The look splits me into a for-itself and an unknowable being-for-others
Evidence
Thus the appearance of the look is apprehended by me as the upsurge of an ekstatic relation of being, of which one term is the “me” as for-itself which is what it is not and which is not what it is, and of which other term is still the “me” but outside my reach, outside my action, outside my knowledge. This term, since it is directly connected with the infinite possibilities of a free Other, is itself an infinite and inexhaustible synthesis of unrevealed properties. Through the Other’s look I live myself as fixed in the midst of the world, as in danger, as irremediable. But I know neither what I am nor what is my place in the world, not what face this world in which I am turns toward the Other. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 742
Categorization
- DEFINE: Explains the ekstatic relation by which the Other’s look creates an unrevealed ‘me’ outside my knowledge.
- XREF: The split between known self and unknowable self reappears in Beauvoir’s treatment of woman as mystery and in the later existentialist idea of lived experience as irremediably opaque. — connects to: The Other’s look displaces my world’s center and objectifies me. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 92; My Ego-as-seen is structurally inaccessible to me, only lived in shame or pride; Being seen enslaves me to a freedom that is not my own — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 741 (+8 more)
Broader Connections
- My being-for-others is radically distinct from my being-for-myself
#expands(0.92) - Being-for-others alienates me into an objectivity I cannot reclaim for myself
#expands(0.90) - The Other’s look makes the self haunt an unreflective consciousness
#expands(0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 727 - The Other’s look reveals my body as an object-for-others
#expands(0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 913 - The Other’s gaze imposes unchosen determinations on my being
#expands(0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1229 - Being objectified by another’s look constitutes an inescapable existential guilt
#complicates(0.72) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 72