On the passivity in the phenomenology of the situation and the look in Being and Nothingness: a reading from the late Merleau-Ponty

Abstract

Jean-Paul Sartre in Being and Nothingness posits an ontology based on the fundamental duality of being and a nothingness that, above all, is described as a nihilating act. By virtue of a strong presence of active dynamics in Sartrean ontology, this research aims to identify the role of passivity in Sartrean ontology and phenomenology, with a view to highlighting the necessity of the passive dimension in at least two crucial phenomena in the factual constitution of the For-self, namely, on the one hand, the situation of the body-for-self and, on the other hand, the appearance of the other through the look. For this purpose, the Merleaupontian ontology of passivity set forth in The Visible and the Invisible will be used as a guide. With this, the hypothesis to be sustained is that there is an important recourse to passivity in the phenomenology of the situation of the body-for-itself, sharpened with the appearing of the other, which, however, is absent in the ontological exposition.