The other must be given before objects can appear as manufactured.

Evidence

All this Heidegger has said and very well. But the conclusion which he neglects to derive from it is that in order for the object to appear as manufactured, it is necessary that the Other be first given in some other way. A person who had not already experienced the Other would in no way be able to distinguish the manufactured object from the pure materiality of a thing which has not been worked on. Even if he were to utilize it according to the method foreseen by the manufacturer, he would be reinventing this method and would thus realize a free appropriation of a natural thing. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1039

Categorization

• XREF: The manufactured-object argument connects to the earlier chapters’ treatment of the look of the Other and of being-for-others; it also lays groundwork for how Beauvoir’s ethics of concrete others differs. — connects to: Manufactured objects have their essence fixed before their existence — Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, 8; The category of the Other precedes and enables material oppression, not vice versa — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 147; Common goods must be appropriated before they can serve anyone — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 35
• DEFINE: This clarifies what ‘undifferentiated transcendence’ means as the basis for distinguishing manufactured from natural objects, tying it to a prior experience of the Other.

Broader Connections

• The category of the Other precedes and enables material oppression, not vice versa #expands (0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 147
• Manufactured objects have their essence fixed before their existence #complicates (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, 8