From time to time, I dip my toes into apologetic modern writers and not a one has done as well as Pascal does with this book. In addition, Pascal does a really good job of using reason to show that reason can't give you faith, and, furthermore it will take away the mysteries that he holds so dearly. I had recently read Hobbes "Leviathan" and the contrast with this book is enlightening. Hobbes sees the world 'deductively' and would starts with axioms, definitions and universals and then argue his points. Pascal does the opposite for the most part, he goes to the particular to the particular and then to the general.
Both touch on many of the same themes, but, for example, Hobbes will argue the Papist are flawed and miracles are suspect, while Pascal will argue for the truth of the only true universal church Catholicism and miracles are necessary for Christianity. To Pascal tradition, culture and faith rule supremely, Hobbes says the opposite. It's clear which of the two the Enlightenment embraced and which one they ignored. The book is much more than just about religion though a lot of it is. His world view and his use of aphorisms cohere much more than Nietzsche's do. These two thinkers, Nietzsche and Pascal are completely antithetical but use a similar approach in edifying.
I have a problem with using aphorisms for making your points. One can read into them something that is not true and almost always there opposite can be just as true. But wait it can be just as true that "the wise should always speak after all he is wise ". He's good at his logic. One of my favorites was something like "the epicureans and stoics conclusions are right but we know they are wrong since if there premises were negated they would still be just as true".
That's a really interesting way of demonstrating proof by contradiction, but the same logic could be applied to his core beliefs too I suspect. I had to reflect on his statement "that we know there is one true religion because there are very many false religions". I realized he is actually right, but it's for an obscure reason and I'll let the reader figure out for himself. Oh heck, I'll tell ya. For there to be a 'false religion' there must be a true religion otherwise there can be no such thing as religion.
Look it's his argument not mine. Overall his method of argumentation is better than most modern day apologia, there is a large portion of the book that deals with witty sayings that can help one cope with the day-to-day, most modern day apologetic arguments go no further than what's in this book, and it's fun to watch someone using reason to defeat reason. Pascal gets four stars. Pascal is a Reformation-era Roman Catholic in good standing. He is Augustinian, and therefore Calvinist in many respects, but despises Calvin. To top it off, he's a mathematician, not a theologian.
So the outcome can be quite scattered at times. Still, for a book that he never actually wrote, this is a remarkable book. The introduction also misrepresents Calvin so blatantly as to be embarrassing coming from such a reputable scholar. Also, the notes aren't as helpful as I'd hoped they would be and are hidden away at the end of the book vs.
Overall, Pascal is well worth the read. Pascal lived to be 39 and I understood more about christianity from this little book than I have from going to church or having discussions on religion. I would say any serious religious person deserves to read this. Pleasures even cheaper are sold to those who give themselves up to them.
It is only luxuries and objects of caprice that are rare and difficult to obtain; unfortunately they are the only things that touch the curiosity and taste of or Pascal lived to be 39 and I understood more about christianity from this little book than I have from going to church or having discussions on religion. It is only luxuries and objects of caprice that are rare and difficult to obtain; unfortunately they are the only things that touch the curiosity and taste of ordinary men.
Of the pages I read the first part pg Iubesc la Pascal spiritul combativ, obsesia cu care-i ataca pe ceilalti care nu cred, de parca doar convertindu-i pe ceilalti poate crede si el din tot sufletul. E un suflet chinuit, constient de abjectul launtric, un sceptic care se-agata de credinta pentru a se purifica. Fortandu-se sa creada, a trait radical. Toata viata i-a fost o lipsa de armonie exterioara, nebucurandu- Iubesc la Pascal spiritul combativ, obsesia cu care-i ataca pe ceilalti care nu cred, de parca doar convertindu-i pe ceilalti poate crede si el din tot sufletul.
Toata viata i-a fost o lipsa de armonie exterioara, nebucurandu-se de nimic din ce ofera viata, facand o voluptate din a refuza sa fie om de altfel doar cugetarile sale despre oameni ma si fascineaza in opera asta. Din pacate derapajele religioase de la final de la sectiunea a IX a pana la final ma indeparteaza de carte. Facand abstractie de acele pagini speculative in care abordeaza religiile fata de care n-am absolut niciun interes, este o carte ce simbolizeaza oglinda omului, si-atata vreme cat discuta despre natura umana cu gandurile sale si nu derapeaza in a analiza texte "sacre", e fascinant.
Ne arata cu o agresivitate argumentata monstruozitatea naturii umane "nedemne" de Dumnezeu. Nu pot sa fiu de acord cu repulsia sa fata de atasamentul oamenilor, practic incercand sa anuleze toata viata din om, golindu-l de sentimente catre ceilalti. Din contra, tocmai pentru ca mori trebuie sa-l iubesti pe celalalt, in ciuda efemeritatii demersului, constient ca va veti descompune, sa va impartasiti cu pasiune neputintele si sa cresteti, imbratisandu-va, propagand vitalitatea pe pamant!
This work by Pascal was one of those tomes. I was a little surprised at how easy it was, however, to read this work. These are thoughts that Pascal had during a long period of his life that he would jot down and later arrange into the appropriate category. The thrust of the work, however, was religion — specifically Christianity. The book might almost be considered a work on comparative religions, except that Christianity, without a doubt, comes out on top.
The organization of these thoughts seems, in many places, a bit haphazard. The organization — such as it is — has been the subject of academic discussion since the work was first issued. Pascal never got a chance to do a final revision. My knowledge of Pascal comes from his work in physics and mathematics. His work on the mathematics of probability occupies a cornerstone on that subject. Probability also enters into many of his thought bits, too. I noted about twenty excerpts from this work that I had planned on sharing with other readers, and decided that the end result would be too windy and discouraging.
I do want to sneak in one of my favorite quotes, and one which has become justly famous. A rare collection of Pascal's Facebook statuses and tweets. A lot of the time he sounds like that one based anon who would argue against fedora tipping atheists on 4chan but unexpectedly insightful about human condition. Sometimes completely out of context tweets renders him unreadable and can even almost make him sounds profound. This is not an easy book to get into.
It's an unfinished work composed of mostly brief notes grouped more or less around a variety of themes. At first it reads like an extended table of contents. Nevertheless, Pascal was a brilliant thinker whose apologetic musings are well worth digesting. Pascal's famous wager regarding the existence of God is gasp!
He merely indicates that there is more to fear in rejecting knowledge of God and being wr This is not an easy book to get into. He merely indicates that there is more to fear in rejecting knowledge of God and being wrong than in accepting it and being wrong. He's not talking about whipping yourself into an epistemic fury of manufactured belief but rather being open to a possibility of infinite reward in connection with finite risk vs.
I think he may go off the rails a bit, however, in his response to the objection that we cannot conjure faith within ourselves. Here Pascal recommends not the search for further proofs of God's existence which are doomed to fail since God hides himself but attempting the "abatement of your passions. Seems a very odd suggestion, but I'll need to think about his reasoning further. An annotated copy would be helpful, but I found it a real bore. I'm far more interested in Pascal's apologetics than his squabbles with Jesuits and other sects.
Contrary to the prevailing scientific view upheld by Aristotelians and Cartesians alike according to which a vacuum in nature is a physical impossibility, Torricelli surmised that the space at the top of the tube was indeed a vacuum and that it was created by the pressure of the external air, which exactly balanced the pressure exerted by the column of mercury inside the tube.
Just obtaining the required apparatus posed a huge challenge. Scientists of the era typically had to design, specify, oversee the production of, test, and of course pay for their own equipment. Pascal did all that and then went to work conducting his own experiments and demonstrations. Confident of his results, he went on tour to demonstrate his hypothesis, which he was able to do using tubes of different length and diameter and a variety of liquids.
He published his findings in a short pamphlet New Experiments concerning the Vacuum Using two identical tubes, the team measured the levels of mercury at a base point in the town. Then, with a portion of the party staying behind to monitor the mercury level in one tube, which remained at the home base, Florin and the rest of the party ascended the mountain with the other tube and measured the mercury level at various elevations.
It was found that the level of mercury in the mobile or test tube varied inversely with the altitude. Meanwhile, the mercury level in the stationary or control tube never varied. Repeated experiments produced the same conclusive results: It is not on this occasion only that, when the weakness of men has been unable to find the true causes, their subtlety has substituted imaginary causes to which they have given specious names filling the ears and not the mind. The rule [of scientific method] is never to make a decisive judgment, affirming or denying a proposition, unless what one affirms or denies satisfies one of the two following conditions: Everything satisfying one of these conditions is certain and true, and everything satisfying neither is considered doubtful and uncertain.
We pass decisive judgment on things of the first kind and leave the rest undecided, calling them, according to their deserts, now a vision , now a caprice , occasionally a fancy , sometimes an idea , and at the most a happy thought ; and since it is rash to affirm them, we incline rather to the negative, ready however to return to the affirmative if a convincing demonstration brings their truth to light….
For all things of this kind [that is, hypothetical entities] whose existence is not manifest to sense are as hard to believe as they are easy to invent. Many persons, even among the most learned men of the day, have opposed me with this same substance [that is, rarified air or some comparable ethereal matter] before you but simply as an idea and not as a certain truth , and that is why I mentioned it among my propositions. Others, to fill empty space with some kind of matter, have imagined one with which they have filled the entire universe, because imagination has this peculiarity that it produces the greatest things with as little time and trouble as little things; some have considered this matter as of the same substance as the sky and the elements, and others of a different substance, as their fancy dictated, for they disposed of it as of their own work.
But if we ask of them, as of you, that you show us this matter, they answer that it cannot be seen; if we ask that it make a sound, they say it cannot be heard, and so with all the remaining senses; and they think they have done much when they have convicted others of powerlessness to show that it does not exist by depriving themselves of all power to show that it does. Pascal later composed, but never published, two detailed monographs that were discovered among his manuscripts after his death: It is in recognition of his important work in the study of fluid mechanics that a standard unit of pressure is today known as the pascal Pa , defined as a force equal to 1 Newton per square meter.
Suppose, Pascal was asked, that you are given 24 rolls of a pair of dice. What is the probability of your throwing double sixes at least one time? This problem asks, if a wager game is terminated before it has been completed, how should the contestants divide the stakes?
For example, suppose that A and B are playing a winner-take-all game in which a point is scored on every try and the winner is the first player to reach ten points. How should the stakes be divided if the game is terminated after A has 7 points and B has 5? Pascal developed solutions to these and other problems relating to the calculation of gambling odds and in an exchange of letters shared his insights with the great Toulouse mathematician Pierre de Fermat.
Together the two correspondents effectively founded the modern theory of probability. He sent a copy of this document to Fermat during their correspondence, but it was never published until after his death. He was simply interested in demonstrating its fascinating properties and powers. Pascal calls the square containing each number in the array a cell.
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He calls the third diagonal side of the triangle the base. Cells along any diagonal row are called cells of the same base. The first diagonal row consisting of the number 1 is row 0. The second diagonal row 1, 1 is row 1; and so on. The number value of each cell is equal to the sum of its immediately preceding perpendicular and parallel cells.
Furthermore, the number value of each cell is also equal to the sum of all the cells of the preceding row from the first cell to the cell immediately above the target cell.
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
As Pascal demonstrates, to find the answer we would move perpendicularly down to the nth row and then move diagonally r cells. For example, for 5 C 4, we would go perpendicularly down to row 5 and then move diagonally 4 cells and find that the number of combinations is 5. Similarly, if we calculate for 6 C 3 ,we would move down 6 rows and then diagonally 3 cells and find that the answer is In another section of the Treatise, Pascal explains how to use the Triangle to solve the Problem of Points.
Probability of at least one double-six in 24 rolls of two dice: A needs 3 more points, B needs 5 more points. Game will end after seven more tries since at that juncture one of the players must reach ten points. Then sum the remaining 3 items in the row and divide that total by the sum of all the items in the row. Expressed as a percentage, A receives Now realize that there are an infinite number of such triangles, each stretching out vertically and horizontally to infinity, with each diagonal base in the structure containing within it a theoretically infinite subset of ever-smaller triangles.
Such is the paradoxical notion of infinity, a concept that astounded and haunted Pascal, and which has teased, baffled, and intrigued a long list of theorists and commentators from Nicholas of Cusa and Giordano Bruno to Bertrand Russell and David Foster Wallace. Although the idea of infinity can fill the imagination with dread, it can also, as Pascal points out at the conclusion of his treatise Of the Geometrical Spirit , provide us with a true understanding of nature and of our place in it:. But those who clearly perceive these truths will be able to admire the grandeur and power of nature in this double infinity that surrounds us on all sides, and to learn by this marvelous consideration to know themselves, in regarding themselves thus placed between an infinitude and a negation of extension, between an infinitude and a negation of number, between an infinitude and a negation of movement, between an infinitude and a negation of time.
From which we may learn to estimate ourselves at our true value, and to form reflections which will be worth more than all the rest of geometry itself. Imagine a point P on the circumference of a revolving circle. A cycloid is the curve described by P as it rolls along a straight line.
The challenge is to discover and prove the area of this curve geometrically. Pascal worked out his own solution and then, as was common practice at the time, issued a public challenge to fellow mathematicians. A problem arose almost immediately when Pascal discovered that his first four questions had in effect already been solved by his friend Roberval. The contest was therefore reduced to the final two questions, a change that, unfortunately, was not made clear to all the contestants.
In addition, some contestants protested that the time limit was unreasonably short. Christian Huygens and Christopher Wren published solutions, but did not compete for the prize. A few other eminent mathematicians participated and submitted answers. However, Pascal, finding none of the submissions fully satisfactory, eventually revealed his own solutions and declared himself the winner. Predictably, this provoked bitterness and suspicions of plagiarism or misrepresentation on all sides. Excellence in science and mathematics, he argued, requires both capabilities. Clarke has argued, Pascal was torn between his love of geometric proof and pure logical demonstration on the one hand and his skeptical, pragmatic instincts in favor of down-to-earth experimentalism and empiricism on the other.
As a result he seemed trapped in a kind of philosophical limbo. Torricelli tubes and of brass fittings engineered to nearly microscopic precision. Pascal fully understood that once a hypothesis is tested and confirmed, the problem of determining the true cause of the phenomenon still remains and becomes itself a matter for further conjecture. For example, take his prediction, experimentally confirmed, that the level of mercury in a Torricelli tube will decline as altitude increases. Pascal claimed that this phenomenon was due to the weight of air, though he knew that other factors might also explain the same effect.
Indeed, for all he knew, an invisible emanation from the god Mercury may have influenced his results. However, as he himself and his fellow experimentalists certainly knew, there can be nearly as many reasons why an expected result does not occur, such as defective apparatus, lack of proper controls, measurement errors, extraordinary test circumstances, etc, as there are explanations for a result that occurs as expected.
Apparently in his haste to champion the new science of experimentalism against its critics, both Cartesian and Scholastic, Pascal wanted to at least be able to say that if experiments cannot conclusively prove a given hypothesis, then they may at least be able to disprove it. Anticipating Kant, he wondered with what limitations and with what level of assurance we can confidently say we know what we believe we know.
Pascal has been plausibly labeled an empiricist, a foundationalist, even a positivist and a skeptic. The confusion is understandable and is due largely to the fact that his epistemological views are complex and seem in certain respects equivocal or inconsistent.
For example, he accepts the rule of authority in some areas of knowledge, such as ancient history, while opposing and even forbidding it in others, especially physical science. In a perfect world human reason would be percent reliable and hold sway. Presumably, Adam, prior to the Fall, had such a pristine and certain view of things, such that there was a perfect congruency or correspondence between his inner perceptions and the outer world.
Pascal believes that the axioms and first principles of math, geometry, and logic constitute knowledge of this kind. They are perceived directly by reason and along with any consequences that we can directly deduce from them represent the only knowledge that we can know infallibly and with certainty.
Everything else is subject to error and doubt. Reason also has a role in this process. It guides our observations and assists us in the forming of hypotheses and predictions. It is reason that also judges and approves or disapproves the final results, though it does so on the basis of empirical evidence, not deductive logic or some preconceived system.
In the Preface to his Treatise on the Vacuum , Pascal declares that reason and sense alone must rule and authority has no place in the establishment of scientific truth. Authority is to be respected, he says, in history, jurisprudence, languages, and above all in matters of theology, where the authority of Scripture and the Fathers is omnipotent. But, he argues that in the case of physical science reverence for the ancients can actually cloud the truth and impede the advancement of knowledge, especially when such reverence is, blind, misplaced, or overly devout.
Those whom we call ancient were really new in all things, and properly constituted the infancy of mankind; and as we have joined to their knowledge the experience of the centuries which have followed them, it is in ourselves that we should find this antiquity that we revere in others. But what exactly he means by such phrases he never clearly explains. The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. I say that the heart naturally loves the Universal Being, and also itself naturally, according as it gives itself to them; and it hardens itself against one or the other at its will.
You have rejected the one, and kept the other.
Is it by reason that you love yourself? Such a faculty, if it is indeed instinctive, would presumably be inborn and thus either a part of our basic nature and something that all humans share or a special gift or grace bestowed by God to the elect.
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Heart-knowledge would then be like some faint glimmer or trace of the instantaneous, clairvoyant understanding that the unfallen Adam was believed to enjoy in Paradise. In any case, the notion of a raison du Coeur remains a critical crux in Pascal studies and posed a mystery and challenge to his readers.
Fideism can be defined as the view that religious truth is ascertainable by faith alone and that faith is separate from, superior to, and generally antagonistic towards reason. Whenever the term shows up in a religious or philosophical discussion, it is typically in conjunction with a list that includes names like Tertullian, Luther, Montaigne, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, and William James.
Based on the foregoing definition of fideism, Pascal does not fit into such a list, though the tendency to include him is understandable. Kekule discovered the shape and structure of the benzene molecule in a dream. Though his means of discovery was non-rational, what he discovered was quite reasonable and proved true.
The notion of mathematical infinity baffles us in the same way. Of particular significance in this respect is the paragraph in which Pascal, in an observation that seems to echo Tertullian almost as much as St. Who then will blame Christians for not being able to give reasons for their beliefs, since they profess belief in a religion which they cannot explain? They declare, when they expound it to the world, that it is foolishness, stultitiam ; and then you complain because they do not prove it!
If they proved it, they would not keep their word; it is through their lack of proofs that they show they are not lacking in sense. But, again, not being able to prove or give a convincing explanation for a belief is not quite the same thing as saying that the belief is incompatible with or contrary to reason. Conspiracy theories are typically lamely supported and impossible to prove, but they are seldom implausible or illogical.
Moreover, it is not just a fideistic claim, but a perfectly orthodox Catholic view and indeed a widely observable fact that reason has limits; that it is indeed, as Pascal claims, unreasonable to trust reason too much. The metaphysical proofs for the existence of God are so remote from human reasoning and so involved that they make little impact, and, even if they did help some people, it would only be for the moment during which they watched the demonstration, because an hour later they would be afraid they had made a mistake. And this is why I shall not undertake here to prove by reasons from nature either the existence of God, or the Trinity or the immortality of the soul, or anything of that kind: Even if someone were convinced that the proportions between numbers are immaterial, eternal truths, depending on a first truth in which they subsist, called God, I should not consider that he made much progress towards his salvation.
The Christian's God does not consist merely of a God who is the author of mathematical truths and the order of the elements. That is the portion of the heathen and Epicureans. Again it can be asked as it was in the case of his alleged affiliation with fideism whether he belongs in such a list. For in his view human beings enter the world with a largely defined and determined nature and a destiny that is partly charted, partly free.
We are broken creatures and would be hopelessly lost if it were not for divine grace. If such a view of the human condition is incompatible with existentialism, then Pascal is no existentialist. On the other hand, if Augustine and Kierkegaard or for that matter any Christian thinker can be considered existentialists in some broad sense, then it is hard to see why Pascal might not also qualify. Like Augustine and Kierkegaard, he emphasizes the priority of the individual and the deeply personal character of our choice to believe.
Like them, he values and personally exemplifies an extreme inwardness , indeed at times displays an almost fanatical absorption in his mental and spiritual life. The Confessions , with its focus on the self and personal identity, and especially on the self as a cumulative record, inscribed in memory, of our life-altering decisions and events, is conceivably the first existentialist text. That human life without God is wretched and that the human condition is marked by restlessness, ennui, and anxiety is an observation common to all three writers.
Another common feature of their work is the recurrent image of a vast gulf or abyss. Augustine compares the human soul to a deep abyss and likens it to the Nothingness preceding the Creation Genesis 1: Without the light of God, he suggests, we are but a dark emptiness. Kierkegaard argues that human freedom necessarily entails a constant sense of anxiety, and his image of our condition is that of a person standing on the edge of a dark precipice. In the Confessions Augustine describes the long ordeal that eventually leads to his conversion.
Instead, he must begin a new spiritual test and journey — that of actually living a Christian life. Similarly, Kierkegaard never wrote of being a Christian, but always of becoming one. He regarded an authentic Christian life as a constant trial and task. Like Augustine, Pascal places even harsher spiritual demands on himself after his conversion. And like Kierkegaard, he believes that true Christianity is an ever-striving imitatio Christi , a continual remaking of oneself in the image and spirit of Jesus. It is not he who changes, but we who change. It is not our knowledge of him that increases, but our world that alters and our attitudes towards it.
For some reason Eliot assumed that our knowledge of Pascal was basically complete eighty years ago and that modern scholarship would do little to alter or augment our understanding of his life and work. On this point he was quite mistaken.
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In this respect, Pascal stands as a kind of existential reference mark: He remains a fixed point against which we are challenged to measure the sincerity and durability of our own values and beliefs. Krailsheimer has remarked that what we find when we read Pascal is actually something that we discover about ourselves In effect, what both Krailsheimer and Eliot are suggesting is that ultimately there is not one Pascal, but many — possibly as many as there are readers of his texts.
In addition, every modern system of intra-urban or inter-urban shuttle transportation also owes a debt to the philosopher, who first conceived such a system and oversaw its original implementation in the city of Paris. His combination of wit, irony, and aphorism, his ease and clarity, his air of someone skilled both in urbane conversation and erudite technical debate was to a large extent already present and on dazzling display in Montaigne.
The same features reappear in the writings of Voltaire and the philosophes. And today, thanks largely to Pascal, these attributes have become a part of French literary tradition. Pater rightly called him the intellectual equivalent of lightning. Blaise Pascal — Blaise Pascal was a French philosopher, mathematician, scientist, inventor, and theologian. Deum meum et Deum vestrum.
Ton Dieu sera mon Dieu. Final Years After his conversion Pascal formally renounced, but did not totally abandon, his scientific and mathematical studies. During the period , under the pseudonym Louis de Montalte, he produced a series of 18 public letters attacking the Jesuits and defending Arnauld and Jansenist doctrine. Literary and Religious Works a. The five propositions can be stated as follows: It is heresy to say that we can either accept grace or resist it. Christ did not die for everyone, but only for the elect. The work would be unified, but layered and textured, with multiple sections and two main parts: Misery of man without God.
Happiness of man with God. That nature is corrupt. Proved by nature itself. Between Misery and Grandeur In effect diversions prevent us from acknowledging our essential misery. The conditions and possible outcomes of the Wager are presented in the following table: Mathematical and Scientific Works a. Conic Sections Pascal made his first important mathematical discovery and published his first article, the Essay on Conics , at the age of sixteen. Experiments on the Vacuum In the Italian physicist Evangelista Torricelli, testing a hypothesis suggested by Galileo, took a glass tube closed at one end and filled it with mercury.
Although the idea of infinity can fill the imagination with dread, it can also, as Pascal points out at the conclusion of his treatise Of the Geometrical Spirit , provide us with a true understanding of nature and of our place in it: Cycloid Imagine a point P on the circumference of a revolving circle. Philosophy of Science and Theory of Knowledge a. Theory of Knowledge Que-sais-je? Reason and Sense In a perfect world human reason would be percent reliable and hold sway.
Fideism Fideism can be defined as the view that religious truth is ascertainable by faith alone and that faith is separate from, superior to, and generally antagonistic towards reason. References and Further Reading a. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, Thoughts, Letters, and Opuscules. Hurd and Houghton, Rather, Pascal's argument was that it is just as reasonable to believe as not to believe; reason cannot prove faith yet faith is not unreasonable.
Since reason alone places us in the middle, it is better to take the step in faith and trust in God. It is difficult to decide what to say upon reading The Pensees of Blaise Pascal. The fragments, some resembling aphorisms with a few extending to several pages of prose, were left disorganized and unedited at Pascal's death. Readers have pondered over The Pensees literally thoughts ever since trying to interpret them and discern some semblance of a world view from them.
In my reading I also tried to comprehend the fragmentary comments and found the views of Monsieur Pascal, to the extent that It is difficult to decide what to say upon reading The Pensees of Blaise Pascal. In my reading I also tried to comprehend the fragmentary comments and found the views of Monsieur Pascal, to the extent that I understand them, to be foreign to my own views of life.
For Pascal the human condition is wretched with man's reason a frail thing on which life ultimately cannot depend. The overwhelming importance of such concepts as immortality and original sin imbue his world view with a supernatural and other-worldly outlook that is difficult to reconcile with reality. Perhaps his personal physical ailments were the source of his view that man in general shared his hatred of the human body.
Of the many thinkers who have contemplated Pascal over the years since his Pensees were left to us in , Voltaire expresses thoughts close to my own when he says, "Nature does not make us unhappy all the time. Pascal always speaks like a sick man who wants the entire world to suffer. For Pascal unhappiness is our lot, the corruption of the body is complete and irredeemable, self esteem is to be abhorred, god's thoughts are impenetrable and yet, we would be better off if we accept the wager that he does exist.
Well I, for one, neither accept Mr. Pascal's worldview nor his wager. I look forward to continued wonder at the mysteries of existence and I celebrate the continuing progress that, weak as we may be, we humans produce with our reason. It also overflows with serious considerations. Not to be read fast or superficially.
Unfortunately my first reading in the s was both. Therefore, this review will be in sections, as I read the major subdivisions of the text. This English translation available free on Project Gutenberg includes an excellent Introduction by Nobel laureate T. Now Pascal turns to his infamous wager. Here his argument becomes dense and philosophic.
He was surrounded by mature, intelligent people who spent their entire life diverting themselves from the most important issue of life. The following are key thoughts, in his own words: After that, they boast of having made vain search in books and among men. This negligence is insufferable. The doubter … is altogether completely unhappy and completely wrong. There are two kinds of people one can call reasonable; those who serve God with all their heart because they know Him, and those who seek Him with all their heart because they do not know Him.
It is an image of the condition of men. Thereupon it reasons, and calls nature, necessity, and can believe nothing else. Do not reprove then those who have made a choice. The true course is not to wager at all. It is not optional. Endeavor then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions.
You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it. Follow by acting as if [you] believed. What have you to lose? But … there is more certainty in religion than there is as to whether we see tomorrow.
Tell me, do you believe what politicians claim their opponent believes or intends? Then why do you accept the hatchet job of an unbeliever as definitive? One problem is with his comparing infinities. He was supposed to be the greatest mathematician of his age, but equating mathematical infinities with supernatural ones appears unreliable. All that untranslated Latin was acceptable in , when all educated people read Latin.
It is not acceptable in a translation, when few read Latin, to not render the Latin into English. Yes, the language and punctuation is archaic; blame that on the translators, too, not Pascal. His argument was with his contemporaries and ours who amused themselves to death trying to avoid the most critical decision of their lives. What is unexpected is that he beat the Enlightenment by a century and even anticipated some modern thinking. He died in Paris at age At odds with his church, especially the Society of Jesus, on one hand and the secular humanist, such as Voltaire and Montaigne, on the other.
That he carried his manuscript sewed inside his coat is indicative of how heretical he knew his Jansenist thoughts to be. This will try to review the rest of the book and summarize my thoughts. Without a doubt, Pascal was an original and creative thinker, one of the first mathematicians worthy of the term. He was also an orthodox Christian, whatever the Catholic hierarchy of the day thought of him.
His last section, however, Polemical Fragments is a Hodge-podge of thoughts on a variety of topics which strata yield the occasional gem of a quote, as follows referenced by their paragraph within the larger work: The source of all heresies is the exclusion of some of these truths. Fortunately, nearly half were Biblical citations, easy enough to obtain an English translation. He was not saying one should gamble on believing that God exists because you have nothing to lose and everything to gain, but that you should gamble on investigating whether God exists because you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
A difference in far more than semantics. Imagine keeping a journal of your private thoughts, opinions, and deep philosophical and theological musings collected snippets and notes never intended for publication in any way and then having them appear in book form for three and a half centuries after your death. That, basically, is how the Pensees "thoughts expressed in literary form" of Blaise Pascal came to exist. This was a fascinating read, filled with many short, sometimes cryptic aphorisms, a good number of which -- but no Imagine keeping a journal of your private thoughts, opinions, and deep philosophical and theological musings collected snippets and notes never intended for publication in any way and then having them appear in book form for three and a half centuries after your death.
This was a fascinating read, filled with many short, sometimes cryptic aphorisms, a good number of which -- but not all -- concern theological topics. Pascal was a devout Christian, a Catholic much influenced by Augustine as well as the Jansenists think deeply committed Catholic Calvinists with whom he met for worship. His temperment also clearly seems to lean toward the melancholy side, but doesn't diminish his writing. Occasionally, a passage in Pensees can seem a little obscure or confusing, and there are sections where he dwells on one particular subject or another at length.
There are also moments of unexpected humor, and also prosaic sections that are suddenly deeply profound. I happened to read an article about the structure and background of Pensees before I tackled it, which was very helpful! This is the sort of volume that is as enjoyable to review later for all the quotes you inevitably underlined, as it is to read initially. A couple of typical passages: Because a lame man recognizes that we are walking straight, while a lame mind says that it is we who are limping" A solid classic worthy of being acquainted with!
View all 6 comments. Wow- I read the edited version, which the Levis got down to about , plus a few other essays which were reasonably helpful. Having done this, I'm pretty happy saying that someone should really do a 90 page version, which would give you much of the important material, without any of the random notes. When people read, say, Heidegger or Dostoevsky, they don't feel obliged to read the notes they made on the back of restaurant menus along the lines of "look up Kierkegaard on the color green" or "t Wow- I read the edited version, which the Levis got down to about , plus a few other essays which were reasonably helpful.
When people read, say, Heidegger or Dostoevsky, they don't feel obliged to read the notes they made on the back of restaurant menus along the lines of "look up Kierkegaard on the color green" or "think through monasticism viz self-hatred". But apparently you need them for Pascal. Well, it ruins the reading experience.
Also ruining the reading experience is Pascal being a Jansenist, which raises my Pelagian hackles; and his droning on about miracles, which raises my rationalist hackles. Really, nobody alive today who is reading Pascal needs 40 pages on miracles. Despite which, I can see that this would have been a really amazing book if he'd lived to re-draft it about a billion times. Start with the modern, reflective, rational self; add grand conversion experience. Okay- now think about 'human nature,' concluding that it's a combination of reason and passions; of will and heart and so on.
Look around you and realize that everything is shitty, thanks to original sin. Remember that you've only been happy since you converted: Don't you want other people to be like that? Of course you do. You think everyone's an asshole, but you're nice enough to wish they weren't, and that they were happy.
Because you're a Jansenist jerk you believe that conversion comes from the grace of God, and only from God. Now you're in a bind: Yes, reason is important, but it can't help us be happy. Yes, eternal happiness is the most important thing, but there's nothing we can do to be happy. Begin angsting in a highly entertaining, intelligent way, which anticipates, among others, Kant and Adorno.
That happens to be pages too long thanks to the inclusion of nonsense about miracles. The famous wager's pretty boring by comparison to all that: Anyway, these editors do a fantastic job giving you a way in to this mess, which is otherwise totally overwhelming qua quantity and underwhelming qua quality. Not to be mixed up with his first, somewhat less mature work of theology, "Peeneses," this collection of aphorisms and assorted sentence-long bits of wisdom has been pleasing everyone it could since it was written nearly eight thousand years ago.
Pascal's influence on such diverse thinkers as Dostoevsky and Wittgenstein has been incalculable, though his fame probably reached its apex when the world-famous comic strip "Modesty Blaise" was named in his honor. I am no worshipper of the Christ, but B Not to be mixed up with his first, somewhat less mature work of theology, "Peeneses," this collection of aphorisms and assorted sentence-long bits of wisdom has been pleasing everyone it could since it was written nearly eight thousand years ago.
I am no worshipper of the Christ, but Blaise does a good job of demonstrating the impossibility of life without faith I think of him as a precursor of the critics of Enlightenment like Kierkegaard, but I'm probably overstating my case. He was definitely a precursor of John Updike's, though, and some would say that's enough. View all 17 comments. I haven't finished this and I still feel almost ready to give it a 5, Be sure what you believe from the Bible. But read this for insight even should you disagree with it. I'd call this a book to "read in" rather than a book to read only cover to cover, just me,.
This is a tough one. There are two reasons why I read this book: On the back cover of every issue was: Pascal, who was also a famous mathematician, died in , almost two hundred years before Darwin published On The Origin of Species. He died before he could actually write it. So I finally read this book. And I hated it.
I found one insightful passage in the entire thing: No, for he is not thinking of me in particular. But someone who loves a person for her beauty, does he love her? No, because smallpox, which will destroy her beauty without destroying the person, will ensure that he no longer loves her.
No, because I can lose these qualities without losing myself. Where is the self, then, if it is neither in the body nor the soul? And how can you love the body or the soul except for its qualities, which do not make up the self, since they are perishable? That is impossible, and would be unjust. Therefore we never love a person, only qualities. For we love no one except for his borrowed qualities. In other words covetousness, gluttony, et al.
We are therefore all condemned to eternal damnation upon our deaths and the only way out of all this is through belief in Jesus Christ as embodied in the Holy Roman Catholic Church, this belief coming not by use of the mind but from the heart. He goes to great pains to explain the difference in one tedious argument after another, giving examples, analogies … ad infinitum. Bruno went even further, proclaiming the sun to be just one of many of the stars in the night sky and that the universe itself was infinite. I absolutely abhor organized religion of ANY kind.
Nov 27, Sophia rated it liked it. Blaise Pascal only cared about pleasure and friends and living a life of happiness Pascal was out late that night with his buddies when he had a near death experience. A runnaway cart nearly crushed the young men. Pascal fainted on the street and had a vision. When Blaise had regained consiousness he immeadiately wrote a note to himself, which he never told anyone about. Pascal dthen dedicated his life to God. After his death the note was found by hi Blaise Pascal only cared about pleasure and friends and living a life of happiness After his death the note was found by his servant, sewed into his coat.
God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars…" and concluded by quoting Psalm Jul 01, Gary rated it liked it. There are multiple levels to this book. It works best when he's sharing his wisdom by using aphorisms short pithy and usually wise statements. They're so many pearls within this book that it wouldn't be worthwhile to highlight with a highlighter because you would highlight over half of the book. Pascal really has a great way of looking at the world and giving a smart sounding soundbite. Matter of fact, I would say this is one of the best self help books I've ever came across.
He clearly also h There are multiple levels to this book.
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He clearly also had parts of a book ready to be published before he died. That's the parts where he proves the truth of the Christian faith by prophecy and its miracles with plenty of bible quotes and those parts flowed more like a book. From time to time, I dip my toes into apologetic modern writers and not a one has done as well as Pascal does with this book.
In addition, Pascal does a really good job of using reason to show that reason can't give you faith, and, furthermore it will take away the mysteries that he holds so dearly. I had recently read Hobbes "Leviathan" and the contrast with this book is enlightening. Hobbes sees the world 'deductively' and would starts with axioms, definitions and universals and then argue his points.
Pascal does the opposite for the most part, he goes to the particular to the particular and then to the general. Both touch on many of the same themes, but, for example, Hobbes will argue the Papist are flawed and miracles are suspect, while Pascal will argue for the truth of the only true universal church Catholicism and miracles are necessary for Christianity.
To Pascal tradition, culture and faith rule supremely, Hobbes says the opposite. It's clear which of the two the Enlightenment embraced and which one they ignored. The book is much more than just about religion though a lot of it is. His world view and his use of aphorisms cohere much more than Nietzsche's do. These two thinkers, Nietzsche and Pascal are completely antithetical but use a similar approach in edifying. I have a problem with using aphorisms for making your points.
One can read into them something that is not true and almost always there opposite can be just as true. But wait it can be just as true that "the wise should always speak after all he is wise ". He's good at his logic. One of my favorites was something like "the epicureans and stoics conclusions are right but we know they are wrong since if there premises were negated they would still be just as true". That's a really interesting way of demonstrating proof by contradiction, but the same logic could be applied to his core beliefs too I suspect. I had to reflect on his statement "that we know there is one true religion because there are very many false religions".
I realized he is actually right, but it's for an obscure reason and I'll let the reader figure out for himself. Oh heck, I'll tell ya. For there to be a 'false religion' there must be a true religion otherwise there can be no such thing as religion. Look it's his argument not mine. Overall his method of argumentation is better than most modern day apologia, there is a large portion of the book that deals with witty sayings that can help one cope with the day-to-day, most modern day apologetic arguments go no further than what's in this book, and it's fun to watch someone using reason to defeat reason.
Dec 04, Deni rated it it was amazing. Pensamientos sueltos, repleto de citas impresionantes que no puedo enumerar una a una. Encuentro la cancha cuando leo a Pascal. La necesidad que produce estar vivo, el verdadero dolor, el tedio, la angustia. Y somos tan vanos que la estima de cinco o seis personas que nos rodean nos entretiene y contenta'. Y se pone super bajonero si le pinta. Y las cosas que dice de Dios Feb 08, Adriane Devries rated it it was amazing Shelves: For all his deep thoughts of faith and reason, the wretchedness of man, theology and the controversial schisms of the church during his time, the heart of Blaise Pascal, French philosopher and physicist of the s and author of his famous Wager encouraging belief over apathetic agnosticism, can perhaps be best summed up in this simple declaration: I love poverty because he loved it.
I love wealth because it affords me the means of For all his deep thoughts of faith and reason, the wretchedness of man, theology and the controversial schisms of the church during his time, the heart of Blaise Pascal, French philosopher and physicist of the s and author of his famous Wager encouraging belief over apathetic agnosticism, can perhaps be best summed up in this simple declaration: I love wealth because it affords me the means of helping the needy. I keep faith with everyone. I do not render evil to those who do evil to me, but wish them a condition like my own, in which one receives neither good nor evil at the hands of men.
I try to be just, genuine, sincere and loyal to all men, and I feel special affection for those to whom God has most intimately joined me. And whether I am alone or in the sight of others, in all my doings I am in the sight of God, who must judge them and to whom I have devoted them all. These are my feelings. And all the days of my life I bless my Redeemer, who implanted them in me and who made a man full of weakness, wretchedness, concupiscence, pride and ambition into one free from all these evils, by the power of his grace, to which all glory for this is due, since nothing but wretchedness and error come from me.
May 10, Spoust1 rated it really liked it. The highlight, aside from the famous section on "the wager," was Pascal's sense of the human situation as fundamentally divided, torn between spirit and body, good and evil, divine and and mortal, finite and infinite. Christianity's truth, for Pascal, consists in part in how it makes room for the duality inherent in the human. This leads him to a conception of faith as being not beyond reason, exactly, because there are "signs," and there is truth in Christianity see: Pascal's theology of the human leads him to take a lot of these interesting in-between positions.
Most of the writing is quite enjoyable. Hume mixed with Kierkegaard, aphorism-style. Some of the bits towards the end on scripture and miracles and other such things are tedious and will be flatly unconvincing to the modern reader. Which is not to say that his reading of Christianity is itself outdated. That, scattered throughout and not only -- or primarily -- contained in these later chapters, is strikingly modern. He speaks to us still, as a contemporary as so many do.
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Feb 16, Marie rated it it was amazing Shelves: I sure do have a lot to think about after reading this in its entirety, and worse, in a day. Even getting more difficult for those who are not familiar with latin or Bible towards the end, it's worth reading. I have had the luck to be able to read the edition with T.