Description
Nevertheless comprises essays on Machiavelli and on Pascal The ambivalent connection between the two parts is embodied by the comma in the subtitle Machiavelli Pascal Is this comma a conjunction or a disjunction
In fact both Ginzburg approaches Machiavellis work from the perspective of casuistry or casebased ethical reasoning For as Machiavelli indicated through his repeated use of the adverb nondimanco nevertheless there is an exception to every rule Such a perspective may seem to echo the traditional image of Machiavelli as a cynical Machiavellian thinker But a close analysis of Machiavelli the reader as well as of the ways in which some of Machiavellis most perceptive readers read his work throws a different light on Machiavelli the writer The same hermeneutic strategy inspires the essays on the Provinciales Pascals ferocious attack against Jesuitical casuistry
Casuistry vs anticasuistry Machiavellis secular attitude towards religion vs Pascals deep religiosity We are confronted apparently with two completely different worlds But Pascal read Machiavelli and reflected deeply upon his work A belated contemporary echo of this reading can unveil the complex relationship between Machiavelli and Pascaltheir divergences as well as their unexpected convergences
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