Time and digression in Pascal's 'Pensees'

This paper studies various fragments of Pascal's Pensees in search of a cer tain construction of the subject, shaped by an eternity without closure. Th is conception of the subject is rooted in the awareness of the decline of h istory, as intimated by Calvin and the Reformation. Twentieth-century readi ngs of Pascal by Goldmann and Cioran confirm this interpretation. However, for Pascal, the status of the modern subject is at stake, within and beyond history. Itself a product of the declines of history, the Pascalian subjec t can only be deferred in an endless digression. Only in reference to the o pen-ended forms of eternity can this subject escape its own narrative const raints.