Value is the absent in-itself that consciousness perpetually surpasses toward

Evidence

In all cases of lack value is “the lacked;” it is not “the lacking.” Value is the self in so far as the self haunts the heart of the for-itself as that for which the for-itself is. The supreme value toward which consciousness at every instant surpasses itself by its very being is the absolute being of the self with its characteristics of identity, of purity, of permanence, etc., and as its own foundation. This is what enables us to conceive why value can simultaneously be and not be. It is as the meaning and the beyond of all surpassing; it is as the absent in-itself which haunts being-for-itself. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 369

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines value ontologically as the lacked, not the lacking — the absent in-itself haunting consciousness.
• XREF: Feeds directly into Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity, where value as the absent foundation of freedom is a load-bearing notion. — connects to: Consciousness transcends toward the meaning of being, not being itself — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 154; The possible is a lack constitutive of consciousness itself — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 385; Reflective consciousness discloses values as the meaning of what is lacked (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Consciousness transcends toward the meaning of being, not being itself #expands (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 154
• Reflective consciousness discloses values as the meaning of what is lacked #expands (0.75)
• The possible is a lack constitutive of consciousness itself #expands (0.72) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 385