SKEPTICISM IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF BLAISE PASCAL

Abstract

Skepticism plays a decisive role in the Pascalian philosophy. In fact, widely influenced by authors like Michel de Montaigne and Pierre Charron, Blaise Pascal contradicts the general tendency of the century of the Great Rationalism, raising deep objections related to the pretention – typically Cartesian – of knowing the Truth in a certain and secure way. As one can apprehend from a quick reading of his writings, the Pascalian work is all pervaded by a remarkable distrust of our supposed capacity to acquire unshakable certainties about anything: distrust, which, by the way, is in profound concordance with the shocking position of the author concerning the consequences of the original sin. Thus, what we intend in this article is: i) to present the skeptical arguments subscribed by Pascal in his main philosophical work - the Thoughts; and ii) analyzing the work On the geometrical spirit and the art of persuasion, to indicate that not even the knowledge offered by the natural light can free us from doubts raised by skeptical argumentation.