Reason

Blaise Pascal French mathematician, physicist and philosopher. A precocious genius (invented the mechanical calculator at age 19); converted to Jansenism after his “night of fire” (1654). His philosophy is an existential wager and a confrontation with the reason of the libertines. Key Concepts The wager (Pascal’s wager): pragmatic argument about belief in God. If God exists and you believe — infinite gain; if he does not exist and you believe — finite loss. If he exists and you do not believe — infinite loss. Prudent reason bets on God — even without rational proof “The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of”: there is an order of the heart — intuition, love, feeling — irreducible to the demonstrative logic of Descartes Misery and grandeur of man: man is a roseau pensant (thinking reed) — fragile as nature, but his greatness lies in thinking; more noble than the universe because he knows that he dies The two infinities: between the great infinity (cosmos) and the small infinity (atom), man stands in the middle — without firm foundation either in sciences or in metaphysics Diversion (divertissement): man flees from confrontation with himself through agitation — boredom reveals the human misery that diversion hides. Critique of social superficiality Critique of Cartesianism: Descartes’ method is useful in the sciences, but illusory as a foundation for faith or morality; “Descartes useless and uncertain” Jansenism: Catholic current that emphasized the irresistible grace of Augustine; Pascal defended Port-Royal in the Provincial Letters against the Jesuits Influenced by Saint Augustine — grace, sin, predestination Montaigne — skepticism, human misery (point of departure and adversary) Descartes — rationalism (critique) Ancient Pyrrhonism — skepticism as apologetic weapon Influenced Kierkegaard — wager, paradox, subjectivity of faith Existentialism — anguish and human condition Modern Christian apologetics Decision theory and game theory (wager as precursor) Works Provincial Letters (1656–1657); Pensées (posthumous, 1670 — fragments of an unfinished apologetic); Treatise on the Arithmetic of the Triangle (1654). ...