Pascal
By: A.J. Krailsheimer. --
Contributors: Krailsheimer, A. J.
Series: Past masters
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1980
Place of publication: Oxford ; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 84
Subjects: Pascal, Blaise, -- 1623-1662.
Description: Blaise Pascal was not only a religious philosopher, but also a scientist and mathematician who conducted important experiments on the vacuum and invented a sophisticated arithmetical triangle for measuring probability. The author here introduces all aspects of Pascal's life and work, and his book assumes no prior knowledge on the part of the reader. The book opens with a biographical portrait which describes Pascal's religious conversion and the strong influence of Jansenist thought upon his life. Next, the author discusses Pascal's scientific experiments and the writing of the "Provincial Letters", whose arguments about divine grace and casuistry dealt a terrible blow to the Jesuits. He then turns to the culmination of Pascal's spiritual philosophy in the powerful and persuasive reasoning, acute analysis of human character, and passionate devotion of the "Pensées". The view of Christianity Pascal here puts forward is integrated into a view of daily life which remains of absorbing interest to a wide readership today. The author concludes that Pascal's habits of mind and style persisted throughout his life, but that after his conversion he put his previous work in a different perspective and saw his, and in general all human, activity in religious terms.
Notes: 6