Zugl.: Würzburg, Univ., Diss., 2009

Texte remanié de: Doctoral thesis--Saint Louis--Washington University. / Bibliogr. p. 137-145. Index.

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Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-09-03T12:58:43Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Cristine Reis Oittica.pdf: 874905 bytes, checksum: 22b28ed8f737a7e16bf74f834fdef6c3 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-03T12:58:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Cristine Reis Oittica.pdf: 874905 bytes, checksum: 22b28ed8f737a7e16bf74f834fdef6c3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-08-21 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The dissertation has no abstract / O objstivo desta Dissertação aporta-se nos conceitos de Ennui e Divertssement, termos abordados na obra do teólogo e matemático francês Blaise Pascal. Discutiremos a natureza do homem e sua condição humana atrelada pela busca ao divertimento como fuga de sua estrutura ontologica de miserabilidade e condicionada a desviar-se da angústia, estado atávico da natureza do homem. Para tanto, faremos uma tragetória conceitual pelos principais influenciadores da filosofia de Pascal: Santo Agostinho e Cornelius Jansenius, seguindo pelo desmembramento do paradoxo grandeza e miséria, discussão essencial na obra do filósofo, o que nos ajudará a compreender a função do divertimento pascaliano no terceiro capítulo. Por fim, a compreensão dos conceitos de Ennui e Divertissemnt, através do Fragmento 199 dos Pensées. A obra do filosofo será tratada a partir da condição trágica, a qual os escritos pascalianos estão submetidos

Texte remanié de : Thèse de doctorat : Littérature française et comparée : Paris 4 : 2004. / La page de titre porte en exergue : "Rien ne nous plaît que le combat" Bibliogr. p. [781]-805. Index.

From Introduction: Upon first reading the writings of both Pascal and Baudelaire, one cannot help being struck by a sensation of awe at the penetrating insight into the human condition possessed by both writers. A further exploration of the realms of Pascalian and Baudelairian thought considerably strengthens this initial reaction into a recognition that both authors were men of equal moral and spiritual intensity. Despite their outward differences, both sought to attain a deep understanding of human nature, but without attempting to offer any excuses on behalf of man. Furthermore, the two writers employ an identical term to describe the condition of humanity: "ennui". Although the word exists in the writings of contemporaries of both Pascal and Baudelaire, no other author makes such full, unique and significant use of ennui. As this thesis will hopefully prove, Baudelaire was indeed directly and positively influenced by Pascal. However, it is not our intention to concentrate upon such an influence; rather, we wish to indicate the parallels and development of the theme of ennui, so central to each man's outlook, in their respective writings. Evidently, it would be beyond the boundaries of this thesis if we were to try to analyse closely the entire creative output of Pascal and Baudelaire; and so, although their other works will act as points of reference, the two books which are generally regarded as their masterpieces will be used as the basis of the unfinished Christian "Apologie" which was projected by Pascal, now known as the Pensées (1670), and Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal (1857 and 1861)

In “Bodies of Wisdom,” I reassert the primacy of the body in the philosophical practices of two early modern French authors, Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) and Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), whose writings have been associated with the ancient tradition of “philosophy as a way of life.” Harkening back to the Classical understanding of philosophy as a form of medicine, these authors’ works rely a good deal on somatic and/or medical terminology to describe states of the soul and philosophical practices more generally. While there exists a wide body of literature that addresses the medical analogy in Hellenistic philosophers, few commentators have ventured to read the analogy literally, and none thus far have done so for authors of the early modern period. In this dissertation, I reclaim the literal relationship between medicine and philosophy by examining instances in both authors where descriptions of health and illness can be read both metaphorically (“spiritually”) and literally (“somatically”). Philosophy is not just like medicine in that it seeks to bring about individual well-being; it is medicine in the fullest sense, because the exercises intended to bring about well-being must pass through the body in order to give lasting shape to the life of the practitioner. Many scholars have acknowledged Pascal’s inheritance of Montaigne’s moderate skepticism, and as one of history’s most astute – and sometimes acerbic – readers of Montaigne, Pascal was uniquely poised to highlight those aspects of Montaigne’s philosophy that attenuated the reader’s belief in the power of human reason. This meant that for both authors, there had to be some more reliable alternative to the reasoning mind to arrive at an understanding of truth. The body, it turns out, served just such a purpose. Although Montaigne and Pascal had very different purposes in writing the Essais and the Pensées, respectively, I show how a mutual concern for empirical certainty amidst the tenuousness of philosophical and religious opinion precipitated a return to bodily experience, as the most viable means of knowing the self and the world. Despite the widespread conception of the early modern period as one of “thoroughgoing” – and one might say, Cartesian – dualism between body and mind, I argue that Montaigne and Pascal are evidence of a countertrend: their writings suggest that we cannot think our way to philosophical virtue; we must enact that virtue through our bodies, using them as tools for interpretation and modification of our internal states. I thereby call into question a distinction that is commonly made between somatic techniques, on the one hand, and spiritual exercises, on the other, in much of the literature on philosophy as a way of life. The implications of this are far-reaching: if the suffering that philosophy purports to treat is at once spiritual and somatic, then the “spiritual” exercises designed to address this suffering also borrow a great deal from the soma, and should be advertised as such. Further, if spiritual health is indeed contingent on our relationship to the soma, then the classic definition of philosophy as a “spiritual” practice (namely, one associated with the logos) needs to be expanded to include the material and/or somatic dimensions of the discipline. Although I try to provide a clear roadmap for how these authors go about spiritual healing, I recognize that the trajectory to spiritual health is seldom very direct. Surely, we can find examples of somatic exercises that appear to have a predictable effect on the mind and, inversely, spiritual exercises that yield positive physical results. However, the process of effecting change and training for virtue is almost never unidirectional. The constant trafficking between body and mind, evidenced most abundantly by the passions, belies a much less tidy relationship between the two faculties. To describe this relationship, I rely both on early modern medical therapeutics and on Pierre Bourdieu’s twentieth-century conception of habitus. Viewed through the lens of habitus, the practice of philosophy can be conceived as a process of embodiment, wherein the practitioner appropriates and accommodates in a bodily way the virtues traditionally aligned with the good life—before realizing that, as habitus, he or she is always, already well-adapted to the good and thus endowed with a certain form of health from the beginning.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:25:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-01-30Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:13:59Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 calcado_t_me_mar.pdf: 352595 bytes, checksum: 71b0c85b1f1ea3a36982732b65387957 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Friedrich Nietzsche e Blaise Pascal tiveram suas vidas marcadas pela dor. O sofrimento físico e, conseqüentemente, o psíquico, não impediram que esses dois pensadores afirmassem a vida em sua totalidade. Tanto em Nietzsche como em Pascal não se encontra uma negação da doença. Pelo contrário, ambos assumiram a debilidade para empreender uma discussão sobre o valor do sofrimento. Apesar de partirem de princípios diferentes, esses pensadores re-significaram seu itinerário intelectual afirmando a importância da enfermidade para a valoração da vida. A afirmação da vida em sua totalidade como propõe a filosofia nietzscheana encontra na doença pela qual passou o autor o eixo de sua constituição e auto-afirmação diante do contexto no qual estava inserido. Em Nietzsche, a relação estabelecida com a dor faz com que ela lhe seja um instrumento precioso de transgressão e afirmação de si. Em Pascal, o sofrimento físico oriundo da enfermidade é analisado em vista de uma antropologia pessimista marcada pela queda original. Ao encontrar-se debilitado, Pascal consegue desviar suas atenções dos divertimentos que o prendiam ao mundo e que o distraiam do encontro consigo e com sua própria natureza. O sentido que Pascal encontra ao sofrimento se dá à luz dos benefícios que ele traz, pois aproxima o pecador de Deus na medida em que o primeiro se recolhe junto a si e às próprias misérias. Na dor, Pascal compreende a sua natureza e sua vida em vista da Paixão redentora de Cristo. Analisar o sentido da doença e do sofrimento por ela causado na vida desses dois pensadores implica a compreensão da própria existência e de sua afirmação, seja ela de alegrias ou de dores. Viver, nessa perspectiva, implica descobrir as potencialidades da própria humanidade e reconhecer no sofrimento não um mal em si, mas sinal para o desenvolvimento das próprias possibilidades. / Friedrich Nietzsche and Blaise Pascal’s lives were strongly fulfilled with pain. The physical suffering and, consequently, the psychic, did two block that those two philosophers could live their lives entirely. Either in Nietzsche and Pascal’s lives we find no denying for the disease. On the opposite, both of them assumed their weakness to undertake a quarrel about the worth of suffering. Besides of having different principles of thinking, those two philosophers remade ther intellectual way of thinking affirming the importance of the sickness to show the value of life. The affirmation of life in its totality as Nietzsche’s philosophy proposal is found in the disease by which the author came through the axis of its constitution and self-affirmation facing the context in which it was inserted. In Nietzsche, the fixed relation with the pain shows a precious tool for trespass and self affirmation. In Pascal, the physical suffering from the sickness is analyzed by the sight of a negative anthropology market by the original fall. Finding himself weak, Pascal is able to turn aside his attention from the entertainment which hold him to the world and also distracted him from having an encounter to himself and his self nature. The meaning that Pascal finds to the suffering is the result of the clearness of the benefits that it comes along, because it brings the sinner next to God as the first one retires to himself and to his own mercy. In pain, Pascal understands his self nature and his own life seeing the Redemptory Passion of Christ. Analyzing the meaning of the sickness and also as a cause of the suffering inside of those two philosophers’ lives imply the understanding of the own existence and its affirmation, which could be made by happiness or pain. Living, in this way of thought, implies to find out the potentiality of the humanity and to recognize the suffering not as the... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Endeavoring to invigorate a Pascalian approach to Christian persuasion, this dissertation asks: How might the doctrine of the imago Dei strengthen Pascal’s anthropological argument? The central claim is that the doctrine of the imago Dei strengthens Pascal's anthropological argument by supplying greater detail to the explanation stage and accounts for more instances of humans’ paradoxical condition. Chapter 1 demonstrates the need for this study. Even though Pascal’s method appears to be a formidable tool for Christian apologists in a postmodern culture, it has received surprisingly little attention and clarity in apologetic literature. Moreover, no efforts have been made to strengthen his anthropological argument by correlating it with insights from the doctrine of the imago Dei. Chapter 2 reveals that the anthropological theme within Pascal’s Pensées may be properly understood as a three-stage abductive argument consisting of data (instances of humans’ paradoxical behavior), explanation (Christian anthropology), and elimination (other religions or worldviews fail to explain the human condition). Chapter 3 surveys the history of interpretation of the doctrine of the imago Dei. Despite their many differences, interpreters generally agree that (1) imagedness means that humans are ontologically constituted for a relationship with God, but that (2) human sin conflicts with their God-oriented constitution. Chapter 4 presents six propositions about imagedness. These propositions support the observation that imagedness and sinfulness conspire to render the human condition paradoxical: humans are self-opposing. Chapter 5 applies this understanding of the imago Dei to the explanatory stage of Pascal’s anthropological argument, showing that the doctrine of the imago Dei provides a finer level of detail and explains more instances of humans’ paradoxical condition. Chapter 6 shows that the Christiformic journeys of Augustine, C. S. Lewis, and Jonathan Edwards represent flesh-and-blood instances of Scripture’s portrait of Christiformic image-bearers. These instances supply evidence that the doctrine of the imago Dei plausibly explains the human condition. Thus, they also strengthen Pascal’s anthropological argument. Chapter 7 explains two larger aims of this dissertation: to contribute toward a broader vision of Christian persuasion and to exemplify how the disciplines of apologetics and biblical theology can be powerful allies.

Resumo: Na medida em que Pascal descreve a sua noção de ordem social a justiça é um tema que recebe um tratamento especial por esse pensador cristão do século XVII. Ele suspeita que a nossa justiça vigente não possua, de fato, uma substancialidade justa e se empenha em demonstrar como a força e a imaginação são as verdadeiras potências criadoras da nossa frágil justiça. Mas se uma justiça produzida pelo esforço conjunto da força e da imaginação é a que regula as relações na ordem social o que houve com aquela justiça universal e verdadeira? A resposta de Pascal é que simplesmente não a temos mais. Embora ainda conserve em sua filosofia aquele conceito de justiça universal, ele não tem mais nenhum efeito na sociedade dos homens. Esse fenômeno extraordinário que é o da ordem social se deixar regular por uma justiça meramente estabelecida que não guarda mais nenhuma relação com a justiça universal revela um traço sintomático da natureza humana que encontra explicação no paradoxo que constitui a sua atual condição. Desse modo, Pascal ao tratar do tema da justiça na ordem social não está preocupado tanto em estabelecer o seu estatuto ontológico nem mesmo sua possibilidade fática, mas sim, em apontar, a partir desse tema, a condição paradoxal do homem no mundo. Essa parece ser a tese mais fundamental que situa no horizonte dos temas tratados no interior dos Pensamentos entre os quais, se inclui a justiça.