Junas S. Malana
9/26/17
AB Philo 2 Man and Absolute Summary
The inner need for grounding which was found present in the experience if the subject’s free acts. Need is considered in the free-act of the I-thou interaction. The widening if the ground of the free act does not lessen the autonomy of the subject, whereas it increases its feeling of making sense A new phenomenon, human interaction proves to be a first answer to the need for groundings the free act, it proves to remain dissatisfactory. Line of argumentation will take form of final consequence; the phenomena of human existence find their interpretation in the subject’s dialectic bond with other beings.
1.) Descrip scri ption of of thefeeling ling of dissatisf ssatisfa acti ction Much needed in this task of describing; the method of reaching awareness of a transcendence. Here comes the need of secondary reflection. Indistinct sense of total existence refers to body always a body. Secondary reflection is necessary to emphasize the importance of considering feelings. The massive sense of total ex istence comes in very useful to warn us that not just any experience of dissatisfaction at a level if intersubjectivity can be expected to be a starting point for a new kind of awareness. The level of intersubjectivity will enable us to describe the feeling of dissatisfaction into more detail. The interaction of appeal and response, will dialogue and manifest in both directions a desire for more meaning and value. There is more than a feeling of disillusionment; there various sources of dissatisfaction, (a) the “you” which “you” which the other was at first to me, may fade away into a “he/she.” (b) “he/she.” (b) I may have idealized the other, and reality now proves me wrong. (c) The other is being taken away from me by death. It is no good that man should be alone; The phenomena of human existence are interpreted only in dialectic bond; the subject ‘is‘is-receiving” and receiving” and “is giving.” Dissatisfaction giving.” Dissatisfaction stems from the fact that nobody can assert man as man would really want to be asserted. And nobody can receive man as man really wants in his responding. The demands on “you’ are “you’ are humanly irreconcilable. The person says each time in one and the same sentence two things that cannot be combined in a “you.” The “you.” The kind of knowing which is called believing and willing which is called loving; and both activities a ctivities involve the partners as subject-being. The feeling of dissatisfaction at the level of o f intersubjectivity says” says” it must be complete.” “You” can “You” can only receive of myself is not enough, a “you” also “you” also can only affirm part of me. The human impossibility of the demand in these two questions. (1) can the other know me completely as I am, without being me? (2) And, suppose he is me, can he still know me as another?
2.) I nte nter preta retati on of the the fee feeling of of di di ssa ssati sfact sfactii on a.) Why decline the acceptance of ultimate absurdity of man? Ultimately, our existence does not make absolute sense. It is the conviction that, if so far all the phenomena which we came across were-for their interpretation-pointing to a dialectic bond of being between the subject and other beings there is good reason for thinking that here it will not be different. Persuading force which leads us to conclude to a third level of dialectic bond is given with very way in which man has become understood up to this point. The phenomena of the human person point to existence in dialectic bond as to their interpretation, the
new phenomenon of dissatisfaction at the level of intersubjectivity points to a dialectic bond. An ultimate absurdity of the person does not square with the method which was established itself in the meantime as reliable. b.) What certainty is there regarding a new source of value? Precisely in massive and total interaction with my fellowmen, still unfulfilled, still longing – which is undeniably there- does not bring to me a wishful thinking; thus resulting to an answer to the feeling of dissatisfaction. Marcel confronts us with an attitude in which there is no doubt at all that the partner, arising as a need to give sense to the subject’s feeling of dissatisfaction, is truly there for me. Secondary reflection while not yet being itself faith, succeeds at least in preparing or fostering what I am ready to call the spiritual setting of faith. Here it the term faith for a reaching of the awareness of God, thus applying it to a narrower area than we have done. c.) Does a new source of value exist? The existence of a new source should be first proven empirically. “There can only be a real fidelity the empirical level with respect to a thou having an ob jective and objectifiablereality”; “A logical demonstration of God’s existence does not such a demonstration, after all, have to come first.” d.) Further identification of new source i. Is this ultimate source subject or object? It is a certain prolongation of myself as a kind if being, as a thin g among things, as a structure necessarily implicated in a larger structure. The source from where a new answer to my search comes cannot well be an object. We can safely say it is a Thou, a being that can be spoken to. Johann speaks of an “absolute subjectivity, who is more completely within the self than the self itself. Thou, “deeper within in me than my innermost depths.” That is, at long last, a “you” that is both able and willing to know and assert me even more than I myself could. There are two trends of religious attitude distinguishable in line with a stress on one or the other side: Interiority predominates in Eastern religions, and transcendency in monotheistic religions.
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To what extent can this Absolute Thou be spoken to? We cannot say it is addressed only after having been met “person to person” at one level of human interaction we are used to that sequence of: first having a sign of theother’s identity and then we find out more and more who he/she really is. Marcel’s notion of fidelity; “the active perpetuation of presence, the renewal of benefits.” Although this fidelity is strictly to be understood as related to persons, yet the following analog y may be help to express its being a vital process., a continuous growth. Marcel expresses our encounter with the Absolute Thou in the imagery of “a face that was shown to us before shrouded in veils.” Both face and shrouded have to be maintained integrally in describing and interpreting human existence in its tendency beyond intersubjectivity. The face summarizes the conclusion that it has to be a Thou who makes the search come true but the shrouded face indicates the present remoteness of final recognition. The veil, if taken as image of ourselves in a searching phase, is a way toward as well as separation from the subject’s Absolute Thou. The Absolute Thou: an answer to man, appealing and responding
It would the person is dependent on the condition that the other persons should exist. Not this is that person, though they might be the most important or outstanding at any time, but just persons as such. It is different in the case of the absolute personality of God. The above-being dependent as “gift to me” from the Absolute Thou is the dependence of being totally supported. The being dependent on fellowmen is, in final resort, still an aspect of our collective standing on our own feet. e.) What does the acceptance of such a dialectic bond do to men? 1.) Plato and Aristotle – dealing with man in essence approach needed a Transcending Reality in order to answer the question what man is. Guardini defines man as structural Being based upon interiority, spiritually determined and creative. 2.) The need of the person to be affirmed by the Absolute Thou, that the subject can only “come to full stature” when he is aware of this personal relation to the Thou who remains to be His source of value. 3.) A new source of value for the subject manifests itself as a Thou to be given to andto be had from.
