“Real philosophy consists in mocking philosophy, real morality in mocking morality”
Pascal’s view on morality and philosophy in the Pensées
According to Blaise Pascal, we are all incapable of truth and happiness. Nobody would expect this
provoking expression in the midst of the seventeenth century, where the optimistic Cartesian belief
in human self-realization and in the progression of philosophy was generally taken for granted.
Pascal, however, radically rejects Descartes’ image of the promising philosopher as ‘maître et
possesseur de la nature’.
Parting from his Augustinian background, Pascal claims that because of original sin, every human
effort to reach truth and happiness tends to be in vain. Because of Adam’s perverted desire of
becoming a God himself, humankind finds itself in a permanent state of corruption. Definitively
separated from the love of God, the human agent is incapable to overcome his/her misery except by
the arbitrary gift of divine grace. However, it does not seem that the human being is really aware of
his/her miserable condition. Pascal describes how the human agent tries to hide his/her misery by
establishing a new ‘illusory’ order, based on the vices of curiosity, vanity and concupiscence. Those
three main ‘illnesses’ of men spring from one principal cause: the infinite self-love or ‘amour propre’.
Pascal speaks in this context of the human being as a ‘moi haïssable’, a voluntary creation of an
imaginary self neglecting its true condition of misery and nothingness. In the social sphere, this ‘self’
connects itself to other people by means of ‘imaginary cords’. From this follows that the human
spheres of politics, morality, justice, philosophy, science etc. are only destined to hide the ‘vilain
fond’ which characterizes our human condition.
In my presentation, I will focus on Pascal’s criticism of philosophical and moral theories dealing with
the human condition. Philosophers, for instance, tend to elevate or degrade the human being in such
an excessive way, that they consider men either as angels, or as beasts. Stoicism and Scepticism will
receive in this context a particular interest, known as two philosophical movements of which Pascal
pretends that they reinforce two capital human vices: vanity and laziness. Moreover, the way in
which morality finds itself expressed in human society is also deeply criticized through the Pensées.
Pascal denounces the enormous plurality of divergent opinions of moralists. With their 280
‘sovereign goods’, their infinite range of contradictory rules and their entire submission to ‘la
coutume’, moralists just mirror the vanity of the human condition.
After all, the question arises whether there is any hope left for an ‘authentic’ way of philosophizing
and moralizing. After having shown how Pascal mocks the wrong and presumptuous theories of
moralists and philosophers, I will present the alternative solution Pascal proposes with regard to the
human condition. His Pensées, after all, start from a whole different view on the human being,
determined by its contradictory nature of ‘grandeur’ and ‘misery’. This anthropological viewpoint is
inspired by an instance transcending infinitely the human ways of philosophizing and moralizing: the
Christian Religion. Would the ‘Christian’ image of men, recognizing both his ‘greatness’ and ‘misery’,
be the starting point for a development of ‘real’ philosophy and morality?
Biografie: Hanna Vandenbussche is sinds vorig jaar assistent aan het Hoger Instituut voor
Wijsbegeerte te Leuven en werkt over de zeventiende-eeuwse Franse filosofie. Haar specifieke
interesse gaat uit naar de thematiek van onrust en zelfbedrog in de ‘Pensées’ van Blaise Pascal. De
bedoeling is om deze auteur te verbinden met tijdgenoten zoals Descartes en Malebranche, die
beiden over gelijkaardige thema’s hebben geschreven. De begeleiding gebeurt door haar Leuvense
promotor Roland Breeur, specialist op het terrein van de Moderne 17de eeuwse Franse filosofie en de
Fenomenologische Wijsbegeerte.