The in-itself has no need of the for-itself to be

Evidence

If we wish to resolve these difficulties, we must take into account what is required of an existent if it is to be considered as a totality: it is necessary that the diversity of its structures be held within a unitary synthesis in such a way that each of them considered apart is only an abstraction. And certainly consciousness considered apart is only an abstraction; but the in-itself has no need of the for-itself in order to be; the “passion” of the for-itself only causes there to be in-itself. The phenomenon of in-itself is an abstraction without consciousness but its being is not an abstraction. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1439

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the key asymmetry of the two modes of being: consciousness requires the in-itself, but the in-itself does not require consciousness.
• XREF: This asymmetry — that being needs no consciousness but consciousness needs being — underpins Beauvoir’s grounding of freedom in a world that does not need us. — connects to: The For-itself derives all its powers precisely from not being Being; Being-in-itself is a solid, self-sealed mass without interiority.; The in-itself is fully self-coincident, leaving no gap for nothingness — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 328 (+7 more)
• SEED: The asymmetry between the two modes of being — being can do without awareness, but awareness cannot do without being — is a lucid framing for an essay on how existentialism inverts the idealist claim that consciousness constitutes the world.

Broader Connections

• Internal negation belongs exclusively to the for-itself, never to being-in-itself #corroborates (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 574