Always already

Always already is an adverb, sometimes written “always-already”, common in literary discourse.

Meaning

In a typical instance, "always already" appeared in the narrative theory of Paul Ricoeur, in the argument that "human action can be narrated...because it is always already symbolically mediated" (by signs, rules, and norms).

Another central idea behind the phrase “always already” is that once a certain place in time is achieved, the being of places in time earlier than that place is ‘transient’, problematic, or unthinkable. For example, after a person finishes reading Hamlet for the first time, we may say that they have “always already” read Hamlet, and that the time before the person had read Hamlet, being now past, was or is ‘always’ past. Common extensions of this phrase might follow from this example: in our modern society, we might say that having always already read Hamlet is the nature of contemporary intellect. Another way in which this phrase might lend a powerful dimension to thinking would be the notion that the modern subject] properly conceived, “always already” has learned a language, it being, in a certain sense, inconceivable to consider the pre-linguistic subject.

"Always already" is important in Heidegger's idea that Dasein anticipates or is "ahead of itself," and also in the primacy of language. Heidegger’s terms, ideas, and constructions are central to deconstruction, more so than is Marxism. With the added decline of Marxist critical theory after the 1960s, the phrase is still engaged with frequently in the discourse of literary theory, hermeneutics, and deconstruction/post-structuralism into which continental philosophy begins to devolve after Heidegger, for example in Derrida.

Historical Use

Though famously appropriated by Marx with regard to the presence of capital, it was notably popularized yet again, by Heidegger. Marx's use was preceded, however, by Kant no later than Critique of Pure Reason [A346=B404].

The term was also central to much of the work of Maurice Blanchot (1907–2003) who criticized Heidegger's analysis of anticipation in Hölderlin's poetry, and who drew on the work of Stéphane Mallarmé. Blanchot subsequently influenced Jacques Derrida.