Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writings by Sartre Jean-Paul Priest Stephen

Author:Sartre, Jean-Paul, Priest, Stephen
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781134612956
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

II. The Present

In contrast to the Past which is in-itself, the Present is for-itself. What is its being? There is a peculiar paradox in the Present: On the one hand we willingly define it as being; what is present is—in contrast to the future which is not yet and to the past which is no longer. But on the other hand, a rigorous analysis which would attempt to rid the present of all which is not it—i.e., of the past and of the immediate future—would find that nothing remained but an infinitesimal instant. As Husserl remarks in his Essays on the Inner Consciousness of Time, the ideal limit of a division pushed to infinity is a nothingness. Thus each time that we approach the study of human reality from a new point of view we rediscover that indissoluble dyad, Being and Nothingness.

What is the fundamental meaning of the Present? It is clear that what exists in the present is distinguished from all other existence by the characteristic of presence. At rollcall the soldier or the pupil replies “Present!” in the sense of adsum. Present is opposed to absent as well as to past. Thus the meaning of present is presence to——. It is appropriate then to ask ourselves to what the present is presence and who or what is present. That will doubtless enable us to elucidate subsequently the very being of the present.

My present is to be present. Present to what? To this table, to this room, to Paris, to the world, in short to being-in-itself. But can we say conversely that being-in-itself is present to me and to the being-in-itself which it is not? If that were so, the present would be a reciprocal relation of presences. But it is easy to see that it is nothing of the sort. Presence to——is an internal relation between the being which is present and the beings to which it is present. In any case it can not be a matter of a simple external relation of contiguity. Presence to——indicates existence outside oneself near to——. Anything which can be present to——must be such in its being that there is in it a relation of being with other beings. I can be present to this chair only if I am united to it in an ontological relation of synthesis, only if I am there in the being of the chair as not being the chair. A being which is present to——can not be at rest “initself;“ the in-itself cannot be present any more than it can be Past. It simply is. There can be no question of any kind of simultaneity between one in-itself and another in-itself except from the point of view of a being which would be co-present with two in-itselfs and which would have in it the power of presence. The Present therefore can be only the presence of the For-itself to being in-itself. And this presence can not be the effect of an accident, of a concomitance: on

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