溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Does the Heart Know Reasons Reason Cannot?
Is love right even when it can give no reason, or is a love without reasons not to be trusted?
The heart has its reasons which reason does not know.
Pascal's speaking of "the heart's reasons" set him opposite Spinoza on the relation of love and knowledge. Where Spinoza saw true love as the fruit of understanding, Pascal admitted an order of the heart that reason cannot reach. This fork ran on into the long quarrel of Enlightenment and Romanticism. The Enlightenment believed even feeling could be illuminated by reason; Romanticism sided with Pascal, exalting a passion beyond reason as love's truth. Must love be verified by reason, or affirmed from beyond it? The question still divides the Enlightenment's light that would illuminate the heart from the Romantic shade that honors its darkness.
In an age that demands a reason for every choice, Pascal's question — that the heart knows reasons reason cannot — keeps a place for the parts of us that cannot be explained.
Pascal, a mathematician and scientist, admits there is a realm reason cannot fully measure: the heart has its own logic that reason does not know.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
Pascal, a mathematician and scientist, admits there is a realm reason cannot fully measure: the heart has its own logic that reason does not know. Why this person of all people — we can never fully explain. Yet that failure to explain does not mean the love is shallow. I feel this question defends love's mystery while carrying its danger: a heart drawn without reason may be love, or may be delusion. Shall I trust what the heart knows, or question it with reason? I hesitate before my own heart, which can give no reason.
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