There is a distance separating consciousness from itself. Consciousness is never contained within itself. Sartre defines consciousness as the being that “is what it is not and is not what it is” because of the nothingness of consciousness, which is the origin of negation in the world. There is in consciousness that which lacks existence. This negating absence means that consciousness is constantly lacking something and that there is something that is forever missing from consciousness. When consciousness encounters, and comes face to face with, Being, consciousness inserts absence into being as negations. This means that human consciousness appears at the beginning as a void awaiting being filled by its consciousness of the world.Ĭonsciousness is thus the origin of negation in the world, since it is itself nothing but nothingness and emptiness. He argues that intentional consciousness is nothing but an emptiness that becomes gradually filled through its becoming consciousness of the world. In other words, Sartre sees the human being as an absence of Being, as a nothingness of Being.
According to Sartre, the “for-itself” is nothingness, a nothingness finding itself inserted into Being. That which appears as a paradox in the statement that “being for-itself” is the being that “is what it is not and is not what it is” is due to the nothingness lying at the heart of Being. This means that, for Sartre, there are three terms that mean the same thing: “for-itself”, the human being, and consciousness. Thus, every time Sartre employs the term “for-itself”, he is talking about, and referring to, the human being. The “for-itself” is the mode of being in which the human being is found in existing. That is, “being for-itself” is the mode of being of the human being, of human consciousness.
This statement explains and summarizes, for Sartre, the mode of the existence of consciousness. In Being and Nothingness, Sartre says repeatedly that “being for-itself” is the being that “is what it is not and is not what it is”.
And in this short article, Sartre’s “being for-itself” will be explained. The article, “What does Sartre mean by “being in-itself”?”, explains Sartre’s “being in-itself”. For Sartre, there are two modes of being: “Being in-itself” and “Being for-itself”.
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