The master’s self-certainty remains incomplete because the slave’s recognition is non-essential

Evidence

But at the same time I pursue the death of the Other. This means that I wish to cause myself to be mediated by an Other who is only other—that is, by a dependent consciousness whose essential characteristic is to exist only for another. This will be accomplished at the very moment when I risk my life, for in the struggle against the other I have made an abstraction of my sensible being by risking it. On the other hand, the Other prefers life and freedom even while showing that he has not been able to posit himself as not-bound to the objective form. Therefore he remains bound to external things in general; he appears to me and he appears to himself as non-essential. He is the Slave I am the Master; for him it is I who am essence. Thus there appears the famous “Master-Slave” relation which so profoundly influenced Marx. We need not here enter into its details. It is sufficient to observe that the Slave is the Truth of the Master. But this unilateral recognition is unequal and insufficient, for the truth of his self-certitude for the Master is a non-essential consciousness; therefore the Master is not certain of being for himself as truth. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 685

Categorization

• XREF: This is Sartre’s reading of Hegel’s Master-Slave dialectic — connects directly with the Phenomenology of Spirit and with how Beauvoir inherits this ontological framing in The Second Sex. — connects to: The colonial master rejects reciprocity and demands work, not recognition; Choosing oneself as the supreme end produces slavery, not freedom — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1834; The former slave craves overt conflict to prove his humanity (+5 more)
• DEFINE: Clarifies Sartre’s ontological rendering of master and slave: the slave is non-essential consciousness bound to the object, the master is essence.

Broader Connections

• Self-certainty requires recognition from the other #corroborates (0.95)
• Recognition given without struggle never constitutes genuine self-consciousness #corroborates (0.90) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 788
• The former slave craves overt conflict to prove his humanity #expands (0.78)
• The colonial master rejects reciprocity and demands work, not recognition #qualifies (0.75)
• Choosing oneself as the supreme end produces slavery, not freedom #contradicts (0.72) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1834
• Lack of self-assurance prevents the self-forgetfulness needed for genuine transcendence. #expands (0.72) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1939