Professional paper
MAN IN THOUGHTS OF A GENIUS Psychological-analytical approach to Pascal’s anthropology
Dafne Vidanec
Abstract
Man – that “thinking cane”, that creature who can be defined as
a “persistent, thinking, paradoxical being”, who paradoxically reveals
himself in the cognition that he is at the same time “everything and
nothing” …, is the leitmotiv of Pascal’s reflections in his “Pénsees”
(“Thoughts”).
Pascal is a linguistic and intellectual wizard, who does not care for
a systematic and methodological framework of reflections. He enters
into the deepest spheres of man’s mental and emotional existence,
trying to restore, indirectly and spontaneously, the harmony between
faith and reason. His man is the “floor of feelings and thoughts” over
which an infinite, incomprehensible and unattainable being, his
Creator, is walking.
I will try to present the formulations mentioned above in three
steps. The first part of the study refers to the analysis of Pascal himself,
shaping a kind of his psychological profile, which the author of the
study holds to be pregnant and crucial for Pascal’s understanding of
man and God. The second part of the study focuses on the question
why man is not able to conceive God “personally”. The third part of
the study is trying to bring nearer and explain the issue of Pascal’s
axiom “credo, ergo sum”. In conclusion the author explains the
dilemma related to quotations on the basis of two different editions
of Pascal’s “Thoughts” in Croatian language.
Keywords
feeling; anthropology; cognition; heart; thinking being; infinite God; faith; logics of heart; psychological profile
Hrčak ID:
25066
URI
Publication date:
21.9.2005.
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