Beyond the Facts - Transcendence

In a previous post I looked at an odd term that existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) used to sum up the facts of our situation: “facticity”. Our facticity refers to all the givens of our current situation: our environment, our language, our genetics, our history, etc.

But as I mentioned in the previous post, this is not the whole situation. There is more to being a person than just the facts of our situation.

Sartre used another term to refer to our ability to go beyond the facts: “transcendence”. Our transcendence is our potential to bring about new possibilities through the choices that we make. If our facticity is the “what-is” of our situation, then our transcendence is the “what-could-be” of our situation.

The relationship and tension between facticity and transcendence is its own discussion, but let’s look at an example in order to better understand transcendence.

A client might describe the facticity of their situation like this: They have a job that they don’t find fulfilling. They don’t feel creative, they aren’t learning or exploring. They don’t have enough money to just quit and find another job. They can’t travel due to COVID-19 restrictions. They feel like there isn’t much going on other than wake up, work, TV, sleep, repeat. They feel stuck.

This client’s transcendence is all the ways they can bring about new possibilities through the choices they can make. They can begin working on their resume. They can learn a new language online. They can consider going back to school. They can start a running program. They can change their eating habits. They can pull out their guitar and start learning songs. They can continue writing a book they started years ago. They can join a dating website. They can plan trips they’d like to go on after the COVID-19 crisis is over. The options are endless, even without changing the initial facts of the situation.

Facticity and transcendence are both part of what it means to exist. We face both the facts that limit us, and the freedom to create within or overcome those limits. Part of what Existential Psychotherapy can help us do is identify both of these aspects of our own lives.

To learn more about Existential Psychotherapy, sign up to get email updates on new blog posts.

To learn more about what it means to use Existential Psychotherapy in your own life, sign up to get weekly Existential Psychotherapy reflections by email.