For Sartre, there are two modes of being: “Being in-itself” and “Being for-itself”. The article, “What does Sartre mean by “being in-itself”?”, explains Sartre’s “being in-itself”. And in this short article, Sartre’s “being for-itself” will be explained.
What does “Being For-Itself” mean?
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”. This statement explains and summarizes, for Sartre, the mode of the existence of consciousness.
That is, “being for-itself” is the mode of being of the human being, of human consciousness. The “for-itself” is the mode of being in which the human being is found in existing. Thus, every time Sartre employs the term “for-itself”, he is talking about, and referring to, the human being. This means that, for Sartre, there are three terms that mean the same thing: “for-itself”, the human being, and consciousness.
The Nothingness of 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. According to Sartre, the “for-itself” is nothingness, a nothingness finding itself inserted into Being.
In other words, Sartre sees the human being as an absence of Being, as a nothingness of Being. He argues that intentional consciousness is nothing but an emptiness that becomes gradually filled through its becoming consciousness of the world. This means that human consciousness appears at the beginning as a void awaiting being filled by its consciousness of the world.
Consciousness is thus the origin of negation in the world, since it is itself nothing but nothingness and emptiness. When consciousness encounters, and comes face to face with, Being, consciousness inserts absence into being as negations. This negating absence means that consciousness is constantly lacking something and that there is something that is forever missing from consciousness. There is in consciousness that which lacks existence.
Nothingness and Freedom
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. Consciousness is never contained within itself. There is a distance separating consciousness from itself. This distance lies at the heart of consciousness itself. The space, separating consciousness from itself, allows consciousness to have projects into the future and to escape the determinations blocking its freedom.
The “for-itself”, according to Sartre, is a project. The “for-itself” is constantly found in the process of making itself. This process happens in the world. The nothingness of the “for-itself” means that it is free and that it is not determined. This nothingness allows the “for-itself” to escape its past and present toward and into a different future. There is nothing that determines the “for-itself”.
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