Blaise Pascal

Pensees are the unfinished notes which the French mathematician and physicist, Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), jotted down in preparation for a reasoned defence of Christian belief. They display a vision of humanity's weakness and the futility of worldly life. Whether his subject is the human heart or the famous wager of faith, Pascal writes with a blend of lucidity and eloquence....

Roger Ariew masterfully renders the oddities of seventeenth-century French vocabulary and syntax in this eloquent and philosophically astute translation -- the first complete English translation based on the Sellier edition of Pascal's manuscript, widely accepted as the version closest to what Pascal intended. Ariew provides a general Introduction that discusses the the life and times of Pascal, a select bibliography...