THE HUMAN CONDITION AND THE LIMITS OF REASON:
AN EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE ANTHROPOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY OF BLAISE PASCAL AND FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
By Klaus Jahn
1. Pascal & Nietzsche?
In his 1882 Joyful Wisdom, Friedrich Nietzsche offers a stern criticism directed "Against mediators" -- those who analyze two or more distinctive thinkers and their often ostensibly contrary thoughts in order to try to trace the thin threads that connect the diverse community of philosophers to one another. Nietzsche writes, "Those who wish to be mediators between two resolute thinkers are marked as mediocre: they lack eyes to see the unparalleled; seeing things as similar and making them the same is the mark of weak eyes" (228).
In line with this observation of Nietzsche's, raised eyebrows, questioning looks, and bemused expressions are typical reactions understandably elicited when Blaise Pascal and Friedrich Nietzsche are spoken of in the same breath. I say understandable insofar as the two thinkers, on the face of it, appear to be polar opposites to one another in temperament, interests, abilities, and in their systems of thought. After all, the two men each adopt an attitude towards religion, which on the surface at least, could not be more radically opposed. Pascal, in his Pensées offers to the modern sceptical man of science, perhaps the most powerful and thoughtful Christian apologetic in modern Western thought. Nietzsche on the other hand heaps scorn on Christianity and the life-negating 'herd mentality' that it imposes on those who are too weak to say 'Yea' to life. He is, after all -- as the author of The Anti-Christ and the father of Zarathustra -- the voice behind the proclamation and rallying cry of nihilism "God is dead!"
Furthermore, Pascal is well known as an accomplished physicist, and all-round man of science, who gave to the world methodologies that still govern the reputable practice of the sciences today1, as well as innovative scientific theories -- both theoretical and practical -- which still influence the way we think of the universe (as one which permits a vacum) and the way we situate ourselves therein (the way we measure air pressure and predict the weather). Apparently underlying these numerous and impressive achievements2 is Pascal's scientific optimism, that is, his faith in the efficacy of science and reason in leading man to the full and complete understanding and control of nature. This optimism seems to allow us to understand Pascal as the paradigmatic Enlightenment thinker who valued reason and its exercise in the discovery of the hidden truths of nature above all else. Thus it was that Pascal penned a theory of scientific progress which saw the growth of science and mankind's understanding of the universe as analogous to the ongoing development of the individual, the difference being that the sciences continue to develop even after the death of the individual. Thus the development of knowledge in the sciences is collective and cumulative and so is said to be infinitely perfectible (Preface,65). Nietzsche on the other hand spent much of his abundant creative energies on the task of discrediting the sciences, offering a sustained and often vicious polemic against the sciences and its faithful practioners in all disciplines3. These often overzealous efforts earned Nietzsche a reputation as an advocate for irrationalism and the overthrow of rational scientific inquiry.
Insofar as our aim in this is to discover some common ground between these ostensibly opposed thinkers, it would seem that we are to be frustrated by several fundamental differences that are not easily overcome. Nevertheless, I maintain that the contrasts outlined in the portrait painted in broad brush strokes above, fails to accurately represent either thinker. Furthermore, it fails to take into account the very real similarities that are to be found in a careful reading of each man's system. Although it is indisputably true that Nietzsche offered a sustained criticism of the sciences and the scientific mind-set, it is not the case that he was in any way calling for their abolition, or advocating a form of irrationalism or anti-rationalism. Likewise, despite the fact that Pascal was and still is an impressive figure in the history of the Western sciences, there is abundant evidence pointing to his radical dissatisfaction with the practices of the sciences and the human vanity that drove those practices -- vanity in the form of an egocentric faith in reason and science as the sole means through which all nature could be fully understood and thereby controlled.
Thus, rather than looking at both men as diametrically opposed to one another as regards their respective positions, I maintain that it might be more accurate to look at both first as joined in a limited critique of the Enlightenment and its unquestioning faith in science and reason. Both men then, despite their radically different backgrounds, see reason as an impressive human faculty which nonetheless is fundamentally limited in its ability to illuminate the deeper 'real truths' of nature which lie beyond a boundary point which reason cannot transcend. Furthermore, neither Pascal nor Nietzsche wishes to see mankind damned to a state of eternal ignorance in which he is left to wallow in despair at his own intrinsic limitations encountered at the boundary which reason cannot transcend. Rather, each man suggests alternatives through which man's limitations and his despair might be transcended: Pascal suggesting that the encounter with the limits of reason ought to prompt a religious conversion in which truth is simply known intuitively through the grace of God; while Nietzsche suggests that at the limits of reason the theoretical man might turn to art as both a means to transcend his intrinsic limitations as well as the despair that follows from the recognition of those limitations. These alternatives, although ostensibly different, are nevertheless derived from a similar origin which is fundamentally 'religious' in nature. Finally the common recognition of the essential limitations of reason and science in the discovery of truth, and the related appeal to art and religion as a means by which those limitations can be overcome, does not justify judging either man as an irrationalist. Neither is suggesting that reason ought to be abandoned outright. Rather, both men see a certain value in reason insofar as it is the faculty which leads man to the boundary beyond which the 'real truths' lie.
2. The Common Critique of Reason.
It was in the early 1650's, shortly after his father's death and his sister Jacqueline's decision to devote herself to God at Port-Royale that Pascal effectively concluded his brief but impressive career as a scientist. Having completed and defended his "New Experiments on the Vacum", his "Great Experiment", his two treatises "On the Equilibrium of Fluids and Weight of Air", as well as his "Treatise on the Vacum" of which only the "Preface" survives, Pascal put away the Torricelli tubes and picked up a set of gaming dice, preferring the company of libertines, gamblers, womanizers, and free-thinkers to that of scholars, clerics, and scientists. It was with this radical shift in interests and acquaintances that Pascal's suspicion of the inherent limitations of human reason in discovering truth began to ferment in his mind.
Standing as a leading figure in the Parisian libertine culture was Chevalier de Mere, a scholar, soldier, gambler, socialite, and infamous womanizer. It was through his acquaintance with Mere that Pascal suddenly came to realize that the essential ontological and epistemological assumptions which underlay his scientific endeavours might be called into question. In his correspondence with Mere, there is a passage which had a profound impact on Pascal's reflections on man's place in the universe and the problem of what he could hope to know of that universe. In the letter, Mere suggests that "Beyond this natural world, which is known by sense experience, there is another invisible [world], and...it is in the latter world that you may attain the loftiest science" (Cailliet,100).
With this passage, a light flooded into Pascal's mind. Mere forced him to recognize that the universe which the Enlightenment thinker proposed to investigate and discover truths of was infinitely vast, and contained certain secrets which would remain hidden from even the collective efforts of generations of scientists who undertook their investigations using the traditional tools of rational inquiry. Pascal was thus forced to question the efficacy of reason and rational inquiry. He was beginning to suspect that given the infinity of the universe and the inherent limitations imposed by man's finitude (a finitude both individual and collective), the Enlightenment hope in the revelation of nature's secrets through the exercise of human reason was doomed to fail. It was through his contact with Mere then that Pascal first suspected that the sciences and the optimism which underlay them was little more than an exercise in futility driven by human vanity.
Pascal's relations with libertine culture ended abruptly with his conversion to Christianity in 1654 which he recounted in his "Memorial". The mystical experience that led to that conversion prompted Pascal to question and reject the life spent in gaming houses, brothels, and taverns. Nevertheless, despite his break with libertine culture and idealogy, the newly devout Pascal could not throw off his suspicions or misgivings about man's place in the universe and the limits which that placement imposed upon reason and the sciences. Ontological questions about the limitations of the human situation, and epistemological problems that stem from those limitations would continue to preoccupy the converted Pascal long after his break with Mere and his fellow libertines
It is in selected aphorisims from his Pensées that Pascal first begins to outline these misgivings which he inherited from Mere. There he offers two thoughts that sound suspiciously like expressions of 'existential angst' at the idea of finding oneself as finite in an infinite universe that defies understanding. He admits that "the eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills [him] with dread" (201)4. Furthermore, he concedes that "When I consider the brief span of my life absorbed into the eternity which comes before and after...the small space I occupy and which I see swallowed up in the immensity of spaces of which I know nothing and which know nothing of me, I take fright" (68). It is from this vague sense of ignorance in the face of an unknown and unknowable infinite universe, and the fear that it elicits, that Pascal develops his anthropology -- his understanding of the nature of human being -- as well as his understanding of the epistemological consequences of that anthropology..
In essence, Pascal's anthropology can be summed up by appeal to his oft quoted characterization of man as "neither angel nor beast" (522&678). Implicit in this is an understanding of man as possessing a dual nature, that is, as participating both in the nature of angels and of animals. This situation in which man finds himself has certain consequences with regard to what he can and cannot know. That is, insofar as he participates in the nature of the angels he has access to certain epistemological advantages not enjoyed by animals. These advantages include insight into nature's secrets available through the exercise of the powers of reason -- a faculty which mankind shares with the angels. Reason's advantage is that it is a faculty whereby man might gain access to truths in and about nature that are hidden from animals who are wholly part of nature and so unable to achieve an objective understanding of it.
However, insofar as man participates equally in the nature of beasts, the powers of his reason are essentially limited. Man is in his essence finite, and thereby participates in the nature of animals. It is this finitude that ultimately limits the powers of reason, and precludes the possibility of full and complete knowledge of nature. It is in this sense then that we can understand Pascal's contention that man "when all is said...is capable of little and of much, of all and nothing" (522). Pascal thus sees man as a "freak" insofar as "we perceive an image of the truth and possess nothing but falsehood, being equally incapable of absolute ignorance and certain knowledge" (131).
In thus seeing man as a being essentially limited by its very nature in what it can and cannot know of the universe in which it is situated, Pascal points to what it is that man is doomed to remain ignorant of in light of these essential limitations. Pascal understands nature or the universe as having two extremes: infinity and nothingness. In this universe of extremes, man occupies the mid-point. As Pascal writes "man in nature...[is]...a nothing compared to the infinite, a whole compared to the nothing, a middle point between all and nothing" (199). From his position at the mid-point, man is prevented from ever understanding either extreme insofar as he is limited in what he can know in virtue of the fact that his faculty of reason and his capacity to discover the deeper truths at the extreme is limited by his participation in the nature of beasts. As such an inherently limited entity, Pascal recognizes that man is destined to always and only occupy and understand the mid-point between the extremes. He sees man as "infinitely remote from an understanding of the extremes...equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed", and maintains that "the end of things and their principles are unattainably hidden from him in impenetrable secrecy" (199).
Pascal's recognition that the deeper truths at either extreme of the universe are veiled in impenetrable secrecy which defy human efforts to illuminate them, makes intelligible his criticism of those who hold faith in the efficacy of reason specifically as it is manifested in unquestioning optimism about science and its ability to illuminate those secrets. What Pascal finds offensive in this optimism or faith is the presumption or vanity as well as the ignorance that underlies it. Pascal writes that
Because they failed to contemplate these infinities [the all and the nothing], men have rashly undertaken to probe into nature as if there were some proportion between themselves and her.
Strangely enough they wanted to know the principles of things and go on from there to know everything, inspired by a presumption as infinite as their object. For there is no doubt that such a plan could not be conceived without infinite presumption (199).
Pascal suggests that "when we know better, we understand that...the sciences are infinite in the range of their researches...and thus never allow of any finality". He asks all of mankind and those theoretical optimists in particular to "realize our limitations" and recognize that
We are something and we are not everything. Such being as we have conceals from us the knowledge of first principles which arise from nothingness, and the smallness of our being hides infinity from our sight...Such is our true state. That is what makes us incapable of certain knowledge or absolute ignorance (199).
Finally he points out that "If man studied himself, he would see how incapable he is of going further" (199). This then is precisely what Pascal did, he studied humanity and recognized man's precarious anthropological status. From that he calls into question the epistemological assumptions that he himself once operated according to, and determined that both his own claims and those of his colleagues in the sciences -- claims to possess the means by which nature can be made to reveal her deepest secret truths -- are both presumptuous and ill-founded.
Insofar as truth lies beyond the boundaries of our own essential limitations, and the pursuit of those truths through the inefficacious activity of human reason is both futile and presumptuous, Pascal maintains that "anyone who chose to follow reason alone would have proved himself a fool" (44) -- foolish in the sense that the truths the man of reason seeks are infinitely beyond the boundary at which reason is halted. The man of reason then is a fool in that he continues to pursue those truths. He "must since, reason so pleases, work all day for benefits recognized as imaginary, and when sleep has refreshed [him] from the toils of [his] reason, [he] must at once jump up to pursue the phantoms" (44)5.
Pascal then sees the ostensibly noble and dignifying faculty of reason as absurd. He recognizes that although "all man's dignity consists in thought" and that it "is admirable and incomparable by its very nature", it nonetheless has "such faults that nothing is more ridiculous" (756). It is thought after all that drives us in our daily pursuit of truth and knowledge, but ultimately, we must come to see that given man's limitations as 'neither angel nor beast' and the scope of the universe that defies attempts at illumination, all our efforts are little more than simple diversions to disguise the truth of man's condition as essentially and eternally ignorant. Pascal does after all conclude that "man is properly speaking wholly animal" (664), and that occupations such as science which are determined to demonstrate the contrary are like all other occupations to be put "under the heading of diversion" (478).
As regards the question of the similarities between the critique of reason and science offered by Pascal and that offered by Nietzsche some two hundred years later, it ought to be noted at the outset that Nietzsche is said to have seen in Pascal "the most powerful critic of human vanity that he knew" (Williams,166). Furthermore, "the two men are more alike than they are different" (Williams,xx). Nietzsche, like Pascal saw "so clearly the fundamental paradox of man, caught between two infinities, angel and beast in one" (Williams,xx).
For Nietzsche, the universe was in essence an inhospitable place for mankind. He understood existence at bottom as consisting of an inherently unstable flux in which an infinity of truths, meanings, and values underwent eternal transformations. Such existential instability however proves intolerable to mere mortals; insight into the eternal flux of infinite truths designated by Nietzsche as 'Dionysian' is both terrifying and painful.
It was Nietzsche's contention that the early Greeks recognized this eternal and infinite Dionysian flux of truths, and felt the pain and horror that existence therein entailed. Thus he claims in his first published work, The Birth of Tragedy, that "the Greek knew and felt the terror and horror of existence" (BT,3)6. Insight into the infinity of unstable Dionysian truths inspired a strand of Greek folk wisdom about life which suggested that for mere mortals in a state of "wretchedness", "'what is best of all is...not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second best...is--to die soon'" (BT,3)7. The terror of existence must be endured however, and the early Greeks had to establish a means by which they might alleviate the suffering and the terror that went with life in a Dionysian world.
For the Greeks, the means to make the life of inherent instability bearable came in the form of art -- a beautiful illusion inspired by the god Apollo -- which provided man a 'middle point' in the universe from which the horror of Dionysian truths are hidden, and life becomes liveable. Nietzsche writes of the early Greeks, and their creation of the Apollinian/Olympian middle world of art,
that [they] might endure this terror at all, [they] had to interpose between [themselves] and life the radiant dreambirth of the Olympians...all this [terror/life] was again and again overcome with the aid of the Olympian middle world of art...it was veiled and withdrawn from sight (BT,3).
Despite their efforts to shield themselves from the terrifying Dionysian truths that underlay existence, however, the Greeks were unable to remain ignorant through sheer force of will. Nietzsche, like Pascal saw that insofar as man participated in the nature of angels he had some essential insight into the fundamental truths that made up the substratum of the universe. Thus he writes that "the Apollinian Greek...had to recognize... [that]...despite all its beauty and moderation, his entire existence rested on a hidden substratum of suffering and of knowledge revealed to him by the Dionysian" (BT,4). The Greeks attempt to ignore the horror of Dionysian truths, and live in a world of beautiful and cheerful simplicity was simply misguided and naive. For ultimately, the time came when the suspicion of the underlying and infinite Dionysian truths of existence again became manifest.
Man had thus to modify his illusion in order to accommodate the Dionysian. He had to create an art form which served as both a mask to the horror of existence as well as a medium through which it might find expression. Thus the birth of tragedy, which served the golden age of the Greeks in just such a dual capacity, giving man a glimpse of the underlying truths of the universe, which he was able to enjoy insofar as those truths were disguised as fictions.
Fictions or illusions however, in any form are offensive to the "theoretical man" who emerged from within Greek antiquity as a "new type of existence unheard of before" (BT,15). Nietzsche maintains that Socrates was the first and foremost 'theoretical man', who occupies a "leader's position" in Western culture, representing "the one turning point and vortex of so-called world history" (BT,15). The first premise of Socratic theoretical wisdom is the dictum "Knowledge is virtue" (BT,12). Implicit in this theoretical mantra -- the rallying cry of science -- is an absolute judgment as to the value of knowledge and insight, as well as an absolute intolerance for illusion and the attempt to find refuge from the terror of the ultimate truths of existence in fictions.
Thus, with Socrates comes a radically anti-artistic tendency. Having fixed his "one great Cyclops eye...on tragedy, an eye in which the fair frenzy of artistic enthusiasm never glowed" (BT,14), Socrates saw only the illusion, the fiction, that which was "rather unreasonable...motley and manifold... repugnant to a sober mind, and dangerous tinder for sensitive and susceptible souls" (BT,14). He only saw the 'untruths' in art, and failed to recognize the Dionysian truths that inspired it and which it communicated to the Greek populous. As Nietzsche writes, the eyes of Socrates were "denied the pleasure of gazing into the Dionysian abysses" (BT,14). In light of the fact that Socrates was so unable to recognize the truths expressed through the tragic art and in the culture of the Greeks, everywhere he turned he saw "lack of insight and the power of illusion...[and]...from this lack [he] infer[ed] the essential perversity and reprehensibility of what exists. Basing himself on this point, Socrates conceiv[ed] it to be his duty to correct existence" (BT,13).
The means through which that correction was to be effected was through an appeal to the faculty of reason understood as possessing the "power of a panacea" (BT,15) in banishing ignorance and illusion. This appeal was motivated by an optimistic faith that despite the fact that man is essentially ignorant of the truths of nature insofar as he prefers illusion to truth, "the nature of things can [nevertheless] be fathomed" (BT,15) through the exercise of reason alone. This theoretical optimism has its origins in the declaration of Socrates as the wisest man in Greek antiquity by the oracle at Delphi. The wisdom that Socrates was so honoured for possessing was based on his acknowledgment to himself that he knew nothing. Socrates however, was unwilling to remain in such a state of fundamental ignorance perpetuated by the irrational illusions of Greek tragedy, and made it his mission to exercise his powers of reason to banish lies and reveal the fundamental underlying Dionysian truths of nature to the cold hard light of reason. His egocentric optimism in the theoretical powers of human reason prompted him to maintain that such a mission was well within the capacity of mankind to realize.
Nietzsche recognizes that Socrates has set the paradigm which still determines the way we understand the world; a rationalist paradigm that sees the truths of nature as cleverly concealed but as ultimately knowable. We still operate according to the optimistic faith that reason -- especially as it is manifested in the sciences -- will reveal those deep secrets at either extreme of the universe. Science is still motivated by the conviction that the infinitely small and the infinitely vast will one day be known. People today, as in Pascal and Nietzsche's time still pursue those elusive goals day in and day out.
Yet Nietzsche, like Pascal sees the goal of the discovery of fundamental truths and its pursuit, as well as the optimism which underlies it as a "profound illusion" (BT,15). It is an illusion insofar as the theoretical man, if he is honest with himself, realizes that truth is unattainable and is not the real goal of the pursuit of science. An honest theoretical man recognizes that his own finitude places limits on what he can and cannot come to know of the universe and that the infinity of unstable Dionysian truths is something that can never, even through the collective efforts of generations of scientists, be adequately understood.
Nietzsche wishes to establish a proposition that he maintains the honest man of science understands, namely that "we live only by means of illusion; our consciousness skims over the surface. Much is hidden from our view [and that] moreover, there is no danger that man will ever understand himself [and his universe] completely" (Philosopher,50). Yet science does not cease in its investigation because it is driven by the illusion "that first saw the light of the world in Socrates: the unshakable faith that thought...can penetrate the deepest abysses of being"; an illusion which "accompanies science like an instinct" which drives men onward in the pursuit of infinitely elusive truths. It is the search itself then that is the goal. For the man of science, the satisfaction must be in the pursuit of truth, and not its discovery; for that discovery is precluded by man's essential limitation.
Ultimately, the scientist must come to recognize those limits to his reason. He must eventually come to see himself as the animal that he is, destined to remain ignorant of the secrets that lie beyond the boundaries in which reason is effective. As Nietzsche writes
science, spurred by its powerful illusion, speeds irresistibly towards its limits where its optimism, concealed in the essence of logic, suffers shipwreck. For the periphery of the circle of science has an infinite number of points; and while there is no telling how this circle could ever be surveyed completely, noble and gifted men nevertheless reach" (BT,15).
Inevitably however, reason as it is manifested in science encounters "boundary points on the periphery" of the circle which it intends to survey -- points "from which one gazes into what defies illumination" (BT,15). The man of science encounters the limits of reason and recognizes that the truths which lie beyond his middle point position -- the infinitely vast and infinitely small -- will always defy illumination. Having recognized the presence of these unknowable truths brings about the realization that theoretical optimism or faith in the power of reason and the scientific pursuits which it prompts are as Pascal said, little more than absurd illusions and a diversion.
Both Pascal and Nietzsche thus seem to offer a similar critique of Enlightenment faith in the power of reason and science in gaining insight into the truths of a universe which is infinitely vast. Both see man and his epistemological powers of insight as essentially limited by his animality. Furthermore, both see man as occupying a narrow middle point in a universe of extremes in which man, in his ignorance, must content himself with idyll pursuits or diversions including the inherently futile pursuit of truth through science.
Despite this powerful critique of reason and science that each offers however, it is an error to conclude that either Pascal or Nietzsche see man as somehow doomed to a state of absolute ignorance in which the underlying infinity of truths that lie beyond the illumination of reason must always remain so concealed. Rather each offers an alternative to man's epistemological dilemma which however contrary they may at first appear, are nonetheless similar in their origins.
3. The Common 'Religious' Alternative to Excessive Faith in Reason
Once again, it was the infamous Chevalier de Mere who influenced Pascal's conception of an alternative to the life of ignorance and delusion offered by the pursuit of the sciences. After making light of Pascal's "long drawn out reasoning in a straight line" and criticising rationalists such as Descartes as thinkers who "judge of things in general quite badly, and always grossly" (Mere, cited in Cailliet,99-100)8; Mere went on to suggest to Pascal that in order to gain insight into the deeper truths underlying the universe "it is not to the mathematical reasoning that we must turn...but simply to the intuitive mind, to that innate good sense, that instinctive awareness, which we find within us" (Mere, cited in Cailliet,100). Mere maintains that it is this 'intuitive mind' or 'innate good sense' which "when properly refined by use, divines the loftier truths of the human order" (Mere, cited in Cailliet,100). As in the case of Mere's influence in the development of Pascal's critique of science and reason which developed after the latter's conversion in 1654, this idea of an appeal to intuition to solve man's epistemological dilemma stayed with Pascal and grew to fruition long after he had made his break with the libertine lifestyle.
It was in fact Pascal's religious conversion that made his talk of infinite truths which are unrealizable through reason but realized through intuition or the heart intelligible. For the truths that Pascal claimed eluded reason were the 'truths of God'. Knowledge of those truths could be attained not through reason which has limits and keeps man in his state of ignorance and error, but only through divine grace. As Pascal writes, "Man is nothing but a subject full of natural error that cannot be eradicated except through grace" (45). The rational means by which he imagines he might gain true understanding are ineffective in understanding the underlying hidden truths of existence and of God. As Pascal writes, "nothing shows [man] the truth, everything deceives him" (45). The only means by which man might hope to transcend his ignorance then is through the grace of God, a God who is perceived not by reason, but by the heart (424).
Even a cursory understanding of Nietzsche's polemical position on Christianity would seem to preclude any agreement with Pascal on the possibility of transcending the limitations of reason by an appeal to religion, particularly Pascal's Christianity. Yet, Nietzsche like Pascal, is unwilling to maintain that man is always and eternally ignorant of the infinite Dionysian truths. However, rather than hold out hope for insight into the Dionysian through divine revelation as Pascal does, Nietzsche instead turns to art as the medium through which truths that are unknown and unknowable through human reason alone can be discovered and expressed.
As we saw above, the theoretically optimistic man of science who operates under the illusory faith that his reason is efficacious in the discovery of the infinite truths of nature, encounters a boundary point at which inherent epistemological limitations are made clear to him insofar as his reason is unable to illuminate that which lies beyond the boundary. With such an encounter comes true insight, a brief glimpse at that which lies beyond. That which lies beyond is terrifying and horrible -- infinite truths that throw those who have insight into them into despair over the fact that man is essentially ignorant and absolutely insignificant in the infinite totality that is the universe.
As soon as every-day reality re-enters his consciousness, such a "Dionysian man" who has "once looked truly into the essence of things" is said to experience the world with nausea, a nausea which inhibits action. For he realizes that
[his] action could not change anything in the eternal nature of things; [he] feel[s] it to be ridiculous or humiliating that [he] should be asked to set right a world that is out of joint...action requires the veils of illusion...true knowledge or insight into the horrible truths outweighs any motive for action...Conscious of the truth he has once seen, man now sees everywhere only the horror or absurdity of existence (BT,7).
Radical scepticism is the product of such an encounter; but such an attitude cannot be maintained.
The initiate into the Dionysian knowledge of the limitations of humanity must decide whether he wishes to adopt the attitude of the "philosopher of desperate knowledge" and "continue to cling to his drive for truth, even after he has shown that his own goal cannot be reached" (Breazeale,xxxvii). Such a man "will be absorbed in blind science" pursuing "knowledge at any price" (Philosopher,37). If he so chooses, he must be willing to continue to live according to the illusory faith in reason which he now recognizes as illusory, a decision which is in its very nature absurd and doomed to fail. For in order for it to be effective, faith in reason must be genuinely maintained in good faith. On the other hand, one who has seen the Dionysian truths beyond the boundary and truly recognized man's anthropological and epistemological limitations has another alternative. He may adopt an even more radical scepticism, taking on the attitude of "the philosopher of tragic knowledge". Such a man "masters the uncontrolled knowledge drive...never permit[ting] himself to be satisfied with the motley whirling game of the sciences. He cultivates a new life: he returns to art its rights" (Philosopher,37).
Art, not religion comes to be the medium by which such an individual with real insight comes to know and express the truths that lie beyond the bounds of reason. As Nietzsche writes, "art approaches as a saving sorceress, expert at healing. She alone knows how to turn these nauseous thoughts about the horror or absurdity of existence into notions with which one can live" (BT,7). It is in these terms then that we might understand Nietzsche's criptic claims that "art represents the highest task and the truly metaphysical activity of this life" (BT,Preface), and that "it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified" (BT,5).
One might well ask how Pascal's hope for mankind's redemption from ignorance through religion, and Nietzsche hope that such redemption might come through art are related to one another. The answer to the question is evident if one recognizes that for Nietzsche, art and religion are intimately related. As we saw above, he speaks of the early Greeks appeal to a religion of Olympian gods who bring about the growth of myths which both hide and disclose the horrible truths underlying existence. There is thus a religious origin to art that Nietzsche points to in his Birth of Tragedy (BT,7). It is true, however, that Nietzsche rejects Pascal's appeal to Christianity, insofar as Christianity -- as it had evolved -- no longer provoked the creative act of myth making. Instead, Nietzsche saw Christianity as preferring to obstinately maintain the status quo -- a preference contrary to the recognition that the underlying truths of life were in eternal flux.
In order to fill the need for a vital redemption in the vacum left by the recognition of the inherent limitations of man, Nietzsche thus suggested that we turn to art rather than religion. He writes that
in order to create a religion one would have to awaken belief in a mythical construction which one had erected in a vacum--which would mean that this construction would correspond to an extraordinary need. It is unlikely that this will ever happen again...On the other hand, I can imagine a totally new type of philosopher-artist who fills the empty space with a work of art" (Philosopher,44).
Christianity, the means which Pascal saw as bringing about the possibility of redemption from his state of ignorance was at one time in its infancy able to provide solace to the miserable men who realized the limitations of reason. Such men lived in a vacum, having experienced the loss of the optimistic illusion which underlay the exercise of their reason. Nietzsche claims that "whether or not a religion is able to establish itself within this vacum depends upon its strength" (Philosopher,39) -- a strength which Nietzsche maintained was sadly lacking in Christianity. Yet, Nietzsche is not willing to reject religion as such, asking instead, "might not art perhaps be capable of creating a religion, of giving birth to a myth?" (Philosopher,39). The answer that Nietzsche gives is one which certainly holds to the hope in such an artists' religion in which healing myths are spun and respun, created and destroyed, built and rebuilt, all in the exercise of keeping the men of tragic insight healthy and strong.
Thus when one asks what influence the Christian apologist Pascal might have had on the evangelical atheist Nietzsche, one can respond by pointing to the possibility that Pascal revealed to Nietzsche "a side of himself which might otherwise never have become conscious", namely, "the religious basis of his thought". Although "it is untrue to say that Pascal made [Nietzsche] religious", it is incontestable that he revealed to him his "fundamentally religious nature" (Williams,xx & 177). Nietzsche's criticism of Christianity then is not an indication of any intolerance towards religion per say. He like Pascal "recognize[s] that the mind must transcend itself, must in fact worship" (Williams,159). Yet Nietzsche maintained that "the historical effects of Christianity...have been to weaken the spirit, to breed a race of stunted men such as he saw around him" (Williams,159).
Here then lies the root of his condemnation of Christianity as life-negating. This criticism is made even more pernicious insofar as Nietzsche recognized that the power of Christianity was great enough to contaminate even the clear, penetrating and honest mind of Pascal which Nietzsche always admired. Thus he claims to "love" Pascal "as the most instructive victim of Christianity, murdered slowly" (Ecce Homo,II3). Finally, Nietzsche felt certain that had Pascal had the opportunity to absent himself from the overwhelming influence of Catholicism which characterized France in the mid-17th century, he would certainly have come to reject hope in Christianity as a means through which man might transcend himself and so find redemption from the suffering entailed by knoweldge of his own ignorance, perhaps coming to adopt a faith similar to Nietzsche, in the healing power of art. Thus, he writes in an unpublished piece taken from the Nachlaß that "Pascal..only died thirty years too soon to pour scorn from his splendid and bitter soul on Christianity itself, as he had earlier and younger done on the Jesuits" (Nachlaß,XVI,347)9.
4. Avoiding Irrationalism: Reason within its Proper Boundaries
Given that both Pascal and Nietzsche offer similar critiques of reason, pointing to its inherent limitations in arriving at truth, and each offers an alternative to the vain pursuit of truth through reason that involves an appeal to religion, it might be tempting to simply dismiss both men as irrationalist or anti-rational. It is my contention however that such a dismisal would be fundamentally unjust, and indeed highly inaccurate. For both men, even while criticising reason, recognize its value. The value that each saw in reason is in its capacity to bring man to recognize the truths of his own inherent limitations, and so prompt him to reject reason and seek its alternatives in religion or art.
Thus it is that Pascal comments on the failure of reason in curing man's wretchedness. He writes "men, it is in vain that you seek within yourselves the cure for your miseries. All your intelligence can only bring you to realize that it is not within yourselves that you will find...truth" (149). In this recognition that man's wretchedness is a condition that cannot be overcome through reason alone comes a redemption of sorts10, and man's true greatness manifests itself. Thus Pascal points out in a number of aphorisms that "Man's greatness comes from knowing that he is wretched" (114&122) -- a knowledge and a greatness that man arrives at only after his reason has encountered its limitations.
Yet, it is reason itself, or rather its failure which brings man to this point at which he recognizes that his reason is vain. In an ironic work of logic then, it would be rational for rational man to reject his reason, insofar as it is a vain endeavour to seek truth through reason alone. It is precisely this leap of logic that Pascal himself calls for. He writes that insofar as "reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it", "there is nothing so consistent with reason than the denial of reason" (188&182). In a rather lengthy passage, Pascal expresses a similar idea most profoundly. He writes that
Wisdom leads us back to childhood...Knowledge has two extremes which meet; one is the pure natural ignorance of everyman at birth, the other is the extreme reached by great men who run through the whole range of human knowledge, only to find that they know nothing and come back to the same ignorance from which they set out, but it is a wise ignorance which knows itself. (82-83 italics mine).
It is this idea of a 'wise ignorance' which is intriguing as a means by which to defend Pascal against the charge of irrationalism. For it is such a 'wise ignorance' that requires that reason -- "rational methods and objectives" -- be employed to the fullest extent possible (Hazelton,191). Man must go through all the exercises of reason; he must exert himself to the point of exhaustion in his attempts to discover truths. He must drive his reason to the boundary point at which he looks out onto the infinity of truths that he is precluded from knowing by his nature, and only then can he abandon reason and 'open his arms to the Redeemer'. This abandonment comes only as the culmination of all rational exercises, and is in itself the most rational action to be taken by rational men.
Thus it is that Pascal claims that there are "two excesses: to exclude reason [and] to admit nothing but reason" (183). By excluding reason altogether, and adopting a purely irrationalist outlook, man is destined to remain nothing more than beast. He will languish in that naive childlike ignorance from which all truths will be hidden from him -- including the truth of his own ignorance. Likewise, as we have shown above, Pascal feels it is equally erroneous for man to admit only reason, and in so doing failing to recognize his essential limitations -- his ignorance; for then one is acting irrationally, and contrary to one's faith in reason. To fail to acknowledge one's own ignorance in the face of insights into the infinity of truths beyond the boundary at which reason is halted is to operate in 'bad faith' -- to deny the dictates of one's reason which demand that one acknowledge one's essential limitations. We must then, if we wish to be rational strive to reach the boundary points of reason through reason itself, but when those boundary points are reached, we must abandon reason and seek an alternative, a means to ease our angst at our own limitations. In other words, we must turn to a Redeemer who for Pascal comes in the guise of the Christian God.
A parallel to Pascal's idea that reason has an essential place in the life of man that cannot be overridden by any irrationalist or anti-rationalist sentiments that may be implied from what he says is similarly to be found in Nietzsche. As Nietzsche himself expressly states, "it is not a question of annihilating science, but of controlling it" (Philosopher,28). By this, Nietzsche intends to acknowledge that science and the reason which underlies it has an essential place in the life of man, but to put absolute faith in reason alone and to succumb to the temptations of the 'uncontrolled knowledge drive' is an error that is on par with naively trying to preserve one's ignorance behind the veil of pure Apollinian illusions.
Rather, what we must do is to follow the rational tendencies of science to its limits -- to the boundary points at the periphery of our knowing. We must give the Socratic tendency a free hand, and in so doing, allow it to explore what it can. When the process of its discovery reaches the boundary, the rational man will himself turn away from his beloved reason with a horror that comes from recognizing its limits. As Nietzsche writes "when carried to its limits, the knowledge drive turns against itself in order to proceed to the critique of knowing" (Philosopher,37). From there, the rational man will seek redemption, this time in the arts, which as we saw constitute a religion of sorts. He describes the process of recognizing the limitations at the boundary points as one in which "logic coils up...and finally bites its own tail" (BT,15). The result of this process is that "the new form of insight breaks through, tragic insight, which merely to be endured, needs art as a protection and remedy" (BT,15). Art thus comes as the Redeemer, that which makes insight into one's essential limitations -- one's ignorance -- bearable.
What is important to remember, however, is that Nietzsche is not only allowing for but welcomes the exercise of reason to its fullest extent. He is thus in no way justifiably to be considered as either an irrationalist or an anti-rationalist. Quite the contrary, Nietzsche himself respected the role of reason so much so that he at one time commented on the kinship he felt with that quintessential theoretical man, Socrates. Nietzsche writes "simply to acknowledge the fact: Socrates is so close to me that I am almost continually fighting with him" (Struggle,127). In this is implicit Nietzsche's recognition of his own inherently rational nature. Yet while he recognizes this nature, he nonetheless aims to show that reason is not the end of all human existence. While it is necessary in one sense, it is necessary only in that it brings the truly rational person to the recognition that reason is itself to be called into question and rejected for an alternative that offers itself after reason has proven itself inadequate to overcome the boundaries that circumscribe it.
Thus, we have demonstrated by an appeal to the texts of both Pascal and Nietzsche that there is a certain affinity between the two men's thought which might not be obvious to those who have no interest in discovering such an affinity. Each man shares the fundamentals of an anthropology or understanding of man's place in the universe. Each also offers a similar epistemology that is based on this anthropology -- one which calls into question the efficacy of reason in discovering truth. Furthermore, we demonstrated that each of the two men offer an alternative to certain fundamental short-comings in human reason which despite the superficial differences, nevertheless shared in the same sentiment. Finally, we demonstrated that despite their critiques of reason, and their alternatives which are fundamentally religious in nature, neither Pascal nor Nietzsche ought to be construed as proposing an irrationalist or anti-rationalist agenda. Both see a certain value in reason, recognizing that it constitutes an essential though not the ultimate element of human life.
WORKS CITED:
Arnold, Keith. "Pascal's Great Experiment", Dialogue. XXVIII 1989. 401-415.
Bishop, Morris. Pascal: The Life of Genius. New York: Greenwood, 1968.
Breazeale, Daniel. Philosophy and Truth. New York: Humanities Press, 1979.
Cailliet, Emile. Pascal: The Emergence of Genius. New York: Greenwood, 1961.
Hazelton, Roger. Blaise Pascal: The Genius of His Thought. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1974.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy. (trans) Walter Kaufmann, New York: Vintage, 1967.
------------------ . Ecce Homo. (trans) Walter Kaufmann, New York: Vintage, 1967.
------------------ . The Gay Science. (trans) Walter Kaufmann, New York: Random House, 1974.
------------------ . Nachlaß--VXI. (eds) Giorgio Colli und Mazzino Montinari, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1978.
------------------ . "The Philosopher", Philosophy and Truth. (ed) Daniel Breazeale, New York: Humanities Press, 1979.
------------------ . "The Struggle Between Science and Wisdom", Philosophy and Truth. (ed) Daniel Breazeale, New York: Humanities Press,
Pascal, Blaise. Pensées. (trans) A.J. Krailsheimer. Toronto: Penguin, 1966.
------------ . "Preface To the Treatise on the Vacum", Pascal: Selections. (ed) Richard Popkin. New York: Macmillan, 1989.
Williams, W.D. Nietzsche and the French: A Study of the Influence of Nietzsche's French Reading on his Thought and Writing. Oxford: Blackwell, 1952.
Endnotes:
1. For more detail on Pascal's innovations in and influences on modern scientific methodologies, see Arnold, Keith. "Pascal's Great Experiment", Dialogue. XXVIII (1989),401-415.
2. Even if one is disinclined to recognize Pascal as standing beside Galileo, Huygens, and Newton in the history of physics, one cannot fail to be deeply impressed with the genius of his achievements; given that they were all realized "in a few brief hours of feverish activity" (Bishop,79-80).
3. Except for his Human,All Too Human, Nietzsche's polemic against the sciences runs throughout the body of his works. The aforementioned work contains an inscription dedicating the book to Voltaire, the quintessential Enlightenment figure of science in Nietzsche's estimation. However, it is possible to read the inscription to Voltaire as motivated not so much by genuine admiration as it was by anger and spite. That is, Human, All Too Human followed on the heels of Nietzsche's emotionally charged break with Wagner, and Nietzsche must have been well aware that the dedication to the thinker that embodied Enlightenment values would enrage his former mentor.
4. Unless otherwise indicated, all future citations are aphorism numbers from Pascal's Pensées; numbered according to the Lafuma editions.
5. The passage is oddly evocative of a 20th century mime/play by the Irish/French playwrite of the theater of the absurd, Samuel Beckett. That play/mime "Act Without Words II", shows two 'rational' individuals repeatedly being proded awake and preparing for the days activity. The days activity however is simply the preparation and little else. All things considered, the effort is futile, and the accomplishment slight; much like Pascal's conception of the efforts of the scientist.
6. All citations from Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy are numbered according the section number from which they are taken.
7. This rather pessimistic piece of folk wisdom is quoted by Nietzsche from Sophocles' 'Oedipus at Colonus', lines 1224ff; a passage in which the wise and immortal Silenus, companion to the god Dionysus finally fell into the hands of King Midas who had been hunting for him a long time in order to discover what it was that is best and most desirable for mankind.
8. The allusion to Descartes in Mere's letter to Pascal is pertinent determining Pascal's mind-set in the early 1650's when his relationship with Mere was closest. In the letter there is a reference to the admiration or esteem that Pascal held for Descartes at the time, indicating that the younger man had as yet not come to develop his dislike for Descartes; a dislike expressed in passages of the Pensées such as the one where Pascal writes "Descartes, useless and uncertain" (887).
9. The translation is mine and I must therefore take responsibility for any errors. Therefore, I cite the passage in its original German. "Pascal, der nur dreissig Jahre zu früh starb, um aus seiner prachtvollen bitter bösen Seele heraus über das Christenthum selber hohnzulachen wie er es früher und jünger über die Jesuiten gethan hat" (Nachlass,XVI,347).
10. As Pascal writes "It is good to be tired and weary from fruitlessly seeking the true...so that one can stretch out one's arms to the Redeemer" (631).
