Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) is a famous mathematician and philosopher. He is more known as the father of the Pascaline (one of the earliest arithmetic machines) and the Pascal's triangle (which we are all familiar with in high school math). However, one thing that only a handful of people know is that he is a philosopher who criticized the cogito of Descartes and metaphysical systems, saying that the only path for the human being to become happy is to open himself up to charity.
Here is one fragment from his famous Pensees about self-love (fr. 597/455)
The self is hateful ......In a word the self has two characteristics. It is unjust in itself for making itself center of everything: it is a nuisance to others in that it trues to subjugate them, for each self is the enemy of all the others and would like to tyrannize them. You take await the nuisance, but not the injustice.
In what way is the self hateful when it is ego-logic and ego-nomic?
There's no such words as ego-logic and ego-nomic. I know I've search the dictionary. Aside from that confusion, I agree with Pascal in his notion of how human beings become happy. By moving away from always thinking about what one needs and what one wants, we get to think about the other person and realize what it is they need from us. Being able to help others in anyway, brings people into our lives whom we can share our life with. This way life wouldn't be so lonely anymore because we have someone to spend it with.
ReplyDeleteJan Weslee Lim
PH 102 C
Thank you for sharing this piece of information. Maybe Pascal is somewhat correct in saying that "the only path for the human being to become happy is to open himself up to charity." I believe that when doing acts of kindness, we satisfy a certain desire within, a desire to do good and by fulfilling this, we can become happier people. Naturally, we feel happy when doing good to others and it is important to remember our responsibility to the people around us.
ReplyDeleteRobert Go
Ph102 A
I enjoyed Pascal's triangle before and never thought that the person behind such rational thing would be into philosophy. Anyway, I agree with what Pascal that through charity we become happy. I believe that there is a delightful feeling whenever we help others. However, we must not only think of helping others so that we become happy, we must also keep in mind that we have that responsibility. Charity is caritas and it means love. I think by being responsible to others through charity is a way of showing our love to others.
ReplyDelete-Diane Cheng (A)