Mathematics, religious argument and sharp observations about self-deception all appear in Blaise Pascal’s surviving writings. The Pensées are fragments assembled from notes for an unfinished defence of Christianity, ranging across diversion, pride, scepticism, suffering, reason and the famous wager about belief. The Provincial Letters use satire to attack Jesuit moral reasoning in a contemporary theological controversy, while Pascal’s scientific and mathematical work includes important contributions to probability and the study of fluids. The Pensées are aphoristic and discontinuous rather than a finished systematic book, so arrangement varies between editions. The strongest neighbouring categories are French classics, Christian apologetics, scepticism, probability history and seventeenth-century philosophy, particularly for readers interested in the conflict between reason, faith and human self-deception. Read more Less
No products in the cart.