reflecting this reflection. Furthermore in itself the For-itself is not being, for it makes itself be explicitly for-itself as not being being. It is consciousness of —— as the internal negation of ——. The structure at the basis of intentionality and of selfness is the negation, which is the internal relation of the For-itself to the thing. The For-itself constitutes itself outside in terms of the thing as the negation of that thing; thus its first relation with being-in-itself is negation. It “is” in the mode of the For-itself; that is, as a separated existent inasmuch as it reveals itself as not being being. It doubly escapes being, by an internal disintegration and by express negation. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 445 (#expands, via linked claim)

In this sense the internal negation is a concrete ontological bond. We are not dealing here with one of those empirical negations in which the qualities denied are distinguished first by their absence or even by their non-being. In the internal negation the for-itself collapses on what it denies. The qualities denied are precisely those to which the for-itself is most present; it is from them that it derives its negative force and perpetually renews it. In this sense it is necessary to see the denied qualities as a constitutive factor of the being of the for-itself, for the for-itself must be there outside itself upon them; it must be they in order to deny that it is they. In short the term-of-origin of the internal negation is the in-itself, the thing which is there, and outside of it there is nothing except an emptiness, a nothingness which is distinguished from the thing only by a pure negation for which this thing furnishes the very content. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 576 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Negation is the cement unifying spatial objects into Gestalt wholes; Negation without a future-directed engagement loses all meaning; The For-itself’s being consists in internal negation rather than self-coincidence — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 445 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• The For-itself’s being consists in internal negation rather than self-coincidence #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 445
• Internal negation binds the for-itself to the in-itself it denies #expands (0.78) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 576