Always already

Always already is an adverb. It is sometimes written “always-already”. This phrase is common in philosophical discourse, and notably popularized by Heidegger, although it occurs as early as Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, and probably before. It is engaged with frequently in the discourse of literary theory or deconstruction/post-structuralism into which continental philosophy begins to evolve after Heidegger, for example in Derrida, for whom Heidegger’s terms, ideas, and constructions are always a central topic. The term was also central to much of the work of obscure/mysterious French writer/theorist Maurice Blanchot (1907-2003). Blanchot's work draws on on the work of Stéphane Mallarmé and subsequently influences Jacques Derrida.

The 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 I finish reading Hamlet for the first time, we may say that I have “always already” read Hamlet, and that the time before I 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.