Pascal on Justice, Force, and Law
In: The review of politics, Band 46, Heft 2, S. 212-243
ISSN: 1748-6858
This paper focuses on Pascal's controversial pronouncements on justice, force and law. It proceeds, in light of a preliminary examination of historical context, questions of textual interpretation, and Pascal's method and study of man, to show in Pascal's thought a theory of law which (a) rejects rationalist and naturalist explanations, (b) incorporates positivism and by implication what is today called "historicism," and (c) transcends both positivism and historicism dialectically in a Christocentric biblical view of cosmic order.