Nevertheless: Machiavelli, Pascal

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 case-based 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 anti-casuistry; 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 Pascal their divergences as well as their unexpected convergences.