The Other’s look proves a beyond-the-world realm irreducible to spatial relations

Evidence

This nihilating flight is entirely reapprehended by the in-itself and fixed in in-itself as soon as the Other appears. The for-itself when alone transcends the world; it is the nothing by which there are things. The Other by rising up confers on the for-itself a being-in-itself-in-the-midst-of-the-world as a thing among things. This petrifaction in in-itself by the Other’s look is the pro-found meaning of the myth of Medusa. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1045 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

To the extent that the man-as-object is the fundamental term of this relation, to the extent that the relation reaches toward him, it escapes me. I can not put myself at the center of it. The distance which unfolds between the lawn and the man across the synthetic upsurge of this primary relation is a negation of the distance which I establish—as a pure type of external negation—between these two objects. The distance appears as a pure disintegration of the relations which I apprehend between the objects of my universe. It is not I who realize this disintegration; it appears to me as a relation which I aim at emptily across the distances which I originally established between things. It stands as a background of things, a background which on principle escapes me and which is conferred on them from without. Thus the appearance among the objects of my universe of an element of disintegration in that universe is what I mean by the appearance of a man in my universe. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 718 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Another person’s perception of objects disintegrates the spatial relations I establish between things — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 718; The Other-as-object reinforces the world’s objectivity while the Other-as-look dissolves it; Being-seen-by-the-Other is the foundational relation from which the Other-as-object is derived — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 722 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• The Other-as-object reinforces the world’s objectivity while the Other-as-look dissolves it #qualifies (0.82)
• Another person’s perception of objects disintegrates the spatial relations I establish between things #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 718
• The Other’s look turns the free for-itself into a fixed thing #corroborates (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1045
• The Other’s presence resists phenomenological reduction and doubt #corroborates (0.78)
• Being-seen-by-the-Other is the foundational relation from which the Other-as-object is derived #expands (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 722
• Encountering another person makes one an object in their world #qualifies (0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 676