Pascal

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani reads mainly the Pensées, and first of all the passage on diversion: man cannot stay quietly in a room. From it he draws the idea that our conduct is explained by what we flee, death, and not by an object placed before us. Desire appears there as infinite and never satisfied, which makes for man's greatness, "miseries of a dispossessed king"12. He turns the formula "the finite is annihilated before the infinite" into a theorem about finitude3. In "the eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me" he sees the anguish of modern man after the scientific revolution4. According to him, with Pascal, who comes after Descartes, the problem of salvation replaces that of happiness. He considers revolutionary the fragment on the self, according to which we love only qualities, and takes it as a good starting point for a sentimental education56. He often quotes "the self is hateful", "whoever would play the angel plays the beast", the Pyrenees and The Mystery of Jesus, which he links to Kafka.

1. 1#2.2 Entre crise et guerre : Philosopher ?15 Feb 2016 · 1:30:08
2. 2#3.4 D'Ulysse à Dédale1 Aug 2017 · 1:20:58
3. 3#5.2 L’Odyssée du philosophe : La pensée révolutionnaire21 Nov 2018 · 1:21:23
4. 4#1.4 Entre crise et guerre : Philosopher ?10 Dec 2015 · 30:34
5. 5Q comme Qualité31 Dec 2014 · 5:48
6. 6L'île du Peuple : le débat23 Jun 2015 · 55:20

Summary produced automatically from 150 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.