Meaning and the Material World

Being and Nothingness

This thread traces the claim that material qualities disclose existential meanings without being reduced to private feelings or arbitrary projections.

increasing

Bearing strength in each event

decreasing

Quality Is the Thing Quality Is the Thing from "Being and Nothingness". Quality Is the Thing No Inner Sensation The yellow of a lemon or the sourness of its taste is not a private impression attached to an unknowable object.

Quality Is the Thing from "Being and Nothingness". Quality Is the Thing No Inner Sensation The yellow of a lemon or the sourness of its taste is not a private impression attached to an unknowable object.

Quality Is the Thing No Inner Sensation The yellow of a lemon or the sourness of its taste is not a private impression attached to an unknowable object. Each quality belongs to the thing. Interpenetration The thing is given through a totality of qualities, each of which reveals the others.

Meaning Through Situation Meaning Through Situation from "Being and Nothingness". Meaning Through Situation Material Significance A quality can point beyond itself toward a way of being in the world.

Meaning Through Situation from "Being and Nothingness". Meaning Through Situation Material Significance A quality can point beyond itself toward a way of being in the world.

Meaning Through Situation Material Significance A quality can point beyond itself toward a way of being in the world. Material experience is charged with meanings that exceed utility. Existential Inquiry Psychoanalysis asks how a person's projects organize the meanings disclosed by things.

The Slimy Appears The Slimy Appears from "Being and Nothingness". The Slimy Appears A Material Encounter The slimy offers itself as both fluid and resistant, yielding while clinging.

The Slimy Appears from "Being and Nothingness". The Slimy Appears A Material Encounter The slimy offers itself as both fluid and resistant, yielding while clinging.

The Slimy Appears A Material Encounter The slimy offers itself as both fluid and resistant, yielding while clinging. Its physical behavior immediately acquires a distinctive existential meaning. Ambiguity It seems to invite possession, yet its adherence threatens to possess the person who touches it.

The In-Itself's Revenge The In-Itself's Revenge from "Being and Nothingness". The In-Itself's Revenge Reversed Possession The attempt to grasp the slimy turns into a threat of being absorbed by it.

The In-Itself's Revenge from "Being and Nothingness". The In-Itself's Revenge Reversed Possession The attempt to grasp the slimy turns into a threat of being absorbed by it.

The In-Itself's Revenge Reversed Possession The attempt to grasp the slimy turns into a threat of being absorbed by it. The material object symbolizes the in-itself's resistance to freedom. Meaning The experience reveals an antivalue: a feared mode in which facticity engulfs the for-itself.

The Hole as Lack The Hole as Lack from "Being and Nothingness". The Hole as Lack Empty Space A hole appears as an absence inviting filling.

The Hole as Lack Empty Space A hole appears as an absence inviting filling. It organizes a relation between the person, the surrounding matter, and an imagined completion. Early Meaning The world is disclosed through such material forms as a field of possible relations long before abstract concepts can describe them.

Part Two, Chapter Three, Section III

Part Four, Chapter Two, Section III, opening

Part Four, Chapter Two, Section III, discussion of the slimy

Part Four, Chapter Two, Section III, later account of sliminess

Part Four, Chapter Two, Section III, discussion of holes