Being-in-itself-for-itself

Being-in-itself-for-itself is the ideal of a consciousness that would possess the self-sufficiency of the in-itself while founding its own being through consciousness. It is the ultimate value human reality projects, and its impossibility explains why human existence remains a divided, unfinished effort rather than a completed synthesis.

Definition and Structure

The account begins from the for-itself as a being that is its own lack of being. What it lacks is the in-itself: the for-itself arises by nihilation of the in-itself and projects toward it, occupying the nothingness between what it has nihilated and what it seeks to become. The goal is therefore not a simple return to the in-itself. The for-itself seeks an in-itself transformed by its relation to consciousness, a totality in which the in-itself is nihilated in the for-itself.

The desired synthesis would combine incompatible modes of being. Consciousness would retain its openness and self-relation while possessing the impermeability and density of the in-itself; it would be its own foundation rather than remain contingent. In this ideal, the for-itself would found an in-itself that was identical with the founding consciousness. The name Being-in-itself-for-itself designates this unity, not an achieved condition found in ordinary existence.

The Fundamental Project and Human Desire

The ideal gives an ontological shape to human desire. Human reality is described as a desire for being, but not for bare, contingent in-itself existence: it seeks an in-itself that would be its own foundation. The fundamental value governing this project is Being-in-itself-for-itself, also described as the ideal of God. In that sense, the project of being God is not an occasional religious aspiration; it names the ultimate limit through which a person makes sense of what they are reaching toward.

This account does not make people’s concrete aims identical or predetermine their choices. Although the meaning of desire ultimately points toward being God, desire is never simply constituted by that abstract meaning. It takes shape as particular ends pursued in particular empirical situations; those pursuits, in turn, make the surroundings intelligible as a situation. The desire for being is realized as a desire for a mode of being, expressed through the many concrete desires of conscious life.

Concrete Desire and the World

The analysis describes these desires as a layered symbolic structure. An empirical desire can symbolize a more fundamental, concrete desire: the person’s chosen way of making being an issue in their own existence. That fundamental desire then expresses an abstract desire for being in general within the person’s specific situation. The abstract level gives human reality a shared dimension, making it possible to speak of a truth about human beings rather than only of unrelated individuals.

The same framework shapes an interpretation of things. When a person appropriates the world, things are not chosen, in the final analysis, merely for sexual potential. Their significance depends on the way each thing makes being appear and on how being seems to emerge from its surface. A psychoanalysis of things and matter should therefore first examine their objective symbolism: how they disclose being and the relation of human reality to it. Sexual symbolism may be found afterward, but it is treated as a secondary layer that presupposes analysis of presexual structures.

An Ideal That Cannot Be Realized

The ontological synthesis clarifies both the attraction and the failure of the ideal. A totality in which the in-itself and for-itself were inseparable would have to be its own cause: the in-itself would receive its existence from the nihilation that brings consciousness about, while consciousness would found the in-itself that it is. This is the model of an ens causa sui. Yet that self-causing being is impossible, and the concept contains a contradiction. The project remains intelligible as the horizon by which human reality understands its desire, not as a state it can bring about.

Consequently, the real appears as an abortive effort to attain the dignity of a self-cause. The world, humanity, and humanity-in-the-world seem to realize only a missing God: the ideal synthesis is always indicated, but it has never taken place. This perpetual failure accounts for the in-itself and for-itself being both bound together and relatively independent. Their relation cannot be completed into a common, unified being; the hiatus between them is not a temporary obstacle that a successful synthesis will overcome, but the mark of the synthesis’s permanent impossibility.

Significance

Being-in-itself-for-itself therefore joins a theory of desire to an account of existence’s limits. It explains why concrete projects and appropriations can carry meanings that exceed their immediate objects: they are particular expressions of a fundamental desire for a self-grounding mode of being. Yet that ultimate aim cannot be fulfilled without erasing the distinction between the self-conscious project and the self-sufficient being it seeks to become.

The ideal’s force lies precisely in this unresolved status. It organizes human reality as a direction of aspiration without supplying a final essence or completed end. Every concrete pursuit can disclose a mode of that aspiration, but none closes the gap between consciousness and being. What remains is the effort toward a unity that gives desire its orientation and, through its impossibility, keeps existence unfinished.