Possibility

Possibility names the way the for-itself is separated from what it is and directed toward what it may be. In Sartre’s account, it is not a prediction or an abstract alternative: it is a real lack belonging to an existing being, disclosed when consciousness surpasses the present toward a future state. The clouds can threaten rain, but that possibility becomes part of the world only through a being that projects beyond the clouds as they are.

Possibility as Lack and Project

The for-itself is a lack of coincidence with itself. What it lacks is not some alien reality but itself in the mode of an unrealized possibility: it must be what it is not in order to approach the unity with itself that it seeks. This relation outlines a project of identification, yet complete coincidence would make the for-itself an in-itself and abolish the very distance that defines consciousness.

Possibility arises with the for-itself’s nihilation of the in-itself. It is not first conceived as a neutral option and then adopted as a plan; the for-itself’s distance from being already opens a future toward which it can project itself. Thus the possible is inseparable from the being whose possibility it is, and from the lack that makes that future matter.

Neither Mere Thought nor Latent Capacity

The ordinary example of rain shows why possibility cannot be reduced to subjective ignorance or logical consistency. After looking at the sky, a person may say that rain is possible: the clouds appear to surpass themselves toward rain, though this does not guarantee that rain will occur. The possibility belongs concretely to an existing situation; without clouds, there is no possibility of rain in that situation.

Yet clouds are not, in themselves, “potential rain.” As in-itself, a cloud is what it is: a quantity of water vapor under particular conditions. Treating possibility as a hidden capacity lodged in the object would turn it into a magical property; treating it only as a calculation of human ignorance would make it merely subjective. Sartre’s account holds these rejected explanations apart: the existing thing sustains the projected possibility, but human reality brings possibility into the world by surpassing the thing toward what it is not yet.

An Option on Being

Possibility is an option on being, but having such an option means that human reality is not simply identical with what it presently is. A right to something, Sartre observes, becomes visible when it is contested; the undisturbed possession of something is a fact, not a right. Likewise, the for-itself exists as the right to be what it is not yet, and that distance is part of its structure rather than an accidental uncertainty.

This is why a possible state is not an independent entity waiting before the real. It is the not-yet state of an existent that supports its possibility through its present being. The clouds support the possibility of rain; the future state does not float free of them. Possibility therefore has a peculiar status: it is not actual, but neither is it simply an unreal representation, since it is sustained by an existing situation and opened by the for-itself’s projection.

The Possible and the World

The possible is what the for-itself lacks in order to be itself. Sartre describes it as a real lack of being: it has the being of a lack, while lacking being as an accomplished state. It is “possibilized” to the precise degree that the for-itself makes itself be, and it sketches a location in the nothingness that the for-itself is beyond itself. The possible need not be thematically stated; it can orient non-thetic consciousness without becoming an object of explicit reflection.

Thirst makes this structure tangible. The possible of consciousness of thirst is consciousness of drinking: a glass of water appears as desirable against the horizon of possible repletion. But satisfying the thirst cannot secure lasting coincidence with oneself. Once the possible is realized, the for-itself remains a for-itself and opens onto another horizon; the disappointment captured by the question “Is it only this?” concerns the vanishing promise of self-coincidence, not the concrete pleasure of satisfaction alone.

Sartre calls the for-itself’s relation to its possible the circuit of selfness, and calls the totality of being traversed by that circuit the world. The world is therefore not a sealed collection of objects set opposite an isolated consciousness. Consciousness is positional: it transcends itself toward an object, and its attention is directed outward rather than filled with representations of things. A table is in space beside a window, not inside consciousness as a content. In the same way, the for-itself’s possibilities give its present perception meaning within a world it surpasses toward its own projected future.