The look holds certainty that cannot transfer to the Other as object.

Evidence

This difficulty should not deter us for long, and we should not even have mentioned it except that actually it can help us in our investigation by indicating more purely the nature of our being-for-others. There is indeed a confusion here between two distinct orders of knowledge and two types of being which can not be compared. We have always known that the object-in-the-world can be only probable. This is due to its very character as object. It is probable that the passerby is a man; if he turns his eyes toward me, then although I immediately experience and with certainty the fact of being-looked-at, I can not make this certainty pass into my experience of the Other-as-object. In fact it reveals to me only the Other-as-subject, a transcending presence to the world and the real condition of my being-as-object. In every causal state, therefore, it is impossible to transfer my certainty of the Other-as-subject to the Other-as-object which was the occasion of that certainty, and conversely it is impossible to invalidate the evidence of the appearance of the Other-as-subject by pointing to the constitutional probability of the Other-as-object. Better yet, the look, as we have shown, appears on the ground of the destruction of the object which manifests it. If this gross and ugly passerby shuffling along toward me suddenly looks at me, then there is nothing left of his ugliness, his obesity, and his shuffling. During the time that I feel myself looked-at he is a pure mediating freedom between myself and me. The fact of being-looked-at can not therefore depend on the object which manifests the look. Since my shame as an Erlebnis which is reflectively apprehensible is a witness for the Other for the same reason as it is its own witness, I am not going to put it in question on the occasion of an object of the world which can on principle be placed in doubt. This would amount to doubting my own existence, for the perceptions which I have of my own body (when I see my hand, for example) are subject to error. Therefore if the act of being-looked-at, in its pure form, is not bound to the Other’s body any more than in the pure realization of the cogito my consciousness of being a consciousness is not bound to my own body, then we must consider the appearance of certain objects in the field of my experience—in particular the convergence of the Other’s eyes in my direction—as a pure monition, as the pure occasion of realizing my being-looked-at. In the same way for a Platonist the contradictions of the sensible world are the occasion of effecting a philosophical conversion. In a word what is certain is that I am looked-at: what is only probable is that the look is bound to this or that intra-mundane presence. Moreover there is nothing here to surprise us since as we have seen, it is never eyes which look at us; it is the Other-as-subject. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 761

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the cogito and certainty structures — the look’s certainty parallels consciousness’s self-certainty, grounding the freedom/object distinction that Beauvoir builds on. — connects to: A look already captured by the Other cannot objectify what he already fixes; The certainty of being looked-at is only ever probable, not guaranteed. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 759; The look cannot itself be looked at; it vanishes when objectified. (+3 more)
• DEFINE: Distinguishes the two types of being (being-as-subject vs being-as-object) and the separate orders of knowledge governing each, core ontological machinery.

Broader Connections

• The look cannot itself be looked at; it vanishes when objectified. #expands (0.85)
• The Other cannot be known as an object because objects are only ever probable #corroborates (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 711
• The Other’s existence is certain while the Other’s identity as this object never is. #corroborates (0.80)
• The Other’s objective body cannot itself produce my objectification under his gaze #expands (0.80)