Rethinking Facticity (Contemporary Contin Philosophy)

Examines the historical context and contemporary relevance of facticity.

The concept of facticity has undergone crucial transformations over the last century in hermeneutics and phenomenology, but it has not yet received the attention that it warrants. Following a suggestion by Merleau-Ponty that philosophy is not about essences but rather the facticity of existence, prominent philosophers examine the significance of facticity in its historical context and reflect on its contemporary relevance. Focusing on the works of Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Lacan, and Fanon, among others, they trace its significance from life-philosophy to contemporary European thought and explore its philosophical implications. The following questions are addressed: What thoughts of experience, of subjectivity, of finitude, of nature, of the body, of racial and sexual difference does facticity provoke? What thinking of language, of history, of birth and death, of our ethical being-in-the-world does it mobilize? Exploring these questions, the contributors offer new interpretations of facticity.

François Raffoul is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Louisiana State University. His many books include Heidegger and Practical Philosophy (coedited with David Pettigrew), also published by SUNY Press. Eric Sean Nelson is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and coeditor (with Antje Kapust and Kent Still) of Addressing Levinas.