The concept of ‘world visions’, first elaborated in the early work of Georg Lukàcs, is used here as a tool whereby the similarities between Pascal’s Pensées and Kant’s critical philosophy are contrasted with the rationalism of Descartes and the empiricism of Hume. For Lucien Goldmann, a leading exponent of the most fruitful method of applying Marxist ideas to literary and philosophical problems, the ‘tragic vision’ marked an important phase in the development of European thought from rationalism and empiricism to (...) the dialectical philosophy of Hegel, Marx and Lukàcs. The book is not a collection of isolated essays on Kant, Pascal, Racine, the status of the legal nobility in seventeenth-century France and the exact nature of the religious movement known as Jansenism, but an attempt to formulate, by an examination of these different topics, a general approach to the problems of philosophy, of literary criticism, and of the relationship between thought and action in human society. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the English philosopher Mary Astell’s marginalia in Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s personal copy of the 1704 edition of Pierre Bayle’s Pensées diverses sur le comète (first published in 1682). I argue that Astell’s annotations provide good reasons for thinking that Bayle is biased toward atheism in this work. Recent scholars maintain that Bayle can be interpreted as an Academic Sceptic: as someone who honestly and impartially follows a dialectical method of argument in order to obtain (...) the goal of intellectual integrity. In her commentary, however, Astell suggests that: (i) if Bayle were honest and impartial in his inquiries, then he would not have pretended to attack popular superstition, only to undermine generally-held religious beliefs; and (ii) if Bayle valued intellectual integrity, then his argument for a society of virtuous atheists would not have relied upon a deceptive equivocation in terms. I conclude that the rediscovery of this marginalia is valuable for enhancing our appreciation of Astell as an astute reader of one of her most enigmatic contemporaries. (shrink)

Le projet de Hans Jonas, et son engagement de philosophe, résulte de la prise de conscience de « l’oubli », dans l’histoire de la philosophie, de la vie. « L’ontologie de la mort », qui commande de manière sous-terraine cette histoire, mène à l’échec toute tentative pour la penser, en ramenant l’ambiguïté dont elle est le lieu, soit à la figure univoque de l’organisme étudiée par le biologiste, soit à celle du vécu ou de l’idée, exploré par le phénoménologue ou (...) l’idéaliste. Le dualisme, qui e... (shrink)

Pascal, in his Pensées, applies philosophy to a theological problem: reconciling (a) Christianity’s demand for absolute faith with both (b) the motives of credibility’s inability to justify absolute faith on their own and (c) the moral obligation to avoid superstition. This reconciliation hinges upon distinguishing two cognitive faculties: reason, and the heart. I will first discuss Pascal’s view of the difference between reason and the heart, and specifically how they each relate to evidence and certainty: reason discursively and probabilistically, (...) the heart holistically and with certitude. Then I turn to Pascal’s view of the role which the heart plays in religious faith, and apply this view to the problem of basing absolute assent on limited evidence. Finally, I will examine Pascal’s view of reason’s important supporting role in faith, and apply it to the obligation to avoid superstitious belief. (shrink)

Hélène BOUCHILLOUX. — Apologie et théologie dans les Pensées de Pascal, p. 3. Comment concilier l’entreprise apologétique de Pascal avec sa théologie du péché et de la grâce? L’apologiste peut-il persuader de la vérité du christianisme celui dont le cœur n’a pas été préalablement converti par Dieu? S’il ne le peut, quel sens y a-t-il à prétendre précéder l’action divine en proposant à l’incrédule un discours de la preuve? On montre 1 / que la réflexion pascalienne sur l’art de (...) persuader exclut une persuasion sans conversion, puis 2 / qu’en dissociant efficacité et utilité des preuves, les Pensées ne visent autre chose qu’à faire apercevoir une vérité qu’on ne saurait pourtant recevoir sans une humiliation de la raison et une conversion du cœur. (shrink)

Throughout the manuscript of the Pensées and in other writings, Pascal crisscrosses his research on what the art of writing achieves and entails, on the one hand, and on the way to read and interpret the Holy Scriptures, on the other hand. Reading and writing practices are critically interwoven. This article offers a synthesis on Pascal’s reflexive account of such practices. After a summary of previous findings on the subject, it examines Pascal’s approach to (a) the rules that govern (...) scriptural interpretation; (b) the techniques of persuasion; and (c) the way to ground an instituted body, an expression by which we refer to a textual corpus, a political society, or a community of believers. (shrink)

The text fragments that make up Blaise Pascal's “Penséesˮ are traditionally published in different sequences, according to the difference in the conceptual positions of the editors. So, the problem of correlating different editions is very difficult. Translations of “Penséesˮ reflecting several numbering systems are currently available to Ukrainian readers. The author offers two comparative tables for these numberings. In Table 1, the numberings of Louis Lafuma, Jacques Chevalier and Michel Le Guerne are expressed through the numbering of Leon Brunschvicg, which (...) is currently the most common in Ukraine. In Table 2, Brunschvicg's numbering is correlated with the First Copy of the manuscript, the Port-Royal edition of 1670, as well as editions by Bossuet, Lafuma, Chevalier, Le Guerne, Tournier-Anzieu, and Dolgov. (shrink)

Blaise Pascal is highly regarded as a religious moralist, but he has rarely been given his due as an ethical theorist. The goal of this article is to assemble Pascal's scattered thoughts on moral judgment and moral wrongdoing into an explicit, coherent account that can serve as the basis for further scholarly reflection on his ethics. On my reading, Pascal affirms an axiological, social-intuitionist account of moral judgment and moral wrongdoing. He argues that a moral judgment is an immediate, intuitive (...) perception of moral value that we willfully disregard in favor of the attractive, though self-deceptive, deliverances of our socially constructed imaginations. We can deceive ourselves so easily because our capacity to evaluate goods is broken, a dark legacy of the fall. In the article's concluding section, I briefly compare Pascal to contemporary ethicists and suggest directions for future research. (shrink)

The article suggests an ethical-anthropological reading of Thoughts, magna opera of the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal, which was published after his death by his relatives and friends. Such a reading is presented in three moments: Firstly, an anthropological description aimed at answering the question ‘who is man?’; secondly, an analysis of Pascal’s erotic condition; and, finally, an ethical proposal as cura amoris. The main argument of the article is that every human being has a motivation in acting, that (...) of love and being loved. Thus, having a happy or unhappy life depends on the care for this erotic condition, and the latter is achieved through thought. (shrink)

Nietzsche and Merleau-PontyDepth of Images and the Thought of the Eternal ReturnHere, we analyze the reasons for which it is possible to establish a connection between Nietzsche and Merleau-Ponty – a connection claimed by Merleau-Ponty – based on a “metaphysics” of the Dionysian and the Apollonian. All existence rests upon a cruel and violent depth; and the surface of the “real,” individualities and distinct ideas, is in fact solely constituted by Apollonian images. We show how Nietzsche and Merleau-Ponty surmount the (...) nihilism necessarily induced by this fi rst thesis by affirming the richness of images and their power of inspiration as well as the eternal recurrence of the world of appearances. In a world of images, salvation belongs to those who will know how to recognize images as such in any being and in any idea. No preexisting meaning confines us; each instant must be creative and the maximum amount of meaning will be exalted at the heart of a vivified imagination. But how can we, simultaneously, produce simple images, love and desire their subsequent destruction as well as be a creative genius, instituting and teaching? What is exactly our relationship to the Dionysian depth and to past images? Nietzsche’s position on this matter is ambiguous and, to a certain extent, double. Two tendencies coexist in his thought. On the one hand, we have an exhortation for rupture, for absolutely free creation as well as a condemnation of modern culture which has been invaded and ossified by the bric-a-brac of historical meaning. On the other hand, we have the claim for a heritage, the reference to the models of monumental history and the invocation of an inspiration drawn from nature and the elements. Merleau-Ponty’s solution to escape nihilism avoids such a duality and endeavors to reconcile our status of inheritors and our responsibility as creators. In Nietzsche’s steps, but by founding a renewed doctrine of eternal recurrence, Merleau-Ponty shows us how to become, by one and the same movement, superficial and profound.Nietzsche e Merleau-PontyProfondità delle immagini e pensieri dell’eterno ritornoSi analizzano qui le ragioni per le quali è possibile stabilire un avvicinamento tra Nietzsche e Merleau-Ponty, avvicinamento rivendicato da Merleau-Ponty stesso, a partire dall’idea di una «metafi sica» del dionisiaco e dell’apollineo. Ogni esistenza riposa su un fondo crudele e violento, mentre la superfi cie del «reale», delle individualità e delle idee chiare e distinte è costituita unicamente di immagini apollinee. Mostraremo come Nietzsche e Merleau-Ponty sormontino il nichilismo inevitabilmente connesso a questa prima posizione, affermando la ricchezza e molteplicità di spunti racchiusi in immagini come quella dell’eterno ritorno del mondo delle apparenze. In un mondo di immagini, la salvezza appartiene a coloro che sapranno riconoscere le immagini in quanto tali, in ogni essere e in ogni idea. Nessun senso preesistente ci rinchiude, ogni istante deve essere creatore, e il massimo di senso sarà celebrato in seno a un’immaginazione vivifi cata. Ma come si può al tempo stesso produrre semplici immagini, amare e desiderare la loro distruzione ormai prossima, e proporsi di essere un genio creatore, istituire ed insegnare? Qual è il nostro rapporto con il fondo dionisiaco e con le immagini passate? La posizione di Nietzsche su questo punto è ambigua e, in una certa misura, doppia. Coesistono nel suo pensiero due tendenze: da una parte un’esortazione alla rottura, alla creazione assolutamente libera, e una condanna della cultura moderna, invasa e sclerotizzata dalle anticaglie del senso storico; dall’altra parte la rivendicazione di un’eredità, il riferimento ai modelli della storia monumentale e l’invocazione di un’ispirazione attinta alla natura e agli elementi. La soluzione che Merleau-Ponty elabora, come via di fuga dal nichilismo, evita una tale dualità e si sforza di conciliare il nostro statuto di eredi con la nostra responsabilità di creatori. Seguendo Nietzsche, ma fondando una rinnovata dottrina dell’eterno ritorno, Merleau-Ponty ci mostra come divenire, attraverso un unico movimento, superficiali e profondial tempo stesso. (shrink)

This essay argues that Pascal's work both questions the accuracy of perspective in an infinite universe, and describes a model for moral truth that escapes the limitations of perspective. This model, rooted in Christianity, requires a total reorientation of approach towards moral truth. By asserting the limits of rational method, making use of recent scientific developments, and constructing a new model for moral truth, Pascal's work sought to update the role of Christianity to be not only consonant with the secular (...) thinking of his day but also as the only solution to the implications of that thinking. (shrink)

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