facticity

is a disruption of the lucidity of things as they present themselves by means of a rationalizing process, or, as it were, a 'naturalizing' of consciousness.

In this view, essence is commonplace and the intuition of essence is commonplace. What disturbs the lucidity of the scene is what Husserl calls the 'naturalizing' of consciousness: the introduction of facticity the facticity of nature where it does not belong. That 'naturalizing' Husserl calls 'psychologism': the decisive blurring of the difference between essence and event, intuition and actuality. Thus, (Natanson 1998 : 21)

is simply the idea that life, always remaining partly obscure, and always involved in its surroundings in a particular way, cannot be adequately described in theoretical terms.

The facticity of life simply means that life cannot be adequately described in theoretical terms. Human life is always immersed in a specific situation, involved with its surroundings in a very particular way. This facticity always remains partly obscure, and for this reason human life cannot be approached by the methods used in the sciences to describe inanimate matter.

is the idea that any dasein is 'as' it already was, and it is 'what' it already was.

In its factical Being, any Dasein is as it already was, and it is 'what' it already was. (BT : 41)

is the idea that life is always immersed in a specific situation and thus cannot be adequately described in theoretical terms.

Human life is not something visible from the outside, but must be seen in the very act, performance, or execution of its own reality, which always exceeds any of the properties that we can list about it. In other words, life is 'factical,' and is marked by what Heidegger calls 'facticity.' The facticity of life simply means that life cannot be adequately described in theoretical terms. Human life is always immersed in a specific situation, involved with its surroundings in a very particular way. This facticity always remains partly obscure, and for this reason human life cannot be approached by the methods used in the sciences to describe inanimate matter. (Harman 2011: ')

is approached not scientifically from the outside, but via hermeneutics.

Finally, the way to unlock this facticity is not through scientific theory, but through hermeneutics—a term derived from the Greek word for interpretation. Reality always partly eludes our grasp; it is not directly seen, but always interpreted in a specific way and from a specific standpoint. Taken as a whole, the title of this lecture course means simply that Heidegger wants to develop a theory of being through an interpretation of human life in its concrete historical reality.

is the idea that everything has a tacit meaning or function that confronts us prior to consciousness and that remains obscure to theorization.

Heidegger’s name for human existence is Dasein (“being there” or simply “existence”), a word almost always left in the original German. For Heidegger in 1920–21, factical Dasein is the only subject matter of philosophy, for two related reasons. First, the only way to avoid reducing things to their appearance is to focus on the facticity of human life in its environment, where everything has a tacit meaning or function before we consciously notice it. Second, philosophy only arises out of a factical situation in the first place: Plato, Descartes, and Hegel were not disembodied souls floating through empty space, but were real human beings who only began to philosophize in a specific historical setting.

is the idea that human life is always partly obscure and thus cannot be approached by the methods used in the sciences to describe inanimate matter.

This facticity always remains partly obscure, and for this reason human life cannot be approached by the methods used in the sciences to describe inanimate matter.

is the recognition that life cannot be adequately described in theoretical terms because it is always immersed in a specific situation, involved with its surroundings in a very particular way.

To use a German word, we have to view it as Vollzug, which means performance or execution, not one of Husserl’s major terms. Human life is not something visible from the outside, but must be seen in the very act, performance, or execution of its own reality, which always exceeds any of the properties that we can list about it. In other words, life is “factical,” and is marked by what Heidegger calls “facticity.” The facticity of life simply means that life cannot be adequately described in theoretical terms. Human life is always immersed in a specific situation, involved with its surroundings in a very particular way.

facticity, n.Definitions

facticity