Martin Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit presents one of the most striking reflexions on human facticity, i.e. the fact that Dasein fundamentally exists in a world letting Dasein and world be co-extensive. By quoting two central personages in theology, Pascal and Augustine, Heidegger refers to a concept of love that is constitutive for Dasein’s facticity to truth and to knowledge. By investigating the claim that love is as good as absent from Sein und Zeit, the article intends to show that the (...) scanty references to love nevertheless have a central role in Heidegger’s early work and, furthermore, why Heidegger returns to it in his later thinking. Interesting in this regard is the connection between the theological concept of love and Heidegger’s concept of ‘world’. The article places Heidegger’s Destruktion of the metaphysical tradition in the realms of his Dasein analysis focussing on facticity. Taking its methodological cues from Giorgio Agamben and Jacques Derrida, the article shows how the concepts of possibility and impotentiality (Ohnmacht) become essential in Heidegger via his reference to love. Lastly, the article examines to what extent Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit paraphrases the old angelology letting the Dasein concept become its secularisation. (shrink)

En este trabajo intentaré mostrar que, de acuerdo con Agustín de Hipona –y a diferencia de una cierta lectura relativamente clásica de Pascal–, el deseo puede ser el comienzo de la relación del hombre con el Absoluto. Para ello divido el texto en cuatro partes: primero, describo la situación existencial primordial de la que nace el deseo, la inquietud. Después, describo el doble despliegue del deseo: amor o concupiscencia, según objeto e inclinación. En tercer lugar, intento describir los tipos de (...) concupiscencias y sus paralelismos en ambos autores. Concluyo mostrando la importancia de la costumbre en la constitución del deseo. (shrink)

I analyze the complex relations between Pascal and the three figures of Montaigne, Descartes, and St. Augustine, and the relations the first two figures bear to St. Augustine. For Pascal's philosophy, one is in effect a resource , another a way of thinking that he makes his own , and yet another serves as a model . I further investigate Pascal's anti-Augustinism, that is, some of the points of resistance in Pascal against the thought of St. Augustine. Central to this (...) investigation is the famous rapprochement between the cogitos of Augustine and Descartes, which requires a consideration of what, for Pascal, it means "to say the same thing." This analysis leads us to two conclusions: first, Augustine's The City of God should be placed among the number of works that Pascal did not read; second, there are fundamental philosophical reasons for Pascal to reject certain theses central to that work. Above all, there should no longer be any need to assume a merely abstract conception of an unproblematic Augustinianism in Pascal. (shrink)

I address a puzzle in Pascal's Pensées. While Pascal emphasized that God is hidden, he also seemed to think that signs of God are everywhere in nature. How does he reconcile these two claims? I offer a novel solution which emphasizes the role of love and what I call “second-personal” significance, and which results in a distinctively Pascalian account of religious experience of nature. By distinguishing implication from various senses of ‘proof’, I explain why, though deeply significant, such experiences cannot (...) play the role of proving God's existence, and how they are compatible with God's hiddenness. Neither theism nor atheism is assumed by this account. (shrink)

O objetivo desse artigo é fazer uma discussão acerca da concepção de verdade presente no método A Razão dos Efeitos do filósofo francês Blaise Pascal. No opúsculo Do Espírito Geométrico, Pascal constata a presença de limites no âmbito da racionalidade que impedem a apreensão dos princípios da geometria de modo absoluto. Segundo pensamos, o método A Razão dos Efeitos, utilizado na obra Pensamentos, também estaria estruturado a partir desse pressuposto. Nos Pensamentos Pascal, na medida em que se depara com a (...) impossibilidade de apreender o homem de modo absoluto, é levado a assumir uma concepção bipolar de verdade no âmbito do método A Razão dos Efeitos, na qual os dois pólos que constituem a natureza humana, a miséria e a grandeza, são valorizados dentro da óptica do pecado original. Desse modo, tanto no Opúsculo, quanto nos Pensamentos, constatamos a presença de limites, os quais impedem que possamos obter uma concepção absoluta de verdade, seja em sentido teórico ou prático. (shrink)