Time

Time is not a row of independent moments but the For-itself’s continuing movement beyond what is given. Sartre’s account makes the Past, Present, and Future dimensions of a lived project: the For-itself is what it has been, flees that condition in the Present, and projects itself toward what it may become. Within this flowing structure, the instant marks the possibility of a decisive rupture—a new project that closes one way of being and opens another.

Not a succession of instants

Sartre denies that time is composed of instants lined up in succession. The instant nevertheless has psychological importance: at any point, the For-itself may suddenly break with its existing way of being by choosing a new project. The instant is therefore not a smallest unit from which time is assembled, but a threshold in lived existence, where one project can reach its end as another begins.

Temporality as a project

Temporality is the subjective process through which the For-itself continuously lives its project of nihilating the In-itself. It sets the measure by which things endure and retain an identity; time does not reside inside things but flows over them. This account makes temporal order inseparable from the For-itself’s activity rather than an independently existing framework imposed on experience.

Past, Present, and Future

The For-itself is its Past as what it has been, but it does not remain enclosed in that completed condition. It is also a flight in the Present, moving beyond what is given toward what it projects itself to be in the Future. The three dimensions thus belong to one dynamic structure: the Past supplies what must be surpassed, the Present enacts that departure, and the Future gives the movement its projected direction.

The instant and change

Because the For-itself is not fixed as a thing, a project can be ruptured and replaced. The instant names the ever-present possibility of this change, functioning as the final term of the project that is abandoned and the initial term of the one chosen. Sartre’s account thereby connects time with the possibility of reorienting existence: a new beginning is not external to temporal life but one of its defining possibilities.