Persona e libertà. Note sul protopersonalismo di Blaise Pascal

The article is aimed at analysing the fundamental anthropological structures of human being, especially with reference to Blaise Pascal’s Pensées and the broader twentieth-century French personalist tradition (Charles Renouvier and Emmanuel Mounier). After a brief description of Pascal’s influence on French personalism, the article examines the link between the concept of suppôt, used by the French thinker to describe the human being, and the traditional concept of person, understood as rationalis naturae individua substantia. Starting from these premises, the essay considers Pascal’s claim that dignity of human being consists in rational thought as a capacity of reflecting on oneself and being conscious of the difference with the rest of the universe. It is suggested that, according to Pascal, rational thought is characterised by a transcendental, i.e. infinite, openness on which human free will is grounded. Personal suppositum is inherently free and, thus, a morally responsible agent. This is what can be assumed as Pascal’s protopersonalism.