Blaise Pascal (Summary)

Key Points

ü  Blaise Pascal was born on June 19, 1623, in Clermont-Ferrand, France.

ü  He was a French philosopher, mathematician, and physicist, considered one of the great minds in Western intellectual history.

ü  He made both contributions to science, working on the barometer, and an early calculator, and inventing the syringe, and also to mathematics, influencing the development of modern probability theory.  

ü  Pascal’s Philosophy:

o   He gives his name to Pascal’s Wagner, a pragmatic rather than an evidential argument for belief in God.

§  The argument presupposes a strong agnosticism, the view that it is impossible to either prove or disprove God’s existence, supported elsewhere by an argument from incomprehensibility. As we are unable to determine by reason whether or not God exists or not, Pascal argued, we are justified in basing our decision what to believe on self-interest.

§  According to Pascal, Self-interest, dictates that we believe in God: If he exists, then it is important that we believe in him, whereas if he does not, then it does matter whether we believe in him or not. We should therefore play it safe by believing in God and living out a Christian life.

§  As reason cannot decide, and pragmatism dictates that we should believe, we should believe.           

ü  He died on August 19, 1662, in Paris, France.

ü  Some famous quotes of Pascal are:

o   “The heart has it reasons knows nothing.”

o   “All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.”

o   “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”