ABSTRACT
Up to this point we have described only our fundamental relation with the Other. This relation has enabled us to make explicit our body’s three dimensions of being. And although the original bond with the Other arises before the relation between my body and the Other’s body, it seemed clear to us that the knowledge of the nature of the body was indispensable to any study of the particular relations of my being with that of the Other. These particular relations, in fact, on both sides presuppose facticity; that is, our existence as body in the midst of the world. Not that the body is the instrument and the cause of my relations with others. But the body constitutes their meaning and marks their limits. It is as body-in-situation that I apprehend the Other’s transcendence-transcended, and it is as body-insituation that I experience myself in my alienation for the Other’s benefit. Now we can examine these concrete relations since we are cognizant of what the body is. They are not simple specifications of the fundamental relation. Although each one of them includes within it the original relation with the Other as its essential structure and its foundation, they are entirely new modes of being on the part of the for-itself. In fact they represent the various attitudes of the for-itself in a world where there are Others. Therefore each relation in its own way presents the bilateral relation: for-itself-for-others, in-itself. If then we succeed in making explicit the structures of our most primitive relations with the Other-in-the-world, we shall have completed our task. At the beginning of this work, we asked, “What are the relations of the for-itself with the in-itself?” We have learned now that our task is more complex. There is a relation of the for-itself with the in-itself in the presence of the Other. When we have described this concrete fact, we shall be in a position to
form conclusions concerning the fundamental relations of the three modes of being, and we shall perhaps be able to attempt a metaphysical theory of being in general.
