4 - Ends, means, and rhetoric

Summary

COMMUNICATION AND PERSUASION

In this review of Pascal's arts of the mind I have often referred to something in his writing that is never far from the surface: the presence of an addressee, of an interlocutor, even. Quite typically, he thinks and expresses himself in a situation that involves more than one mind; in fact, Pascal was recognized in his own century as a master of what the authors of the Port- Royal Logique called “la véritable rhétorique” (in a note added to the second edition of that work). His intentions in this sphere of interpersonal discourse naturally have consequences in the texts, as he conceives and shapes their external forms and as he elaborates their internal traits and sequences. In De l'esprit géométrique Pascal uses a familiar formula in naming the discipline relevant here: it is the “art de persuader.” In the Pensées he speaks of “éloquence,” which I take to be a correlative term. But the correspondence is not perfect: Pascal enjoys saying that “la vraie éloquence se moque de l'éloquence” (L.576d, f513; S347, f672), so as to put down the pretensions of any technique in these matters that tends to reduce everything to rules, to favor “géométrie” at the expense of “finesse.”

We have already seen how this art may be of help in selecting terms and concepts that are to be deployed in the inquiries of geometric and dialectic. From its use in those two fundamental arts, rhetoric appeared to us as a method of invention.