The mystery of man in the teachings of Blaise Pascal: between mysticism and rationality

Gutova Svetlana Georgievna ORCID: 0000-0002-7947-166X Doctor of Philosophy Professor of the Department of Mass Communications and Tourism, Nizhnevartovsk State University 628602, Russia, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Nizhnevartovsk, Omskaya str., 54, sq. 168 svetguts.07@mail.ru

Berillo Ivan Viktorovich ORCID: 0000-0001-6900-3646 Postgraduate student, Department of Mass Communications and Tourism, Nizhnevartovsk State University 628605, Russia, Khanty-Mansiysk Okrug-Yugra Autonomous Okrug, Nizhnevartovsk, Lenin str., 56 Superivanberillo@yandex.ru

Introduction

The appeal to the anthropological views of Blaise Pascal at the present time is largely due to the fact that philosophical anthropology itself is obviously in a state of renewal. The need for an analysis of ideas that have already become classic in the history of cultural heritage is connected with new realities and another round in understanding the future of humanity. In this study, relying on a comparative method within the framework of a historical and philosophical approach, it is proposed to establish key relationships between the epoch and the work of the famous scientist and original thinker Blaise Pascal, who balanced between rationality and mysticism. In the center of our interest, therefore, is an attempt to comprehend in a modern way the special significance of the anthropological research of the author of "Thoughts", who focused his attention on the paradoxical spiritual dimension of human existence. The amazing fact is that Pascal is relevant in each epoch in its own way. He seems to answer every time the questions that life itself puts before us. One of these questions points to the boundaries of modern science, which, with all its technological achievements, remains powerless in determining the meaning and solution of the ultimate fate of man. This explains the trend that has developed in recent decades in the world intellectual community, associated with an increasing interest in the life and work of Blaise Pascal. However, within this trend, there is a variety of approaches in interpreting the key ideas of the French thinker. For example, in modern Western studies devoted to Pascal's work, there is often an interest in his theological views (in their direct connection with the scientific views of the philosopher), presented by the example of his "famous bet" [see: 1-5]. Interestingly, these studies mainly focus on the rational-logical constructions of the scientist and pay less attention to the existential problems of Pascal the philosopher. In the Russian tradition, continuity is preserved in the understanding of Pascal's thought as a powerful spiritual and mystical breakthrough, striving beyond the boundaries of rationality. It is enough to turn to the works of the classics of the Silver Age [see: 6] and some modern studies of Pascal's work ^{[7, 8, 9, 10]}.

Philosophical Anthropology: Between Science and Religion

It is important to emphasize some features of philosophical anthropology that allow us to look at the problems of human research from the perspective we need. A direct appeal to the human problem in different historical periods does not represent a strict sequence, continuity of ideas. Moreover, even in specific epochs, there is no unity in the views of man. This was also the case during the Modern period, when philosophy developed in close contact with science, which began a systematic study of nature based on observation, experiment and the use of mathematics. The scientocentrism of the dominant trends of the New European philosophy led to the spread of scientist principles to the philosophical study of man. The most important of these principles for that time was mechanistic reductionism, the application of which gave a powerful impetus to the developing natural science and metaphysical philosophy striving to rely on its conclusions. Ernst Kassirer in the work "Philosophy of Enlightenment" cites Voltaire's judgments that, without resorting to the help of a mathematical compass or to the "light of a physical experiment", a person cannot advance a single step in knowing the essence of things, as well as in mastering the "empirical circle of things" ^{[11, pp. 26-27]}. These aspirations of the new philosophy are clearly manifested in the discussion of the prospects for the application of the "geometric spirit" in research that goes far beyond mathematics and natural science. In this respect, those researchers are probably right who apply the definition of "Cartesian" not only to the direct followers of Rene Descartes as the initiator and apologist of the domination of the "geometric spirit", but also to the spirit of Modern Times in general.

Speaking about the significance of these trends in relation to philosophical and anthropological problems, it is necessary to point out two significant points. Firstly, here we are faced with a kind of project of "new anthropology", a series of quite successfully implemented projects of "new astronomy" by G. Galileo and I. Kepler or "new anatomy" by A. Vesalius and W. Harvey. The essence of this project is to identify and realize the deep essential qualities of a person in ways that are immanent to the person himself and, at the same time, belong to the sphere of universal foundations of reality. It seems that it was Rene Descartes who formulated this problem and its solutions most fully and consistently, who gave mathematical methods of cognition the universal-systemic status that they acquired in classical natural science. It is also important that Descartes pointed out the need to build a comprehensive system of reliable knowledge on a single, self-sufficient and self-evident basis, which he found in the self-consciousness of the human mind. Wilhelm Windelband, in his History of the New Philosophy, characterizes the consequences of this program as follows: "In this respect, Cartesian philosophy acts quite radically. She wants to turn all the previous knowledge into a tabula rasa, to expose the only principle of all reliability and, based on it, to build a completely new system of all science" ^{[12, pp. 135-136]}. In accordance with this plan, the main problem of philosophical cognition of man is already as if resolved in advance: the fundamental essential quality of man (not the only one, but the primary and universally mediating) is his mind (intellect, reason) as a manifestation of the universal ens cogitans; all other qualities and aspects of human nature (bodily-physical, mental, moral, sensory-emotional, etc.) should be disciplined by the mind and aimed at serving its self-realization in the cognitive and active spheres.

Secondly, the Cartesian project of universal scientific and philosophical knowledge inevitably finds itself in opposition with the entire previous theological and philosophical tradition in understanding human nature. We are not talking about radical atheism, which is by no means peculiar to the philosophy of the XVII century, but rather about the fundamental opposition of rational and analytical knowledge to ideas developed on the basis of reliance on authority (dogmatism) or through intuitive insights (mysticism). As a consequence, if any ideas (including philosophical ones) do not receive strictly discursive formalization in a centralized and unified system of deductive knowledge, then they do not belong to reliable theoretical knowledge, but to the sphere of fruitless scholastic constructions or to the sphere of vague prejudices.

In general, there would be no place for philosophical and anthropological research in their traditional (as well as modern) understanding in the universal system of Cartesian scientific and philosophical knowledge. More precisely, they would have to exist somewhere on the periphery of theoretical thinking, just as Descartes himself found the only possible receptacle for the human soul - the pineal gland, about the significant functions of which modern medicine did not have any clear idea. However, as Windelband's colleague in the neo-Kantian school E. Kassirer writes: "At the beginning of the New Age, a thinker appeared who gave this anthropology new strength and brilliance. In the works of Pascal, it finds its expression and, perhaps, the most impressive expression. Pascal, like no one else, was prepared for this task. He had an incomparable gift for illuminating the darkest issues and gathering complex and scattered systems of thought into a single whole. There seems to be nothing beyond the sharpness of his thought and clarity of style" ^{[13, p. 13]}. We emphasize that in this statement we are talking about the traditional model of anthropological thinking for Christian theological and philosophical thought, the formation of which the German philosopher associates with the ideas of Augustine Aurelius. Emphasizing the relevance of the modern reading of the French thinker, one can agree with N. A. Chernyak's statement that: "B. Pascal is a thinker of no historical past, to whom memory and due respect should be given. Pascal is a thinker for all time..." ^{[10, p. 154]}.

Blaise Pascal: Life and creativity. A scientist and a philosopher?

It is obviously impossible to analyze Pascal's work, bypassing the exposition of his biography, since the thinker's views are largely dictated by his personal emotional state and reflect the philosopher's attempts to bring the knowledge he spontaneously experienced into a rational form. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) is a scientist whose name is widely known thanks to discoveries familiar from the school physics course: Pascal's law, the concept of atmospheric pressure, the basics of hydrostatics. Thanks to these and other achievements, Pascal deservedly belongs to the founders and main adherents of the scientific revolution. At the same time, it is known that his philosophical work essentially denies many achievements in the field of natural science, that it was in this denial that he actually experienced a rebirth. However, is it only possible to say that about Pascal? At a superficial level, Pythagoras is known mainly only by his theorem, and Leo Tolstoy is known as the author of masterpieces of world literature. But few people know about the rebirth, after which thinkers evaluated everything they had created earlier in a completely different way than is customary in society.

It is obvious that Pascal was a child prodigy: at the age of ten he composed a "Treatise on Sounds", where he made absolutely correct conclusions about the way sounds propagate through the air. At the age of twelve, he overcame the "Principles" of Euclid and not only understood them, but in his own way developed the judgments of the great mathematician of antiquity. In this regard, the biographer of the French thinker M. M. Filippov wrote: "It can be said without any exaggeration that Pascal invented the geometry of the ancients for the second time, created by whole generations of Egyptian and Greek scientists. This is a fact unprecedented even in the biographies of the greatest mathematicians" ^{[14, p. 12]}. And at the age of thirteen, Pascal was an active participant in M. Marcin's mathematical circle, which was called in scientific circles the "Paris Academy" [PERRIER, p. 12]. Having made several important discoveries in the field of mathematics, at the age of seventeen he began to create a calculating machine, which in various modifications was used almost until the middle of the XIX century. Pascal devoted the next few years to experiments with vacuum. In particular, he formulated a law named after him, improved the barometer, the idea of which was proposed by E. Torricelli, established the possibility of measuring the height of the terrain using a barometer, calculated the total weight of atmospheric air, invented a hydraulic press and several other useful devices. In November 1654, an accident occurred that almost cost Pascal his life: the carriage on which he was traveling with friends, crossing the Seine over a bridge that was damaged and in some place did not have a railing, miraculously did not fall off him into the breach, and the impressionable Pascal lost consciousness ^[15]. At the end of November of the same year, another "miracle" happened to him: he experienced the experience of "inspiration from God", as a result of which, on the same night, he wrote a poetic text of religious ecstatic content, known as "Memorial". After the incident, at the beginning of 1655, he retired without taking monastic vows to the monastery of Port Royal, where he lived, strictly following all religious rites and regulations, until the end of his days. Pascal died at the age of 39, according to J. Racine, "from old age." That's the whole short but very busy life of Blaise Pascal, after his death nicknamed "the French Dante", "Racine in prose", "teacher of mankind", "philosopher-prophet". He himself, after the events mentioned in his life, overestimated everything he had done and no longer lived, but lived ^[15]. The impression is as if a completely different person was born, who retained a connection with the past only by name. In a detailed study of the life of the outstanding thinker S. Streltsov will write: "He is perhaps the most legendary personality of modern times" ^{[16, p. 41]}.

What kind of person should be in order not to appreciate what he has done himself, while being highly appreciated by the scientific community and all of humanity? As if this short biography contained the lives of at least two people, one of whom suddenly caught himself and preferred a different fate. In Pascal's life, as if through a prism, the fate of European culture is visible, beginning each of the stages of its development with "atomism" and "pre-socratics" and ending with ideas of self-knowledge and morality. This "sublime misanthrope," as Voltaire called Pascal, wrote about himself: "I am afraid of mathematicians: what good, they will take me for a theorem" ^{[16, p. 29]}. However, in encyclopedic dictionaries, first of all, it is reported that Pascal is a mathematician and a physicist. But then why did he write that he was afraid of mathematicians? Is it an illogism that would be unforgivable for a mathematician, or something deeper and more personal? Already after the incident on the Neuilly Bridge, in Port Royal, he won the European mathematical competition in 1658, having written a large volume of works on the analysis of infinitesimal quantities. In addition, it is known that until the very end of his days, with the exacerbation of periodic headaches and toothaches, he was engaged in the most complex mathematical calculations that distracted him from suffering.

The Mystery of Man: Socrates and Pascal

The main thing to which Pascal devoted the rest of his life is his work "The Apology of the Christian Religion", better known as "Thoughts". In this work, unexpectedly for everyone who was familiar with his previous works, he appeared as a philosopher far from systematic. The text of "Thoughts" consists of about 800 separate fragments, most of which are grouped into 27 chapters. In the words of Pascal himself, this is "the order of the heart." This sometimes gave reason to researchers of Pascal's work to doubt that he is a philosopher in the generally accepted sense. Windelband, for example, wrote about "Thoughts" that they attract "not as a philosophy, but as a personal confession", that this creation "gives the impression not of a great work of thought, but of a great personality..." ^{[12, p. 297]}. As if "thought" and "personality" exclude each other! Windelband said of Socrates, who left no recorded thoughts behind him, that his image, "more than the image of any other philosopher, must be projected onto his historical background in order to find the right view of him ^{[17, p. 59]}. Meanwhile, the fates of Socrates and Pascal are similar in one crucial moment: both of them at some time in their lives seemed to turn around and went backwards, questioning everything they had passed before. They were surprised at the unreasonable pretentiousness of the philosophical works of their contemporaries ("On the nature of things", "On the mind", "On everything cognizable", etc.), questioned systematic philosophy and engaged in what already in our time M. K. Mamardashvili called "real philosophy" ^[18]. In other words, both Socrates and Pascal experienced a kind of awakening at some point in their lives and turned to the personality in themselves. Since then, they have lived with the conviction that true thought should serve the needs of the individual ("demon", "genius", "heart", "inner man"), and not the needs of an inquisitive mind aimed at knowing the outside world and mastering it.

Thomas S. Hibbs in his work "Betting on an ironic God", comparing Pascal with the French philosophers Montaigne and Descartes, determines that each of them interprets the concept of the public good in his own way. Pascal, turning to Socrates, finds in him a philosophy rich in irony, marked by a desire for wisdom that is never fully attainable. Hibbs writes that in the absence of Montaigne's Cartesian certainty or ambivalence, Pascal's practice of Socratic irony recognizes the disorder of humanity without hindering its search. Instead, the search for wisdom warns the seeker of the presence of a hidden God. According to Pascal, God simultaneously hides and reveals, fulfilling the philosophical desire for happiness and a good life only by undermining the very self-understanding of philosophy. Thus, Pascal relies on the irony of God, who simultaneously amazes and surprises true lovers of wisdom For Pascal as for Socrates: philosophy is a search without achievement, love that cannot be achieved [see: 19].

An important fact of the philosopher's biography, which his researchers pay attention to, is connected with Pascal's acquaintance with the teachings of the Jansenists – representatives of the heterodox current in French and Dutch Catholicism, which served as an impetus for him to re-evaluate the tasks of thinking. In 1646, he got acquainted with the treatise of Cornelius Jansenius (his own. name – Cornelis Otto Jansen; 1585-1638) "On the transformation of the inner man", and also – with the books of one of the leaders of the Jansenist community of Port Royal Antoine Arnault (1612-1694) "Spiritual Letters" and "New Heart". In particular, he was struck by the book of the first author, where the vain worldly life was negatively assessed and the three main human vices were condemned: pride, curiosity and sensuality. In fact, the teaching of Jansenism was not particularly original against the background of the powerful religious ferment that Western Europe experienced in the XVI-XVII centuries, but its main postulates were potentially attractive to that part of educated French society that sought to somehow overcome the fierce opposition of supporters of Catholicism (led by the Jesuits) and adherents of the "Huguenot heresy" is the most influential version of Calvinism in France. The core of the Jansenist doctrine was the doctrine of the fundamental role of original sin in shaping not just the qualities of human existence, but his very nature. According to this thesis, in earthly existence, divine predestination prevails over every person, and the salvation of his soul is impossible without divine grace, inexplicable and unpredictable. As a consequence, human aspirations aimed at satisfying "external needs" (including the knowledge of the laws of the surrounding world) are not manifestations of the spiritual and divine basis of personality, but only the result of the corruption of human nature, the manifestation of its inferiority.

In these provisions, it is not difficult to find a reproduction of the ideas of Aurelius Augustine (354-430), which were not adapted by Christian church dogmatics, but at one time became one of the foundations of the emerging Protestant worldview. In particular, the doctrine of predestination is one of the most striking markers of Calvinist theology in its far-reaching socio-ethical intentions. Thus, the accusation by the Jesuits of Jansenius and the Jansenists in solidarity with one of the most powerful Protestant movements is quite justified from the point of view of the purity of the Catholic faith (to which the accused counted themselves). However, within the framework of this work, it is not so much the misadventures of Jansenism in the collisions of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation that are important, as the influence of these ideas and circumstances on the life and work of Blaise Pascal. He, as is known, accepted the ideas of Jansenism very closely, as evidenced by his "Letters to the Provincial" (1656-1657), in which he demonstrates an amazing synthesis of refined logical argumentation with the genuine passion of a neophyte in defending the provisions already condemned by the Roman Pontiff ^[20]. Without going into a detailed analysis of this work by Pascal, we agree with the opinion of the French writer, philologist and historian Ferdinand Brunetiere, who wrote the introduction to the next edition of the Letters. He points out that Pascal's discussion of fundamental theological problems – questions of predestination, grace, salvation– is quite revolutionary in nature. But not due to any scholastic tricks (typical of Jansen and Arnaud themselves) or innovations (the strength of the Jesuits), but due to the fact that these problems are considered from the position of a secular person actively interested in their vital and practical solution. Thus, the author of the Letters did for moral theology what Descartes and his followers did for philosophy: "He extracted the latter from the monastic darkness, from the realm of mystery revealed in confession. He suggests examining it in the bright light of day" ^[20].

With the same passion Pascal overestimates his former life, more and more inclined to the fact that his inherent desire to reveal the laws of reality in scientific and mathematical knowledge and to apply them in practice is nothing but a manifestation of sinful pride. As a consequence, the confidence in the omnipotence of the human mind is also based on pride, and the actions resulting from this confidence only plunge a person deeper into the cycle of senseless vanity, overshadowing the real meanings and goals of existence. However, it can be said that doubts of this kind visited Pascal even before his famous "conversion". The French philosopher Emile Butrou, in the biography of his fellow tribesman written by him at the very end of the XIX century, points to a note presenting the calculating machine created by Pascal. In it, the inventor reports that the general scheme of the device developed immediately and practically did not change, but the work stretched for almost three years. He sees the reason for this in the fact that although "geometry and mechanics – mathematical sciences – provided him with reliable principles ...", but "... they only give a general theory. Such a theory cannot foresee inconveniences arising from the properties of matter itself, or from the conditions under which various parts of the machine will operate" ^{[21, pp. 15-16]}. In these words, there is a more or less clear awareness of the contradictions between a strict mathematical or mechanical theory and the present reality, so to speak, the resistance of the material – physical and human.

The broader context of this awareness is indicated by Cassirer, who in various works refers to the doubts expressed by Pascal in the unfinished treatise "On the geometric Spirit" about the universality of this spirit, about the need to turn to a "refined" or "finite" spirit in the study of such subjects as the soul, morality and cultural phenomena ^{[11, p. 30]}. And if the intellectual and philosophical elite of his time did not support this separation, then Pascal's own efforts began to be increasingly directed precisely at comprehending the "ultimate", "ultimate" and even "beyond" questions of human existence. Hence the order of thought he asserts – to begin with oneself, with one's Creator and one's destination. A huge role in this was played by the moral and religious experiences of Pascal, who realized, thanks to the incident on the Neuilly Bridge, the unreliability, unpredictability, and non-rootedness of actual human existence. A man, he realized, is not a mathematician or a commander, and it is dangerous when the latter replace the former. Hence his statement: "I'm afraid of mathematicians." So the above assessment by Windelband of Pascal's "Thoughts", if it is legitimate, is from the standpoint of philosophical systems and teachings, least of all directed to what Pascal himself has for some time come to value above all. "It's good," he wrote, "when someone is called not a mathematician, or a preacher, or an eloquent speaker, but just a decent person. I like only this comprehensive property. It's very bad when you look at a person and immediately remember that he wrote a book" [22. pp. 210-211]. Why is it bad, and even "very"? Can't the pride of the person who wrote the book be justified by the labor spent on writing it?

As for labor, Pascal himself knew its hardships from his personal experience. Possessing naturally fragile health, he sacrificed it to his passion for scientific research. And yet he was convinced: it's bad when they see not a person, but a book written by him. It is bad because this circumstance replaces the person himself, therefore, the particular replaces the whole and comprehensive quality. But at the same time, the natural order of things changes and some special dishonesty is asserted, concealing something immoral. This is the essence of the thinker's awakening, when he suddenly realized that morality and nature are not parallel worlds, that they have an intersection point – human nature. The world of Euclid, the "Beginnings" of which the twelve-year-old Pascal so easily mastered, turned out to be a purely intellectual world, where only one perpendicular can really be lowered from a point to a straight line. And in life it turns out that the laws of morality are perpendicular to it, that from a common point taken outside the straight line, the path lies both to the laws of the mind and to the laws of the human heart.

However, Pascal did not exaggerate the significance of certain laws. Man, in his opinion, is great not in his mind, but in his heart: "The greatness of man is that he is aware of himself as unhappy; the tree is not aware of himself as unhappy. To be aware of being unhappy is a misfortune, but to be aware that you are unhappy is greatness" ^{[23, p. 105]}. Man is just a "thinking reed", and therefore: "I should not look for my dignity in space, but in the correctness of thought. <...> In space, the universe embraces and absorbs me, a small point; in thought I embrace it" ^[24]. This maxim develops through emphasizing the insignificance of man in the face of the spatial immensity and power of the universe, but unexpectedly results in the establishment of a substantial connection between thinking and morality: "Man is just a reed, the weakest in nature, but it is a thinking reed. You don't need the whole universe to turn against him to crush him; a cloud of steam, a drop of water is enough to kill him. But even if the universe crushes him, man will still be above his killer, because he knows that he is dying, and he knows the superiority of the universe over him. The universe doesn't know any of this. So, all our dignity lies in thought. That is our greatness, not in space and time, which we cannot fill. Let's try to think as it should: this is the basis of morality" ^{[23, pp. 136-137]}.

This moment in the thinker's reasoning is the point at which the spirit of the new Cartesian philosophy is presented ("I think, therefore I exist"), which is quite consistent with the ideas of the ancient classics, in particular, with Socrates' ideas about this subject. The latter, according to Xenophon, stated: "When you think about those qualities that people call virtue, you will find that they all develop through study and exercise" ^{[25, p. 100]}. Indeed, ordinary everyday experience confirms the connection of thought and morality. Are there not enough examples in history of people who were shocked by what they did in a state of seemingly sound mind? Doesn't our personal experience tell us that remorse is, in the end, only evidence of an admitted thoughtlessness? A thought completed to the end is, in essence, our conscience, and the torments of the latter are from the limitations of thought. The origins of man's sinfulness lie in the underuse of that wonderful gift, thanks to which man, according to Pascal, is nobler even than the universe. Therefore, his words are not so unexpected, sounding, like the Kantian imperative, categorically and inexorably. Good ("due") thinking presupposes the ability and courage to go through with the thought of oneself in a situation of radical uncertainty, "abandonment". And this inevitably leads a person to morality, to God, as it led Buddha, Socrates, Pascal himself. For him, the truth is that God, morality and the good are essentially one, a single whole, and a person departs from the truth when he believes them to exist outside of himself, or does not understand their unity. He also reproached Descartes not for the fact that the great rationalist underestimated the role of God, but for inconsistency: "I cannot forgive Descartes: he would like to do without God in all his philosophy, but he could not do without God kicking the universe and thereby starting its course; after which God was to him no longer needed" [see: 24, p. 75]. A consistent view of the world, as well as of man, should have led to the understanding that love is not a being that, without being us, lives in all of us without exception. But there is only one such being in the universe. The kingdom of God is in ourselves, it is both ourselves and not us" ^{[24, p. 284]}. It can be said that the Cartesian dualism of substances – thinking and extended – is complemented by a third basis, simultaneously participating in both of them and going beyond nominal certainty. For Pascal, only her essence is obvious – love. In general, the only method consistently applied by him in "Thoughts" is revealed here – the identification of the third essence in the collision, interpenetration of substantial antinomies (such as greatness and insignificance, good and vice, randomness and predestination, etc.). The author himself interprets this method as an elusive balance of mind and heart. The geometric method does not exclude from Pascal the possibility of obtaining knowledge with the help of human sensory abilities and the experience associated with them. For the thinker, it is obvious that the best truths are those that are consistent with the "desires of the heart". It was Pascal, as G.Ya. Streltsova writes, who posed: "an important problem of the specifics of the science of man in contrast to the natural and mathematical sciences," thereby drawing the attention of mankind to the possible consequences of the gap between scientism and humanism ^{[15, pp.119-1120]}.

The problem of the method in Pascal's philosophical and scientific reflections is also given special attention in the work of A.D. Gulyaev, who states that: "The originality of Pascal is that he determines the nature of man in an experimental, synthetic way" ^{[26, p. 211]}. Pointing out at the same time that: "The method of synthetic construction" is nothing else than: "... an extensive hypothesis starting from such data, exclusively taken into consideration and shows what would happen if only these data were. And experience shows that we could have missed"? ^{[26, p. 211]}. To describe a person for Pascal means not to reduce him to an abstract concept, but on the contrary, to approach "the richness of his actual content." Emphasizing this feature of Pascal's method, Gulyaev shows that it determines the entire further course and results of the philosopher's ethical research ^{[26, p. 213]}. A.D. Gulyaev emphasizes the fact that Pascal proceeded from the idea of the limits of strictly scientific knowledge, in relation to the study of real contradictions of human nature and the impossibility of resolving antinomies on the basis of only scientific experience and reason. Gulyaev calls Pascal's method inductively scientific, which is thoroughly criticized by G. Ya. Streltsova. Indeed, human nature is not so much a metaphysical concept as something that is experienced as a result of observation, but such induction does not take into account the main thing – the impossibility of reducing a person to empirical observation, even if it is a question of self-knowledge of an individual [see 26, p. 203]. Thus, the Pascal method, as stated by the French researcher H. Bouchillou, shows us that the "disorder" of fragments in the "Thoughts" reflects the conscious choice of the author, "representing the substitution of reason with the line of heart or mercy." The idea that Pascal the philosopher would have brought order to this chaos of thought if he had not fallen ill and died does not stand up to criticism, because "Pascal himself warned that his thoughts were broader than apologetics" ^[27]. "Pascal puts the heart and faith above everything," writes Norman L. Geisler in his Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, but he is not a fideist, because "His proofs based on prophecies are untenable," and Pascal's ideas are far from the spirit of Enlightenment and humanism and can only encourage fanaticism ^[28]. At the same time, Geisler, agreeing with this position of Voltaire, still tries to rehabilitate Pascal by referring to the idea of eternal grace, which we gain thanks to a "correctly made bet" ^[28]. However, various criticisms of the Pascal method only further emphasize the originality of the philosopher's thoughts and the absence of one-sided reduction in his teaching about man.

Man in Search of Himself in Pascal's Philosophical Anthropology

In search of this ideal, Pascal, of course, could not ignore the nature of man. Already from the quote just quoted, it is clear that he did not build illusions about man, being perfectly aware of his duality and inconsistency. The reason for duality lies in the one–sidedness and one-dimensionality of his self-assessments; a person compares himself with this and that, while he is both, as well as neither. He remains a mystery to himself, but not only does not seek to know it, but sometimes he does not even suspect it: "Man is the most incomprehensible creation of nature for himself, because it is difficult for him to understand what a material body is, even more difficult – what a spirit is, and it is completely incomprehensible how a material body can connect with spirit. There is no more insoluble task for a person, and yet this is himself: "Modus quo corporibus adhaerent spiritus comprehendi ab hominibus non potest, et hoc tamen homo est" ^{[22, p. 219]}.

Misunderstanding of oneself is, perhaps, the most characteristic feature of a person who presents himself as either a material body or a spirit. In order to understand himself in reality, he should not be equated with either animals or angels, i.e., be aware of the ontological duality of his nature. But even more misconceptions about oneself lie in the assessments of their social roles. The reason for them is that a person often selfishly evaluates himself above, not below, what he really is: "People are divided into righteous people who consider themselves sinners, and sinners who consider themselves righteous" ^{[22, p. 285]}. But a righteous person who considers himself a sinner evaluates himself more adequately than people of the opposite type, therefore, a deluded righteous person is closer to greatness, because he realizes his real insignificance. And yet Pascal was not a supporter of either praising or blaming a person, or ridiculing him, realizing that the source of human error lies in any one-sidedness. Man is not perfect, he is neither an angel nor an animal, but his unfortunate peculiarity is that "the more he strives to become like an angel, the more he turns into an animal" ^{[23, p. 213]}. Hence the thinker's sympathy for those who "groaning heavily" seek to find the truth. Maybe a person will not find it on the path of self-knowledge, but he will put "order in his own life, and this is the most urgent matter for us" ^{[23, p. 213]}. Thanks to the last quote, there may be a feeling that the great and in many ways unique (at least for its time) experience of Blaise Pascal ends with a completely banal sentence in the spirit: "let's live together!" But then why all these difficulties with predestination and grace, dramatic games with antinomies (greatness is nothing, angel is an animal, righteous – sinner, infinity – emptiness)? And what does the apology of the Christian religion have to do with it at all? Since the proposal to first arrange your own life, and only then do "things, so to speak, transcendental" does not require such emotional costs and intellectual investments at all.

The fact is that when speaking about putting things in order in his own life, Pascal does not mean an everyday, everyday, or even a socio-moral understanding of life. Here he really anticipates the essential motives of postclassical philosophy, in particular existentialism. For him (at least in his "Thoughts"), human life or existence always appears as a kind of vector scheme marked with guiding points "the world" (everyday life, everyday life, vanity) – "I" – "being" (meaning-forming transcendental reality or God). The external status of the "I" in the chaos of the text of "Thoughts" is almost always designated as a dot, a nonentity, a reed, etc. – in general, a vanishingly small quantity. But at the same time there is always a co- and even a pre-presentation with greatness, immensity, divinity. The "I" directing its being into the "world" is doomed to remain just the equivalent of a geometric point, indistinguishable from the myriad other points of the vast universe; the "I" striving for self-overcoming through self-knowledge can reveal itself, like a geometric point unfolding into a sphere. Thus, the human self, the "I" in Pascal appears as an intentionally defined existence. Another important feature of human existence according to Pascal: "characterizes the correlation of phenomenological topics and the problems of loneliness and duality (doubling and bifurcation). The thinker draws attention to the fact that a double created by a person for the outside world (for communicating with people), with the existence of an internal phenomenological void, an unorganized topic and the lack of filling of this topic with meaningful formations, gradually and imperceptibly for the person himself acquires a "residence permit" inside this topic, claims the status of an "inner person""^{[29, p. 174]}.

These metaphors allow us to show that even in his "religious-mystical period" Pascal did not break ties with the "geometric spirit" that was originally close to him, but only introduced the principles of its action into a new context – into the sphere of existential dimensions of reality. Since the philosopher quickly became convinced that existence does not lend itself to a strictly mathematical (and generally strictly discursive) definition, he had to confine himself to constructing that schematic space (or topic) in which the intentional, vector definiteness of human existence can already be at least figuratively designated. This, in particular, is stated by A.S. Gagarin, referring to the philosophical heritage of Pascal: "If existence is not fundamentally structured, then the phenomenological topic by definition should be structural, a certain "coordinate grid" should be (immanently) present in it, reproduced. Just as existence eludes definition <...>, so the phenomenological topic resists the application of "parallels and meridians", however, in the topic it is possible to designate pulsating nodes, intersection points and, most importantly, the center (or centers)" ^{[30, p. 17]}.

It is this resistance that makes Pascal, on the one hand, abandon the rules of strictly rational discourse, and on the other hand, constantly return in the most diverse fragments of "Thoughts" to the same antinomies of the infinitely small and the infinitely large in an attempt to somehow grasp the existence of man in the trinity of "pulsating nodes". Here, too, the French philosopher constantly refers to the experience of contemporary scientific thought (and, accordingly, to his interpretations of existing scientific ideas). At the same time, in his metaphorical descriptions of man's place in the universe, he was ahead of his time for a long time, actually speaking about structural infinity, the inexhaustibility of both the world as a whole and its elementary particles (he has atoms). However, for Pascal, it is not this insight in itself that is important, namely, an indication of the central position of man; central not in the sense of the real center of the Universe or even the "crown of creation", but in the sense that man in his innermost mental awareness of himself unites the opposites of the infinitely small and the infinitely large. And thus opens the way to the connection of the unconnected, to the mind of the heart.

The movement from science to religion, which the French thinker is making, is especially consonant with representatives of Russian philosophy, B. N. Tarasov writes about this in his work, bearing in mind not only the originality of Pascal's thought, but also the peculiarities of his life. The philosopher's spiritual quest could not leave the best minds of Russian culture indifferent, and Tarasov repeatedly emphasizes this closeness: "Russian philosophy initially sought to free itself from the shackles of rationalism and empiricism, positivism and utilitarianism and reveal the unfounded claims to scientific absolutism and the final systemic completeness of secularized autonomous reason, which thereby, in Pascal's language, limits philosophical sects, impoverishes and provides the multifaceted completeness, breadth and complexity, depth and height of real reality" ^{[31, p. 278]}. He compares the Western scholastic school tradition criticized by Pascal with its isolation from the integral personality and integral knowledge, the desire for a "positivist denial of the spiritual dimensions of reality", to replace philosophy with "scientific constructions", with religious and mystical searches in Russian philosophy. In Western analytics, according to B.N. Tarasov, knowledge was "fragmented", "being was captured by rationalistic ideas", and "man shrank" and Pascal had a premonition and intuitively rejected it ^{[31, p. 277]}. In this sense, his confrontation can be seen as a methodological revolt, where the "mystery of human existence" becomes a stumbling block for Western rationalism and empiricism.

Pascal's work in Russian philosophy and literature highlighted its versatility, causing both criticism and admiration at the same time. It is enough to refer to the famous work "Gethsemane Night" by L. Shestov, where he directly states: "Do not expect softness and condescension from Pascal. He is infinitely cruel to himself, he is also infinitely cruel to others. If you want to search with him, he will take you with him, but he tells you in advance that these searches will not bring you joy" ^{[32, p. 290]}. Pascal, according to Shestov, deliberately takes a person away from certainty and peace, he provides him with an abyss, an abyss, maintaining a state of anxiety and uncertainty in him. Lev Shestov calls this existential appeal a mysterious "methodological rule of Pascal" ^{[32, p. 305]}. In general, it should be noted that in the works of Russian classics of philosophical thought there is a deep analysis of Pascal's work and at the same time poetic delight, mystical, romantic tragedy and joy of divine revelation, moral conviction, faith and rational justifications are revealed in it. More about this in the works of G. Ya. Streltsova, B. N. Tarasov, M. M. Filippov and many other equally well-known researchers of Pascal's work ^{[14, 15, 31]}.

Russian Russian religious philosopher B.P. Vysheslavtsev in his work "The Eternal in Russian Philosophy" (1955) devoted an entire chapter to Pascal, which was not an accident. By this he did not seek to show, like the famous Orthodox theologian S.S. Glagolev, that Pascal is one of the few Catholic thinkers close to the spirit of Orthodoxy [see: 33, pp. 72-73], but rather to designate all the same "pulsating centers" around which, although in different space-time orbits, a living anthropological thought. He also compares the author of "Thoughts" with Descartes, believing that the first revealed to us through love the mystical essence of man, just as the second discovered the thinking Self by the powers of reason. But more than that: "Pascal himself was an "intimate person of the heart" – that's why he is kind and dear to us. In addition to his scientific genius, in addition to his rich knowledge of man, in addition to his beautiful style, we feel a hidden, divine self, the fire center of his love and abundant soul, a center that sends its light to the world through the centuries" ^{[33, p. 298]}. If we admit the correctness of Vysheslavtsev, then the philosophy of Blaise Pascal really appears as an apology for the Christian religion. Thus, we see in this religion not the God of the scholastics and the Orthodox, but a living God-Man. And it is also one of the beginnings of modern philosophical anthropology. At least because the topic of nature and human perspectives is considered here in a fundamentally critical way, in full accordance with the Cartesian principle of doubt.

Conclusions

As a result of the analysis of the anthropological views of Blaise Pascal, it can be concluded that the main ideas presented in the "Thoughts" can be considered as a kind of experience of the apology of the Christian religion, and at the same time as one of the beginnings of modern philosophical anthropology. In this work, Pascal's mysticism is largely determined by fragmentary and even deliberate disregard for rational-logical constructions. Moreover, in the history of philosophy, it is customary to contrast the rationalism of the thinker with his mysticism, considering the mathematical method of the scientist in contrast to the intuitive method of the anthropology of the philosopher. However, the integrity of Blaise Pascal's ideas as a thinker is confirmed by his methodological position, in which geometric space and the mathematical world are nothing more than a field for proving both great and insignificant human existence. The big and the small in man is the most difficult mathematical problem, the greatest mystery hidden in God and at the same time the simplest solution of the universe. Pascal's recognition of the paradoxical nature of human existence is a kind of "dialectical maneuver" that presupposes the same mystical "Retreat from reason" ^{[9, p. 64]}. Perhaps the mystery of human existence, which tormented the thinker so much, was reflected in his life's struggles, showing an example of the continuity of the rational and mystical principle, in which a person turns from unity into infinity. It is not by chance that noting the special talent of the thinker, they talked about him: "Pascal was equally superior to both the ancient and the new" ^{[34, p. 234]}. It is absolutely certain that the riddle of Blaise Pascal as a scientist and philosopher has not yet been fully solved.

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