Comedy and Tragedy, between Pedagogy and Apology in Pascal's Conversation with M. de Sacy

After a brief reconstruction of the origin and status of Pascal's Entretien avec M. de Sacy, the article addresses the hermeneutical conflict between those (Thouvenin and Mesnard) who see in it a prevalent pedagogical character and those (Sellier) who see in it a clear apologetic intent. Through an internal textual analysis, the article seeks to demonstrate that the Entretien responds to Sacy's particular pedagogical concern, namely the question of whether Christians should read philosophers, through a dialectical argument that shows a clear apologetic intent by Pascal. In this dialectic, the comic and tragic registers are finely interwoven in order to show that we are forced into the impasse of not being able to adhere to any of the philosophical schools proposed by human reason or even to make a synthesis of them.