Pascal et l'erreur

Pascal's conception of error involved the vast undertaking of subverting the role of the principle of non-contradiction, which Philosophy has always regarded as the ultimate criterion for falsity and truth. The aim of his â€Apologetic' is to criticize dogmatism and skepticism, both subject to the same misunderstanding, namely that what is contradictory cannot be true. Pascal not only highlights the failures of reason - skeptics before him had done so perfectly well - but he also shows that the foundations on which the proper functioning of reason rests - accepted by skeptics as well as by dogmatists - are inadequate and unable to give access to reality. For reality is contradictory and what is contradictory is real. It is, hence, in name of a rational demand that we shall reject these doctrines and resort to a higher rationality. In this sense, skepticism is a disappointed dogmatism and dogmatism an insufficient rationalism. [Publisher's Text].