Fichte and the Phenomenological Tradition (PDF)

Fichte, Heidegger and the Concept of Facticity (p. 223-224)


M. Jorge de Carvalho


Universidade Nova de Lisboa


The concept of “Facticity” plays a key role both in Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre and in Heidegger’s phenomenological hermeneutics – so much so that both philosophical undertakings regard themselves as radical attempts to tackle the question of facticity. But on the other hand they differ on what facticity is and how it can – and should – be dealt with. Our aim is to compare – or rather to grasp the link between – these two different approaches. No history of the concept of facticity can be written without this comparison. But besides their historical interest, the problems faced and posed by these two different approaches are ones no philosophy can safely ignore.

Our main concern is in the first place to outline Fichte’s radical critique of facticity and in particular to highlight the following key points: a) his understanding of facticity (what is it that in fact constitutes facticity?); b) his understanding of its negative role (why is it a hindrance?) and c) his assumption that it is possible to overcome facticity or to make a total and radical change in the way we are subject to it.

One fundamental characteristic of facts is that they are found (“etwas Vorgefundenes”). They are, so to speak, “already there” and force us to watch or confront them. Facts are undeniable, unyielding, uncompromising. There is something about them that makes them absolute. Fichte speaks of an “absolut Vorhandenes” (of something “absolutely there”). Facts are indubitably given, they impose themselves, “inscribe” themselves irrevocably. They form that absolute manifestation (and are endowed with that particular kind of indelibility) that Fichte expresses by saying: “Es ist, ist nicht nicht”

Violetta L. Waibel, University of Vienna, Austria; Daniel Breazeale, University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA, and Tom Rockmore, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, USA.