B. Pascal: the dilemma of the essential and the existential in anthropological reflection

Abstract

The article examines the gradual existentialization of Modern anthropological reflection. The author sees the key basis for this existentialization in the shift from an isolated study of certain clearly defined essential anthropological definitions to the consideration of their configurations. Considering the modifications of anthropologically oriented thinking by Montaigne, Pascal, Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky, the author concludes that the consistent existentialization of anthropological reflection by B. Pascal not only significantly expanded the understanding of the essential properties of man, but also immeasurably deepened them, directing anthropologists to overcome the techniques of "essential-reduction". The author argues that such an overcoming became possible, in particular, due to the constant clarification of the role of the "deviant" in maintaining the viability of the "normative".