An abstraction is made when something not capable of existing in isolation is thought of as in an isolated state. Consciousness is an abstraction. The concrete can be only the synthetic totality of which consciousness, like the phenomenon, constitutes only moments. Effecting a phenomenological reduction will not succeed in restoring the concrete (of consciousness) by the summation or organization of the elements which we abstracted from it. The relation of the regions of being is an original emergence and is a part of the very structure of these beings. “Is there any conduct which can reveal to me the relation of man with the world?”
We have established a parallelism between the types of conduct man adopts in the face of Being & Non-Being. We’re tempted to consider Being & Non-Being as two complimentary components of the real -like dark and light. Two contemporary notions which would somehow be united in the production of existents and which it would be useless to consider in isolation. Pure Being & pure Non-Being would be two abstractions which could be reunited only on the basis of concrete realities~There is nothing in heaven or on Earth which does not contain in itself Being & Non-Being,
Things in general “are”, but their being consists in manifesting their essence. Being passes into essence. One can express this by saying, ‘Being presupposes essence.’
Being is prior to nothingness and establishes the ground for it. Being has a logical precedence over nothingness and it is from Being that Nothingness derives its efficacy. Nothingness haunts Being. Nothingness can have only a borrowed existence. Non-Being exists only on the surface of Being.
*this is just Sartre’s opinion, yo. Dissent? Thoughts?
WrittenCasey 