The living for-itself is what brings its past into being-in-the-world.

Evidence

I am my past and if I were not, my past would not exist any longer either for me or for anybody. It would no longer have any relation with the present. That certainly does not mean that it would not be but only that its being would be undiscoverable. I am the one by whom my past arrives in this world. But it must be understood that I do not give being to it. In other words it does not exist as “my” representation. It is not because I “represent” my past that it exists. But it is because I am my past that it enters into the world, and it is in terms of its being-in-the-world that I can by applying a particular psychological process represent it to myself. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 426

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes the ontological sense of being one’s past from mere psychological representation — a precise clarification of a core Sartrean term.
• XREF: connects to: The Past is a non-thetic, lived bond with the world and self — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 481; The past is a for-itself that has hardened into an in-itself — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 434; One’s past is grounded in the world by becoming In-itself, losing transcendence. (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• The past is a for-itself that has hardened into an in-itself #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 434
• The For-itself retroactively constitutes the past from which it appears born #corroborates (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 479
• One’s past is grounded in the world by becoming In-itself, losing transcendence. #expands (0.82)
• The for-itself learns what it is by recovering its being through the world #corroborates (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 605
• The past is not an accretion but a necessary structural feature of the For-itself. #expands (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 476
• The present realizes what was essential in the past #corroborates (0.72)