Totality of being arises only through the detotalized for-itself
Evidence
The original presence of the for-itself is presence to being. Shall we say then that it is presence to all being? That would be to fall back into our former error. For totality can come to being only by the for-itself. A totality indeed supposes an internal relation of being between the terms of a quasi-multiplicity in the same way that a multiplicity supposes—in order to be this multiplicity—an inner totalizing relation among its elements. In this sense addition itself is a synthetic act. Totality can come to beings only by a being which has to be its own totality in their presence. This is precisely the case with the for-itself, a detotalized totality which temporalizes itself in a perpetual incompleteness. It is the for-itself in its presence to being which causes there to be an all of being. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 585
Categorization
- DEFINE: Introduces the crucial notion of the for-itself as a ‘detotalized totality’ that temporalizes itself in perpetual incompleteness — core technical term.
- DEEPTHINKING: The claim that even addition is a synthetic act and that totality requires a being that is its own totality is a dense, paradigm-shifting move worth sitting with.
- XREF: Directly feeds Beauvoir’s Ethics of Ambiguity — negation and incompleteness as the ground of situated freedom. — connects to: An existent is nothing but the totality of its appearances — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 113; A genuinely created being must tear itself free and assume its own being; If being consisted of manifesting essence, no pure being moment would be isolable (+16 more)