CONCEPT
Facticity and Transcendence
The two irreducible dimensions of human existence — the given (body, history, circumstance) and the projecting (consciousness going beyond the given toward possibilities that do not yet exist).
Human existence in Sartre's account is not pure freedom but the perpetual tension between two dimensions. Facticity is everything given rather than chosen — the body one inhabits, the historical moment, economic conditions of childhood, first language, the specific configuration of abilities and limitations that constitute one's starting position. Facticity is real; it is not an illusion to be overcome by force of will. Transcendence is the capacity of consciousness to go beyond the given, to project toward possibilities that do not yet exist, to refuse to accept the factical situation as final. Facticity without transcendence would be the existence of a thing. Transcendence without facticity would be the existence of a god. Human beings are neither — they are situated freedoms, exercising transcendence within, against, and through the specific constraints of their given situation.
