Editing Existentialism (section)

=== Facticity ===
{{main|Facticity}}
{{Technical|section|date=November 2020}}

Facticity is defined by Sartre in ''[[Being and Nothingness]]'' (1943) as the ''[[being-in-itself|in-itself]]'', which for humans takes the form of being and not being. It is the facts of one's personal life and as per Heidegger, it is "[[Thrownness|the way in which we are thrown into the world]]." This can be more easily understood when considering facticity in relation to a person's past: one's past forms the person who exists in the present. However, to reduce a person to their past would ignore the change a person undergoes in the present and future, while saying that one's past is only what one was, would entirely detach it from the present self. A denial of one's concrete past constitutes an inauthentic lifestyle, and also applies to other kinds of facticity (having a human body with all its limitations, identity, values, etc.).{{sfn|Crowell|2020|loc=2.1 Facticity and Transcendence}}

Facticity is a limitation and a condition of freedom. It is a limitation in that a large part of a person's facticity consists of things they did not choose (birthplace, etc.), but a condition of freedom in the sense that one's values most likely depend on these factors. However, even though one's facticity is fixed, it cannot determine a person: they may choose to assign as much value to their facticity as they choose. As an example, consider two men, one of whom has no memory of his past and the other who remembers everything. Both have committed many crimes, but the first man, remembering nothing, leads a rather normal life while the second man, feeling trapped by his past, continues a life of crime, blaming his own past. There is nothing essential about his committing crimes, but he ascribes this meaning to his past.

However, to disregard one's facticity during the evolution of one's sense of self would be a denial of the conditions shaping the present self and would be inauthentic. An example of the focus solely on possible projects without reflecting on one's current facticity would be continually thinking about future possibilities related to being rich (e.g. a better car, bigger house, better quality of life, etc.) without acknowledging the facticity of ''not currently having the financial means to do so''. In this example, considering both facticity and transcendence, an authentic mode of being would be considering future projects that might improve one's current finances (e.g. putting in extra hours, or investing savings) in order to arrive at a real future, or ''future-facticity'' of a modest pay rise, further leading to purchase of an affordable car.

Another aspect of facticity is that it entails [[angst]]. Freedom "produces" angst when limited by facticity and the lack of the possibility of having facticity to "step in" and take responsibility for something one has done also produces angst.

Another aspect of existential freedom is that one can change one's values. One is responsible for one's values, regardless of society's values. The focus on [[freedom]] in existentialism is related to the limits of responsibility one bears, as a result of one's freedom. The relationship between freedom and responsibility is one of interdependency and a clarification of freedom also clarifies that for which one is responsible.{{sfn|Crowell|2020|loc=3. Freedom and Value}}{{sfn|Crowell|2020|loc=3.2 The Ideality of Values}}