Facticity as it is found in the Existentialist tradition, particularly in Sartre’s works, embodies the limitations of freedom. Facticity refers to the factual components of a human being, things we cannot choose that are necessarily a part of us. Some of these things are completely concrete. Your birth and where you grow up are two examples that are completely concrete in nature, they are essentially unchangeable by you, in yet are factors in your life that will influence who you are and how you see the world. Other things that are not exactly concrete include your history or past actions. They are still yours, and are made objective through your actions.
The main importance of facticity in Sartre’s works is in recognising the factual influences that a person must deal with in their lives that provide a limit to freedom. As those of you familiar with Sartre’s work, a person is fundamentally free to choose to be whomever they wish. Your identity is always your choice. You however obviously cannot choose to fly, as you don’t have any means to do so. Recognising these limitations to your freedom is critically important. It shows you the boundaries of your choices and actions, and that if you come to understand those boundaries, you can maximise the effect of your choices and actions.
The major virtue in Existentialism is authenticity. To be true to ones self. To fully, and radically embrace the freedom that comes with existing, and recognise that meaning has no inherent value outside of what you choose things to mean. Recognising and understanding facticity is critical to achieving authenticity.
Two important aspects of facticity as it relates to authenticity are, 1) you recognise and embrace the objective, concrete parts of yourself, and 2) you recognise that they do not define you.
In regards to your own history, to be fully authentic one has to embrace the factual matter that you have done things, perhaps things you disagree with and are ashamed of. To reject that would be inauthentic, and essentially pretending that we as human beings do not have histories. The critical part is, any persons history does not define you. You define yourself, you have to determine what your history means to you. Even if you’ve done things you think are downright terrible, it is still on you not to be those things in the future, and by embracing your past, accepting that it is a part of you, but refusing to be that person and instead changing is to be fully authentic, to be driven by your own choices, and not by facticitious things.
If that sounds appealing, I’d recommend checking out the following links.
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP) is a beginner friendly / intermediate level resource in Philosophy.
Chapters 3 and 4 are relevant and briefly outline Facticity (Sometimes referred to as Being-in-itself)
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sartre/
The chapter on Sartre’s Ontology is the relevant starting point.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) is for advanced readers only. These consist of published, peer reviewed articles by professionals in the relevant fields. If you’re not familiar with existentialism and haven’t read any of the relevant literature definitely steer clear of this one for now.
Place of the White Blog 