« L'espace dans la géométrie et l'épistémologie pascaliennes »

Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to show that Pascal’s conception of space per se, freed from reference to the things that occupy it, is not rooted in the physical hypothesis of a vacuum. Instead, it participates in the foundation of human knowledge, as a primitive notion of thought. Space is thus included at the level of natural evidence and appears as the main object for a new kind of geometry freed from metric considerations of magnitude in favor of a qualitative approach. The notion of space is ultimately questioned in its anthropological dimension in the light of fragment L. 199 “Disproportion of man”.

Debuiche, Valérie, et Thomas Bellon. « L’espace dans la géométrie et l’épistémologie pascaliennes », Revue d'histoire des sciences, vol. 76, no. 2, 2023, pp. 375-406.