JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing

318 Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic WritingsBut this generality, as the fluid homogeneity of the gathering (in so far as its unitylies outside it), is just an abstract appearance, for it is actually constituted in its verymultiplicity by its transcendent unity as a structured multiplicity. With a concept, ineffect, everyone is the same as the Others in so far as he is himself. In the series,however, everyone becomes himself (as Other than self) in so far as he is other thanthe Others, and so, in so far as the Others are other than him. There can be no conceptof a series, for every member is serial by virtue of his place in the order, and thereforeby virtue of his alterity in so far as it is posited as irreducible. In arithmetic, this canbe demonstrated by reference to numbers, both as concepts and as serial entities. Allwhole numbers, or integers, can be the object of the same concept, in so far as they allshare the same characteristics; in particular, any whole number can be represented bythe symbol n + I (if we take n = o for the number one). But for just this reason, thearithmetical series of integers, in so far as all of them are constituted by adding one tothe preceding number, is a practical and material reality, constituted by an infiniteseries of unique entities; and the uniqueness of each number is due to the fact that itstands in the same relation to the one that precedes it as this one does to the onepreceding it. In the case of ordinals, alterity also changes its meaning: it manifests itselfin the concept as common to all, and it designates everyone as a molecule identicalwith all the others; but, in the series, it becomes a rule of differentiation. And whateverordering procedure is used, seriality derives from practico-inert matter, that is to say,from the future as an ensemble of inert, equivalent possibilities (equivalent, in thiscase, because no means of forecasting them is given): there is the possibility that therewill be one place, that there will be two, or three, etc. These rigid possibilities areinorganic matter itself in so far as it is non-adaptability. They retain their rigidity bypassing into the serial order of separate organisms: for everyone, as a holder of anumbered ticket, they become a complex of possibilities peculiar to him (he will get aplace if there is room for ten or more people on the bus; he will not do so if there isonly room for nine, but then he will be the first for the next bus). And it is thesepossibilities and these alone which, within the group, constitute the real content of hisalterity.But it should be noticed that this constituent alterity must depend both on all theOthers, and on the particular possibility which is actualised, and therefore that theOther has his essence in all the Others, in so far as he differs from them. 8 Moreover,this alterity, as a principle of ordering, naturally produces itself as a link. Now this linkbetween men is of an entirely different kind from those already examined. On the onehand, it cannot be explained in terms of reciprocity, since the serial movement in ourexample excludes the relation of reciprocity: everyone is the Reason for the Other-