Sartre connects the possible with the future as “not yet.” But he is quick
to link possibility with the “nothingness of what is not yet” (BN 100 ).
Still, he acknowledges that we are catching a glimpse of the origin of
temporality in this discussion of nothingness, possibility and lack. These
figure in what he will call “thecircuit of selfness” which he describes
initially as “the relation of the for-itself with the possible which it is, and
‘world’ for the totality of being in so far as it is traversed by the circuit of
selfness.” Accordingly, “the possible isthe somethingwhich the For-itself
lacksin orderto be itself (soi)” (BN 102 ;F 147 ). Though it “haunts” the
prereflective consciousness as does lack, possibility presents itself as
already and as yet to come in that paradoxical phenomenon that we
call “time.” It is in this sense that Sartre can say that “the possible
determines in schematic outline a location in the nothingness which the
For-itself is beyond itself...It outlines the limits of the non-thetic self-
consciousness as a non-thetic consciousness” (BN 102 ).
We should recall this limiting function of the “possible” in the
“circuit of selfness” when we note the dawning of the phenomenon of
“objective possibility” in Sartre’s move toward Marxist socialism in
his later works. By then, as we have remarked, the concept of “praxis”
has displaced that of “consciousness” and an explicit dialectic has sub-
sumed the either/or of Sartre’s vintage existentialism.
“The Self and the Circuit of Selfness”This section reprises the argument ofTranscendence of the Egoregarding
the “transcendence” of the empirical ego, whether as object (me) or as
subject (I) of my reflective consciousness. We noted that this “egoless
consciousness,” though described as “impersonal,” was almost as if on
second thought admitted to be “prepersonal” (TE 96 ). Sartre is now
elaborating that claim. First, it is “consciousness in its fundamental
selfness which under certain conditions allows the appearance of the
Ego as the transcendent phenomenon of that selfness” (BN 103 ). But
theselfon principle cannot inhabit consciousness lest the translucidity of
the latter be compromised by the opacity of the self (as in-itself) and
ontological freedom disappear. At best, the self can serve as anideal,
a limit to the infinite movement of reflection reflecting reflection. Sartre
has not emptied consciousness of subjectivity. In fact, he will later see his
mission to Marxism precisely as an effort to defend the place of the
Being and Nothingness 193