Achenbach's second reason is the widely believed claim that truth is only personal. If this were actually true, no one could ever say that one truth is actually better that another, and therefore, we could have no actual truths. All we would be left with is a bunch of random opinions which are no more valid than the next bunch. In no way do these opinions bring us any closer to an actual glimpse of an answer to the questions at hand. .
So, one might ask who is left to do the answering? In a perfect society, every citizen would be striving, together, using elenchus to seek the answers. However, we do not live in a perfect society. Not everyone is in a position to worry about questions with no tangible meaning. People who struggle simply to survive should not be expected to worry about unanswerable questions when their time could be better spent finding food for themselves and their family. This is not to say that not a single poverty stricken person could think deeply, but, although it is admirable, it should not be expected that a physical being place its physical needs second to its spiritual and or mental needs. So, back to the question at hand, who should be seeking the answers to these questions that seem to have none? Whose job is it? .
Achenbach believes that it is the art of the philosopher. He quotes the Romantic novelist Novalis to describe this art. "The meaning of the Socratic is that philosophy is everywhere or nowhere "and one can easily orient oneself through the first thing one comes across and find what one seeks. The Socratic is the art of finding from any given position the position of the truth and thus establishing precisely the relationship of that which is present to the truth."" Let us examine these words. The meaning becomes clearer when worked backwards. Novalis refers to some sort of ultimate truth, similar to Plato's world of forms. Whatever we experience in life is somehow related to this ultimate truth, but is certainly not the truth itself.