Lack of being

Lack of being names the constitutive incompletion of the for-itself: consciousness exists by making its own being a question and projecting possibilities toward what it is not. It is neither a temporary shortfall nor an empirical flaw to be corrected. In Sartre’s account, it is at once the structure of desire and the concrete mode of freedom, grounding the pursuit of being while ensuring that no particular achievement simply closes the gap.

Ontological Definition

The for-itself is defined as a being that is to itself its own lack of being. Its lack is not an absence measured against a complete self that once existed or could simply be restored. Rather, the for-itself exists in the form of a project: its being is in question, and it makes itself intelligible through a possibility that appears as a value. Possibility and value therefore belong to its mode of being, not to an external inventory of objects or standards.

The lack also gives freedom its precise ontological meaning. The for-itself chooses because it is lack; freedom is not an extra power added to an otherwise complete being, but the concrete mode in which lack exists. To say that freedom determines its possibilities and values is, on this account, to describe the same structure from another direction: a being that is not self-identical projects what it could be and thereby gives its lack a direction.

This account marks a stopping point for analysis. Sartre calls the project of being irreducible because no further ground can be reached beyond being itself, and because the project, its possibility, and its value are not separable from the being they articulate. Human desire to be is thus not a hypothesis inferred from repeated behavior. It follows, in the argument, from the description of the for-itself as its own lack and of desire as lack.

Desire, Freedom, and the In-Itself

The being sought by the for-itself is the in-itself. The for-itself arises as a nihilation of the in-itself, and its own nothingness lies between the in-itself it has nihilated and the in-itself toward which it projects. Lack is therefore directional: it is not a free-floating emptiness but a relation to being, with the in-itself as its aim. Human reality is described as desire for being-in-itself, though the desired being cannot be reduced to the sheer contingent in-itself encountered and nihilated in experience.

Because desire and lack are identified, freedom can arise only as a being that makes itself a desire of being. The abstract structure of that desire points toward the impossible ideal of in-itself-for-itself: the aspiration to combine the solidity of being with the self-presence of consciousness. This structure expresses the human meaning of freedom, but it is not a fixed human essence that precedes or dictates a person’s choices. Freedom is existence, and its upsurge is immediate and concrete, inseparable from the person’s choice.

Lack thus explains why freedom does not mean possession of a completed identity. The for-itself acts from a distance within its own being, projecting a future value without becoming identical to it. Its possibilities matter because they are lacking; their force depends on the incompletion they promise, not on an already secured state.

Individual Projects and Empirical Desires

The fundamental project is not a separate desire hidden behind everyday conduct, waiting to cause particular feelings from a distance. It exists and becomes legible only through concrete desires. Jealousy, greed, love of art, cowardice, and courage are among the contingent forms in which the desire to be manifests itself. Each particular tendency expresses the original project, but none can be isolated from the individual whose way of being it reveals.

Sartre describes these desires as a layered symbolic structure. An empirical desire symbolizes a person’s concrete fundamental desire, the distinctive way that person has chosen for being to be at issue. That individual project, in turn, expresses in a particular situation the more abstract desire of being in general. The levels are connected, but they are not interchangeable: the abstract structure supplies a human truth, while the free fundamental desire belongs to the complete, concrete person; an empirical desire remains partial and derives its meaning from that person’s project.

The fundamental project is everywhere in the person’s desires, yet it is never captured by any single one. Sartre compares its mode of disclosure to an object that appears through aspects without being exhausted by any one aspect. This prevents the general ontological account from becoming a formula that erases individual freedom. The truth of the person must be approached through particular expressions, while remaining irreducible to any isolated behavior.

Being and Having in the World

Lack also clarifies the relation between the desire to be and the desire to have. The desire to be aims directly at the for-itself, seeking to confer on it the dignity of the in-itself-for-itself. The desire to have pursues the same value indirectly, by appropriating the world and inserting it between the for-itself and its being. The two can be distinguished analytically, but Sartre argues that they are inseparable in lived projects: the desire to be is accompanied by a desire to have, and the desire to have is directed toward the same fundamental end.

In either mode, the lack is individual and concrete. The for-itself does not arise as an abstract deficiency in general; it makes itself the lack of a being that already exists in the midst of the world. This is why a person’s acts, from the least significant to the most consequential, express a free choice of being—directly, through appropriation, or through both together. The particular object selected is not itself the ultimate ground of the project. Its quality presents a way in which being gives itself, and the project is disclosed in the manner of being a person seeks through it.

The goal of existential psychoanalysis is to rediscover, through concrete and empirical projects, the original way an individual has chosen being. Lack of being supplies the ontological basis for that inquiry, not a ready-made diagnosis of any person. Its explanatory force lies in joining freedom to desire without turning either into a hidden mechanism: the project exists in its worldly expressions, and those expressions remain the contingent choices of a particular human reality.