The past is an in-itself whose content can neither be changed nor added to

Evidence

The past is what I have to be, and yet its nature is different from that of my possibles. The possible, which also I have to be, remains as my concrete possible, that whose opposite is equally possible—although to a less degree. The past, on the contrary, is that which is without possibility of any sort; it is that which has consumed its possibilities. I have to be that which no longer depends on my being-able-to-be, that which is already in itself all which it can be. The past which I am, I have to be with no possibility of not being it. I assume the total responsibility for it as if I could change it, and yet I can not be anything other than it. We shall see later that we continually preserve the possibility of changing the meaning of the past in so far as this is an ex-present which has had a future. But from the content of the past as such I can remove nothing, and I can add nothing to it. In other words the past which I was is what it is; it is an in-itself like the things in the world. The relation of being which I have to sustain with the past is a relation of the type of the in-itself—that is, an identification with itself. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 427

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the past as in-itself-like: a fixed content consumed of possibilities, yet whose meaning remains re-interpretable — a key distinction between content and meaning of the past.
• XREF: Foundation for Beauvoir’s treatment of the past as facticity that freedom must assume; also contrasts with Heidegger’s throwness. — connects to: The past cannot be constructed from present elements alone — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 411; The past is a for-itself that has hardened into an in-itself — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 434; Being one’s past is the foundation of being able not to be it (+15 more)

Broader Connections

• The past remains unthematizable yet inescapable for the for-itself #corroborates (0.85)
• The for-itself is its past yet cannot posit or thematize it #corroborates (0.85)
• Having a past is not an external possession relation #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 420
• The past is not an accretion but a necessary structural feature of the For-itself. #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 476
• The past’s honorary existence fails because it explains no causal connection to the present #qualifies (0.75)