Can We Reach the Absolute Truth and Find the Absolute Meaning?

by Jun Hyeok Park

To answer the question if we, as human, can reach the absolute truth, we have the consider what exactly the question is talking about by looking at the word "the Absolute Truth" and "the Absolute Meaning". The word Truth and Meaning may make sense and are self-explanatory by the words itself but the additional word "Absolute" in front of them makes itquite vague.

If the word "Absolute" here refers to the unimaginative and the undefinite viewpoint of God, then we can consider that the question itself is falsely stated. In this sense, the question can never be answered by any human being because it is asking the viewpoint of God which the human beings will never know. Since we cannot imagine what it is to see in the view of God, the question is not anymore valid for us.

Then what if it refers to something 'final' and 'finite'? Then we can pose the answer, "maybe". First of all, truth that we are talking about is not universal. People have different sets of minds and ways of thinking; thus, it is not simple enough to generalize if the truth and meaning can be found to every single person in this world. Unfortunately, there is not a mathematical formula to solve the x in this case which means that any scientific attempts to answer the question may be difficult. Second, we have to recall that the process of finding the truth and meaning is endless. It is an endless journey to find the meaning and truth; therefore, there is no such thing as 'final' or 'finite' answer to it. Lastly, we as human beings may be limited but we are not just a finite being stuck in our own body. The endless journey to find the truth may 'free' us from the limits and make us to see the world different which only can be derived from own will and experience, not by others.

Now, considering the points I posted above, the answer to the question can be either yes or no. Rather than fighting each other with yes or no, it is better to settle down with the answer "negatively maybe".

Spectrum

by Miguel Jimenez

For this blog post I wanted to attempt to illustrate Gabriel Marcel’s meaning of Truth through a medium in which I thought related to the topic. I feel like the best way to try to explain philosophy is to try to give examples that relate, albeit weirdly, to the topic. I’m no physicist but, whenever I thought about Marcel’s truth and being in the lighted milieu, I was always reminded about one of the most interesting physics topics that I learned in high school, the Visible Spectrum (ROY G. BIV) that the human eye could see. So, taking the “lighted milieu” and the “light” literally, I will attempt to explain Marcel’s idea of truth through some examples and insights I gathered throughout the course of the lectureas well as during times of my own personal reflection using some concepts of the visible spectrum.

In a physical sense, white light, when it hits a glass prism, breaks up into the visible spectrum. This spectrum is the range of colors that our eyes can see. When light hits an object, the color it gives off or reflects is the frequency of light that it cannot absorb. In other words, a particular object, other than the color that it gives off, is absorbing all the other colors. If light doesn’t reach the object, no color is given off. Imagine a leaf in the tree in your backyard; you go to the tree, and notice that the leaf is green in color. Because sunlight is being shown on the leaf, it is reflecting the frequency of the color green to your eyes, and therefore you can say that the leaf is colored green. When it is night time, no light is shown on the leaf and therefore, the leaf doesn’t give off any particular color.

We can relate this to Gabriel Marcel’s interpretation of truth wherein we have to be in the light to be able to witness the truth that is illuminated or has been reflected from a specific object. We have to put ourselves in a lighted place to be able to see the truth. Similarly, we have to make light shine on the leaf for it to reflect it’s color in our eyes. If you are blind to the truth, you will not be able to see it becauseyou are preventing light from shining on it. It’s like trying to determine the color of the leaf in the nighttime or in darkness. In darkness, although you know that the leaf is there, you cannot determine its color because there is no light for it to reflect a color. However, if you are open to the truth and let the light shine into your eyes, you will be able to see the truth in its essence. This is just like being able to see the color green reflected from the leaf. Gabriel Marcel teaches us that you will only see the truth if you are willing to step into the lighted place, or the lighted milieu, if you are in darkness you will not be able to see the truth. We must place ourselves in the light in order to see the truth of the reality that is in our midst.

Truth is an aspect of reality, of which is two-dimensional. There is an objective reality and a subjective reality in which the aspect of truth is embedded.For this metaphor, the physical object, leaf, that I can touch, feel and be in the presence of is the objective reality. Alternatively, the color of the leaf is the subjective reality because it depends on the frequency of light that hits it which determines its color. The color it gives of is the subjective reality where the aspect of truth lies.

One cannot claim to hold the absolute truth, because if someone says that, he is saying that he is like God.God is the one and only holder of the absolute truth. As humans, we can only derive from the absolute truth because of our own biases, perceptions and different points of view. Additionally, it depends upon ones sense of values, backgrounds and experiences which defines the truth for them. Because we can only pick out derivatives of the absolute truth, the closest we can get to the absolute truth is a consensus between people. Using our garden metaphor, God would be like the sun, who shines the purest form of white light, making the leaf reflect its perfect and absolute color of green. The subjective aspect of truth would be like flashlights, which have different lights that aren’t as pure as the sun’s white light. This is so because whenever the flashlights shine their lights on the leaf, although it may reflect the color green, the leaf isn’t emitting its purest, absolute color.

Truths are subjective because it depends on the person who interprets the truth or the light that determines what is true for them. To illustrate this further, imagine it is nighttime and two friends are in the backyard each holding their own flashlights that are different in brand, use(tactical, work, camping flashlights) and luminescence (strength of light). One friend goes up to the leaf and shines his flashlight that gives off a yellowish light;because of this, although the reflection of the leaf is still green it would have a different hue or contrast in color than that of the leaf under sunlight. Another friend goes up to the leaf and shines light on it with his blue colored flashlight, again, a different hue of green appears which differs from the first friend who was holding a different flashlight and the pure form of white light coming from the sun. Say these two friends were quarreling about what color the leaf actually was. The first friend says that the leaf was (as an example) “yellow-green” while the other friend said that the leaf was “dark green.” Both friends say these things because they knew that when they shined their flashlights on the leaf, their respective colors reflected from the leaf. However, if they both shine their lights at the same time, wherein they combine both of their flashlight’s strengths, colors and luminescence, they would get a similar color. This in essence is what is called consensus.

Truths are limited and personal within the person’s immediate environment. In my opinion, truths have a radius, where if we were there to see it, then it would be our personal truth no matter how limited and shallow it may be compared to reality. As humans, we can only mold and interpret facts that we obtain from the objective reality and create our own personal subjective truths about a particular topic. Adding to this, we can also only hope to get close to the actual truth by learning more and obtaining more facts so as to be able to interpret and analyze it to form a deeper truth in which we know isn’t absolute but more of a consensus that is agreed upon by a community of truth seekers. I guess this is what Marcel meant when he talked about being with the lighted community and being in the lighted milieu. In relation to the illustration, this is why the friends have different flashlights. Independently, they both see the leaf in a different color, but with the question of what the actual color of the leaf is lurking in their minds, they can only hope to get closer to the answer by putting their lights together and shining them both at the leaf at the same time. It is this difference of illumination that creates communities of people with different truths. What might be green for a certain community might not be so for another community. This might be one of the reasons to why we have issues such as differences in religion or the correct way to raise a child.

With this being said, it is hard for humans to want to be open to see the truth because of the responsibilities and consequences that come with it. Marcel mentions an armor in which we put ourselves in to shield ourselves from the light of truth. In other words, because the fear of the truth and the responsibilities it brings is real and innate in humans, our defense mechanism is to shield ourselves to the truth in order to keep ourselves in this constant state of unknowing, which is what I think human nature is comfortable with. Therefore, it takes courage for one to take off his armor and fight the naïve side of him and look and see the truth and find out what responsibilities and consequences he has to undertake by knowing the truth.


Veering away from the leaf example (although it would technically be like trying to determine the color of the leaf at night or while wearing shades during the day), I’d like to illustrate this point by using one of the scariest things that all college students will have to face in their time in school, marks on an exam. Say you pulled an all-nighter studying for a midterm that you were so sure was next month, but instead, someone tells you that it is on this day. You get to class, take the test and the following day, your teacher hands back the exam. Before you get the exam back, or even, after the test when you’re going home reflecting upon which questions you messed up or what word you misspelled, your brain is constantly fighting itself over whether you did well or not in the exam. Your mind is in the constant state of unknowing, and because of this, is mentally building and constructing false truths or “what if’s” that may either scare you more or keep you at a confident state. So you’re in class, patiently waiting for your name to be called out. This whole time, your mind is scared of the possibilities that may arise. Personally, when my teachers call out my name for me to get the test in front of the room, it becomes, literally, one of the scariest parts of my entire life. You’re name gets called out, you walk toward your teacher holding your paper, you get your exam paper, walk back to your seat and you fold your paper in half covering the score. Without light hitting the bright red ink markings of your teacher’s pen in the front page, you will not be able to see the score of your exam because it is being blocked by the back page where you folded the paper. This is like the armor that we put on ourselves to shield us from the truth. Because we fold our papers to hide us from the score we got, we shield ourselves from the responsibilities we will have to face by seeing our marks on the exam. It really takes courage for one to open up his exam paper, look at the mark and accept the responsibilities and consequences he has to face. By opening up the page, you allow light to reflect on the front page, which makes the scribbles of the ink in your teacher’s pen absorb all colors except red.

The Fallacy of Sleeping With A Goat

by Nick Fortuna

I want to contrast with a lot of the answers we got earlier to the question of when we would be most aware of our own existence - the answer was often to the effect of our emotional highs: Major achievements such as getting in to a preferred college, or being immersed in your own passion.

I want to talk about situations where we forget, or even deny the "I." Appropriately, these are moments of shame.

There's a certain thought experiment my friends throw around as a joke that I brought up to a few people recently, and it goes like this: Would you rather sleep with a goat, and no one would ever find out, or would you rather not sleep with a goat but have everyone think that you did, with absolutely no hope of convincing them otherwise?

Now, it is a perfectly legitimate and defensible answer to prefer not to deal with the social consequences of having society think you shagged a goat, and to therefore just shag the goat. That isn't the fallacy here.
The answers I got though were subtly different, and, I believe, relevant to our class: If no one knows, then it's as if it never happened. The difference isn't very apparent at first, but we must look at the language. It is as if the event had never happened, not that it just doesn't have any consequences. It is, then, as if the existence is premised on an other's experience with that reality. One person even went so far as to say that they were basing their answer in Heidegger, comparing the act to a fallen tree that no one ever sees.
The fallacy here is quite simple - If you shagged that goat, then you would know, regardless of if anyone else does, and therefore the situation will have actually happened - but it would seem that there were a subconscious attempt to avoid that reality. It feels a bit like a stretch, but I say this because unless you deny the "I"'s presence at the act, then the argument that it may as well not have happened simply wouldn't feel sensible.


This happens in real life all the time: When people are at fault for something - and experiencing the shame of that - they try to deny accountability, or fault, or agency in the situation. They deny the self's presence (and therefore derivative things, like agency) to justify fault. For example, lawmakers deny having been involved enough with the cybercrime bill to have known about the libel clause, despite having discussed and voted on it.

Press Start

by Riel Evangelista

In our last discussion in class, we talked about truth and how people opt to find and see the truth. We have different views on the truth and it varies from one individual to another, although there are instances in which one’s truth is the same as another, so in a way, the truth is intersubjective. As we had this discussion, it reminded me of a videogame. Thinking of video games during class isn’t really the best thing to think about while discussing philosophy, but I started to relate our discussion to this video game.

The video game is called, “Curiosity - What’s Inside the Cube?” it is a mobile cellphone game made by 22cans, a small game company, headed by Peter Molyneux (Creator of Fable and Populous). The game is different from other games, since it’s more of a social experiment than a game. The mechanics of the game is simple, you are given a virtual cube with a LOT of layers and cubelets (more than 10 billion cubelets) and you are tasked to break each cubelet by touching it and in doing so makes you one step closer to discovering what’s inside the cube.

You may think that doing this alone is a huge pain, but the game is a multiplayer game, meaning you’re not the only one doing all the work. People from all over the world, who are playing the game, are also taking part in this tedious task of breaking cubelets, just to find out what really is inside the cube.

So where’s the discussion in “The Mystery of Being” play out in this? In this game, we are put in this place where we are tasked with this giant cube, this place is the “intelligible milieu”, the place to see the truth / a community of seekers of truth (other players also playing the game with you). “You can only see the truth, if it has value to you”, so in a way if the truth has value to you, you would spend hours breaking each and every cubelet in the game.

The other “seekers of truth” and their different points of views on the truth are reflected in that the cube has different “faces/sides” and one may work on a different side than the other. In breaking the cubelets we are slowly overcoming our fear of seeing the truth, since it takes courage to see the truth (and its a lot of work to break these cubelets). Once we finally break all the cubelets (finding the truth) we feel enlightened and it is an end to an inner struggle.


Truth is a mystery. There are moments in our life where we makes these choices that would have a huge effect on ourselves. I believe that life is a journey in which we find our own “truths” in this life. We may find it in different forms and it will be a defining moment for us, once we find it.

Towards the Light

by Jem Tan

The road to reaching your full potential is not always an easy one. I, for one, am still struggling. But I will eventually get there, slowly yet surely.

I used to be that person who was self-centered and apathetic to everything else but my own needs and wants. I was stuck in a routine, but it was a routine that could be likened to quicksand. I was afraid of getting hurt by others, and by extension, I became afraid of trying out new things. Looking back, it was extremely selfish. It meant that I needed to get what I wanted and expected out of others, and if I couldn't, I would just walk away from them. In order to drown my anxiety, I occupied myself with fiction and games, and spending hours on my laptop. But eventually, I realized that I could not go on living such a life. I needed to change myself. To put it in Dr. Garcia's words, maybe this was the experiencing of both dissatisfactions. The first dissatisfaction was concerning my frustration with the world. And after some reflection, I experienced a second dissatisfaction. This time, I was dissatisfied with myself. I wanted an inner transformation. I wanted to transcend my current self. I wanted to go out into the real world, and become the best person I can be—not only for myself, but also for others.

As Dr. Garcia said in his lecture, finding the truth is an inner struggle. There are two aspects of every person: the "you" who wants to open the door of the truth; and there is also the "you" who is on the other side of the door, who wants to keep the door closed. The truth requires courage, but once the door is opened, it sets you free. Perhaps that is why we experience an inner struggle when we finally realize that there is something we need to change in ourselves. There is always that part of us who resists change and wants to keep our stagnant routines. Whenever we try to get out of our comfort zone, there is always that tiny devil on our shoulder whispering: "Don't bother with change and just stay where you are right now!" That is why finding out that you need to change something is just the first step. It requires courage to actually accept that you need to change, and to go through with that change.


If we want something to change, we need to plug both ears in order not to let that devil's words get to us. We must follow that light which beckons us. We must dive into the unknown, and it is by doing so that we get to know more about the world and also ourselves. We may never fully get to know the Truth—but if we sit on our laurels, we sure won't get any closer to it.

Truth: The Light that Never Goes Out

by Denise Arandia

23 August 2012

Discussed Text: Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being

Truth is basically becoming in accordance with reality, something that each and every person has the right to know no matter how bad it may hurt. In last Thursday’s class, I learned that truth is seen as a light, which can be interpreted in ways more than one.

Someone may see the truth as enlightening, illuminating, something beautiful, or something that will set oneself free. Without the truth, one might feel like he/she is tied up in chains or maybe there’s something that’s missing. Either way, knowing the truth or at least the need to know it, is innate to every single human being. However, since the truth is seen as a light, one may recognize it as being bright, too bright - sometimes bright enough for one to be blinded. Due to this, one may decide to not look directly at the light because it hurts one’s eyes and eventually, oneself.

We have to admit that most of the time, the truth does hurt. We have this tendency to build illusions that makes us deny the truth in order for us to be happy. For instance, a couple who are in a relationship that doesn’t seem to work out anymore. Both sides may feel that the “spark” is no longer there but since they have been through a lot together and they fear that they may never find a love as strong as what the had before, they end up just denying the problem and continue living in grief. Furthermore, this denial doesn’t necessarily have to be limited to only love - it can be a denial of opportunities in the future. For example, a very skillful engineer working in a very big and prestigious company is promoted to become the manager of the engineering department. The engineer denies that he is suitable to become the manager and eventually denies the job offer. Because of his denial, he ends up losing an opportunity that might have helped him a lot in the future.

There are also times when you know the truth about someone but refuse to tell him/her because you fear that he/she would get hurt. Sure, at first, this may work since in a way, you are protecting the that person from pain. In the end, you might realize that no matter how great you are in hiding the truth, it will catch up. When that someone finally finds out about the truth, it may hurt him/her a lot more than to begin with.

Honestly though, would you rather live life being blinded by the truth or just facing it head on? The truth, no matter how painful it may be, must be accepted by not only you but everyone else. The light may be too blinding for you but that’s just the way it is. I guess in the end, we just have to find the beauty in the light and the truth.

For some reason, the whole lecture reminded me of the song “There is a Light that Never Goes Out” by The Smiths. I guess this song can be related to this whole entry.

“To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.”

Seeing something beautiful in something as terrifying as death is somewhat similar to accepting the truth. Accepting and making the best out of the truth and what is currently happening should be the way to go - no matter how sad and painful it may be.

Wherever we are, whatever we do, the truth is unavoidable - a light that never goes out.

The Place of Light

by Marianne Aquino

14 August 2012

Discussed Text: Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being

It is a natural tendency nowadays for people to misconceptualize truth. It is often conceived as something that is universally valid or something that is akin to a mathematical formula, an architectural blueprint or a scientific methodology. Truth is deemed transmissible through the presupposition of a technique, which can be taught or passed down to anyone and can be reproduced anytime, anywhere. In the text, Gabriel Marcel asserts otherwise. According to him, there must be a dissociation between truth and universal validity. But throughout history, with the emergence of intellectual or knowledge-based transcendence, the notion of truth has been transformed to just a mere result that of which can be attained by dint of technical activity.

Humans are now obsessed with techniques. They use these sets of procedures to achieve concrete and often materialistic results. This is for the reason that they've been made to believe or fooled even that more possessions correlates highly with happiness, pleasure, and satisfaction. Who has never heard of stories of men who are disgustingly rich with great deal of money but never really completely satisfied and never really truly happy? They've become too absorbed in the manipulation of both mental and physical objects that they lose track of what is really important. They are in dire need of reevaluating priorities.

In turn, this reinforcement of the humans' will to dominate all things that are external to the thinking mind leads to a "broken world" where no real relations exist and therefore, no real unity as well. The relations that persist today have no sense of brotherhood in that there is a reduction of the individual into just agents with his or her own "identity card" consequently making each one substitutable. This is a manifestation of one important malady of society. That is its susceptibility to ignore "exigencies of reflection". The call to spiritual values, creative and productive imagination, and reflection have been all been debunked. For Marcel, the only cure to society's tenuous grasp at truth is reflection by placing ourselves in that place of light and at the same time throwing all processes and techniques into the shade.