JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing

172Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic WritingsLet us recall that the For-itself makes itself present before being as not being this beingand as having been its own being in the past. This presence is flight. We are not dealinghere with a belated presence at rest near being but with an escape outside of beingtowards ——. And this flight is two-fold, for in fleeing the being which it is not,Presence flees the being which it was. Toward what is it fleeing? We must not forgetthat in so far as it makes itself present to being in order to flee it the For-itself is a lack.The possible is that which the For-itself lacks in order to be itself or, if you prefer, theappearance of what I am—at a distance. Thus we grasp the meaning of the flight whichis Presence; it is a flight toward its being; that is, toward the self which it will be bycoincidence with what it lacks. The Future is the lack which wrenches it as lack awayfrom the in-itself of Presence. If Presence did not lack anything, it would fall back intobeing and would lose presence to being and acquire in exchange the isolation of completeidentity. It is lack as such which permits it to be presence. Because Presence is outsideof itself toward something lacking which is beyond the world, it can be outside itselfas presence to an in-itself which it is not.The Future is the determining being which the For-itself has to be beyond being.There is a Future because the For-itself has to be its being instead of simply being it.This being which the For-itself has to be can not be in the mode of the cc-present initselfs;for in that case it would be without being made-to-be; we could not thenimagine it as a completely defined state to which presence alone would be lacking, asKant says that existence adds nothing more to the object of the concept. But this beingwould no longer be able to exist, for in that case the For-itself would be only a given.This being is because the For-itself makes itself be by perpetually apprehending itselffor itself as unachieved in relation to it. It is this which at a distance haunts the dyadreflection-reflecting and which causes the reflection to be apprehended by the reflecting(and conversely) as a Not-yet. But it is necessary that this lacking be given in the unityof a single upsurge with the For-itself which lacks; otherwise there would be nothingin relation to which the For-itself might apprehend itself as not-yet. The Future isrevealed to the For-itself as that which the For-itself is not yet, inasmuch as the Foritselfconstitutes itself non-thetically for itself as a not-yet in the perspective of thisrevelation, and inasmuch as it makes itself be as a project of itself outside the Presenttoward that which it is not yet. To be sure, the Future can not be without thisrevelation. This revelation itself requires being revealed to itself; that is, it requires therevelation of the For-itself to itself, for otherwise the ensemble revelation-revealedwould fall into the unconscious—i.e., into the In-itself. Thus only a being which is itsown revealed to itself—that is, whose being is in question for itself—can have a