Summary: Being and Nothingness (page 6)

Sartre now turns to the temporality of consciousness—specifically, the way in which time appears to consciousness.

The present, past, and future must be understood as structured moments within an original synthesis ¹.
This synthesis is crucial for grasping time as a whole: we must approach time as a totality that governs its secondary structures and gives them meaning ².
Without this perspective, if we isolate and abstract each moment, we fall into the well-known Aristotelian paradox: the past no longer exists, the present vanishes instantly, and the future is not yet—therefore, time does not exist.

However, it is incorrect to claim that the past no longer exists. The past is; it simply no longer has any effect. A past event remains eternally fixed in its place, at its date, forever ³.

I do not 'have' a past; rather, I am my past. Furthermore, when I die, I will be nothing but my past, which alone will define me.

Repentance at the last hour is a futile attempt to break apart all the being that has gradually solidified within us over time. But it is in vain; death freezes this final convulsion along with everything else ⁴.

In other words, through death, the for-itself is irrevocably transformed into the in-itself ⁵.

If, in the past, I am what I am ⁶, and if the past constitutes a substance ⁷, then the past is not merely a temporal moment. Above all, it is an ontological law of the for-itself: whatever a for-itself might be, it must remain beyond its own reach ⁸.

If the past corresponds to the in-itself, the present corresponds to the for-itself. As an infinitesimal, evanescent instant, the present is both something that is and something that is not.

The future, on the other hand, exists only for consciousness: The in-itself cannot have a future ⁹, whereas every moment of my consciousness is defined by an intrinsic relation to the future. Whether I am writing, smoking, or drinking, the meaning of my consciousness is always projected outward, beyond itself ¹⁰.

Thus, the future exists because the for-itself must become its being, rather than simply being ¹¹.

Sartre uses the metaphor of diaspora to illustrate the mode of being of the for-itself. Just as the Jewish people have maintained their cohesion despite dispersion, the for-itself exists in a diasporic form of temporality ¹². It is dispersed across the three dimensions of time—past, present, and future—but this dispersion is precisely what constitutes it.

With this understanding of temporality, Sartre turns to examine the human being’s relationship with others—a mode of existence as fundamental as being-for-itself: being-for-others.

Part III: Being-for-others

How can we know whether others truly exist? To answer this, we must first grasp what separates me from others:

The soul of the Other is separated from mine by all the distances that separate my soul from my body, my body from the body of the Other, and the body of the Other from their soul ¹³.

Even if we were to assume the immediate presence of my soul in the body of the Other, I would still require the full ‘thickness’ of their body to access their soul ¹⁴.

My initial relationship to others is one of objectification: I perceive them as bodies, as objects. Similarly, others perceive and objectify me, seeing me as an object.

Indeed, it is always possible to argue that others are merely bodies ¹⁵—or even machines, as philosophers like La Mettrie have suggested. After all, why not reduce all bodily reactions to simple or conditioned reflexes? ¹⁶

The Other, however, transforms me into an object because they cannot access my consciousness: The Other presents themselves as the radical negation of my experience, for it is through them that I am not a subject but an object. Consequently, I, as the subject of knowledge, strive to objectify the very subject who denies my subjectivity and defines me as an object ¹⁷.

¹ II, 1, p.142
² ibid.
³ ibid., p.144
⁴ ibid., p.150
⁵ ibid.
⁶ ibid., p.153
⁷ ibid., p.154
⁸ ibid., p.155
⁹ ibid., p.159
¹⁰ ibid., p.160
¹¹ ibid., p.161
¹² II, 2, p.178
¹³ 3ème partie, I, 2, p.261
¹⁴ ibid.,
¹⁵ ibid., p.262
¹⁶ ibid.
¹⁷ ibid., p.267