Pierre and the Meaning of Absence

This flow follows Pierre as Sartre’s recurring example of how a real person can be intended through an image while appearing as absent.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

Pierre Is Remembered

The Friend as an Example An absent person intended Sartre asks what happens when someone forms an image of Pierre. The object of consciousness is Pierre himself, not an internal portrait that merely points outward to him. The example makes the central problem tangible: an actual person can be directly intended even when he is not present to perception. Two manners of relation The same Pierre can be perceived when encountered and imagined when absent. The difference lies in consciousness’s mode of relation, not in there being two people.

An Image Combines Times

The Friend Beyond One Moment Knowledge and feeling diverge Sartre observes that an image of Pierre may show him in a familiar room even when knowledge places him elsewhere. The image can combine present beliefs with affective impressions formed across earlier encounters. It does not necessarily represent one precise moment in Pierre’s life. Its appearance can gather several aspects into an unstable synthesis. A meaningful tension This mismatch helps explain the image’s ambiguity. Consciousness intends the real Pierre through material that gives him a different, condensed presence.

Absence Becomes the Image’s Sense

Pierre as Absent A situation gives meaning The desire to see Pierre defines a situation in which he is not presently given. His absence is not an accidental detail added after the image forms; it helps motivate what the image is. The person intended remains the real Pierre, but he appears to consciousness precisely as unavailable here. A general claim Pierre’s example carries Sartre’s account from psychology into the relation between world, situation, and negation. An image makes a particular absence explicit against a real background.

Early in Part I, Chapter 1

During Part II’s analysis of the affective analogon

In the Conclusion’s analysis of world and image