Pascal's Definition of Human Consciousness

Extract

[...] What is man then if he is neither tree, nor brute, nor stone? Man is a reed, which means that he draws his dignity and greatness from his own weakness and the consciousness he has of it. Facing an infinite universe of force, the only force of man is to know that he exists, because this universe ignores him. Man is therefore a part of this universe as a body, an infinitesimal part that can be destroyed by infinitesimal causes, for example, poison. [...]

[...] In this text, Pascal tries to show us the terrible misery of the human condition but also its grandeur and essential dignity. The body is the place of its misery because it makes it dependent on space and time, it makes it nothing more than an infinitesimal part of an infinite universe. But his thought elevates him in his condition, it makes him a being who knows and recognizes himself in the world, it makes him worthy of existence. The existential stake therefore also supposes here a moral stake concerning the quality of this dignity given to man by God. [...]

[...] In this text, an excerpt from Blaise Pascal's Thoughts, the author invites us to reflect on the paradoxical value of the human condition. Pascal states: "The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be miserable." (Line thus we must consider Man as torn between the observation of his misery and the possibility of considering this misery, that is, of accessing a tragic consciousness of his condition. The issue is therefore metaphysical and existential, in the sense that the human condition is marked by its original ambivalence between its material anchoring (its corporality) and the ability of Man to grasp himself and to think about his own condition through consciousness. [...]

[...] Consciousness is therefore a projection of man into the world, before being a reflection of him in thought. Why does this consciousness make him worthy and what is this essential dignity of man? In the third and final movement of this text, Pascal will affirm that all the dignity of man consists in his thought. It is therefore a break that he tries to establish with a morality that would make man a being destined to realize himself in his material condition. [...]

[...] Hence, how will Pascal express this impression that man can have of not being his body, of not truly belonging to this body? In the second movement of this text that extends from can conceive of killing him), Pascal will show through metaphors in what way human condition is miserable if we consider it in its materiality. The body is thought of in a negative way, that is, as incapable on its own to define what is the proper quality of man, that which must give him his essence. [...]