The This

The This names a being insofar as it is disclosed as a particular figure against the undifferentiated ground of being. It is not a self-contained label lodged in the thing: its appearance depends on the for-itself’s negating presence, which makes a particular being stand out without changing what that being is.

Determination and Negation

The question of which being the for-itself is present to is, taken by itself, badly framed. Being simply is what it is; it does not contain the determination “this one” that would answer a question of selection. The question becomes meaningful only within a world, and the for-itself’s presence does not begin by choosing one already marked being over another. Rather, this presence makes the distinction between “this” and “that” possible. Negativity, in its original form, is not determined by a particular This; it is what allows a This to exist.

The This is disclosed as the concrete being that the for-itself is not at present. Because human reality is an incomplete, detotalized totality, it can make a particular negation known to itself only against the wider ground of being and its other negations. The thing that appears as this is therefore not an isolated item: it is the being that the for-itself has to not-be, revealed against the totality through which its own concrete negation becomes intelligible.

Figure Against Ground

This relation between the whole and the particular lies at the source of the figure-and-ground relation described by Gestalt theory. A This appears against an undifferentiated ground of being, which the for-itself radically negates. It can also dissolve back into that ground when another This emerges. The appearance of a figure thus corresponds to the for-itself’s way of being its own negation: the present, particular negation is brought forward while other negations recede.

That selective emphasis is structured by temporality. A This appears because the for-itself is not yet its future negations and is no longer its past ones. The for-itself is not the world, spatiality, permanence, matter, or being-in-itself in general; its way of not being them is concretely expressed as having to not-be this table, this glass, or this room. Each particular figure thus marks a present negation against a wider field, rather than replacing that field or standing outside it.

Determination Without Change

The determination that makes a being appear as this is a negation of negation. It must remain attached to the radical negation from which it emerges, and it is ready to dissolve into that ground as soon as another This takes prominence. The other “thises” withdraw into the ground of the world, allowing the selected being to appear as distinct. In this sense, determination originates not in a change to the thing but in the way it is disclosed in relation to what recedes.

From the standpoint of the thing itself, this negation is ideal: it adds nothing to being and subtracts nothing from it. The being remains what it is. Since the This cannot step outside itself to become a component that synthesizes the whole, its relation to the whole is external. Determination therefore appears as external negation, correlated with the for-itself’s radical, ekstatic internal negation.

The World as Ground and Totality

The world has a double aspect. It appears as a synthetic totality because the for-itself discloses it as a whole; at the same time, it can appear as an additive collection of distinct Thises. As undifferentiated ground, the world is the totality against which the for-itself’s radical negation takes shape. Yet that ground is always ready to open onto one or several figures, which were already there within it as what they are, even before becoming differentiated in appearance.

The This is therefore neither an independent object whose particularity precedes all relations nor a mere alteration in the being of the thing. It is a figure made manifest by the for-itself’s situated negation: distinct against the ground, linked to the totality it does not become, and liable to recede when another figure appears. Its account explains how determinate things can emerge in a world that is disclosed both as a whole and as a plurality.