The human body remains contingent and superfluous even in decomposition.

Evidence

But a situation is not a pure contingent given. Quite the contrary, it is revealed only to the extent that the for-itself surpasses it toward itself. Consequently the body-for-itself is never a given which I can know. It is there everywhere as the surpassed; it exists only in so far as I escape it by nihilating myself. The body is what I nihilate. It is the in-itself which is surpassed by the nihilating for-itself and which reapprehends the for-itself in this very surpassing. It is the fact that I am my own motivation without being my own foundation, the fact that I am nothing without having to be what I am and yet in so far as I have to be what I am, I am without having to be. In one sense therefore the body is a necessary characteristic of the for-itself; it is not true that the body is the product of an arbitrary decision on the part of a demiurge nor that the union of soul and body is the contingent bringing together of two substances radically distinct. On the contrary, the very nature of the for-itself demands that it be body; that is, that its nihilating escape from being should be made in the form of an engagement in the world. Yet in another sense the body manifests my contingency; we can even say that it is only this contingency. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 839 (#expands, via linked claim)

But the world refers to me the image of this unjustifiability in the form of the synthetic unity of its univocal relations to me. It is absolutely necessary that the world appear to me in order. And in this sense this order is me; it is that image of me which we described in the last chapter of Part Two. But it is wholly contingent that it should be this order. Thus it appears as the necessary and totally unjustifiable arrangement of the totality of being. This absolutely necessary and totally unjustifiable order of the things of the world, this order which is myself in so far as I am neither the foundation of my being nor the foundation of a particular being—this order is the body as it is on the level of the for-itself. In this sense we could define the body as the contingent form which is assumed by the necessity of my contingency. The body is nothing other than the for-itself; it is not an in-itself in the for-itself, for in that case it would solidify everything. But it is the fact that the for-itself is not its own foundation, and this fact is expressed by the necessity of existing as an engaged, contingent being among other contingent beings. As such the body is not distinct from the situation of the for-itself since for the for-itself, to exist and to be situated are one and the same; on the other hand the body is identified with the whole world inasmuch as the world is the total situation of the for-itself and the measure of its existence. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 838 (#expands, via linked claim)

It is therefore in no way a contingent addition to my soul; on the contrary it is a permanent structure of my being and the permanent condition of possibility for my consciousness as consciousness of the world and as a transcendent project toward my future. From this point of view we must recognize both that it is altogether contingent and absurd that I am a cripple, the son of a civil servant or of a laborer, irritable and lazy, and that it is nevertheless necessary that I be that or else something else, French or German or English, etc., a proletarian or bourgeois or aristocrat, etc., weak and sickly or vigorous, irritable or of amiable disposition—precisely because I can not survey the world without the world disappearing. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 870 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The body is necessary to the for-itself yet manifests its contingency — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 839; The body is a permanent structure of being, not a contingent addition. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 870; The body’s immobility as surpassed facticity is the pure in-itself — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 906 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• The body is necessary to the for-itself yet manifests its contingency #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 839
• The body is a permanent structure of being, not a contingent addition. #contradicts (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 870
• The body is the contingent form assumed by the necessity of one’s contingency. #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 838
• The body’s immobility as surpassed facticity is the pure in-itself #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 906
• Recognizing death’s contingency actually frees us from its alleged constraint. #expands (0.75)