The Intersubjective Dialectic

Abstract

Such is the man of Sartre as a description of the structure of the for-itself reveals him. He is eternally destined to projects that fail. He is a gap in being, an emptiness conscious of its own vacuity, and constantly striving to attain the status of in-itself without losing that of for-itself. This attempt to become an in-itself-for-itself simultaneously is what Sartre calls our basic project. Such a being would be what all men have always called by the name of “God;” i.e., a being who is simultaneously conscious being and yet perfect causa sui. “God … represents the permanent limit in terms of which man makes known to himself what he is. To be man means to reach toward being God.”¹ This fundamental attempt of man to make himself in-itself-for-itself (or God), is destined necessarily to frustration, because by their nature these two types of being are mutually incompatible. By definition, “God” is a contradictory notion.