Blaise Pascal - Pensées [trans. Roger Ariew] (2005)

Blaise Pascal - Pensées, edited and translated by Roger Ariew (Hackett, 2005).

ISBN: 9780872207189 | 352 pages | PDF


The Pensées (literally, "thoughts") represent a defense of Christianity by Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), the renowned 17th century philosopher and mathematician. Pascal's religious conversion led him into a life of asceticism, and the Pensées was in many ways his life's work. The concept (but not the term) "Pascal's Wager" stems from a portion of this work. The Pensées is in fact a name given posthumously to his fragments, which he had been preparing for an Apology for the Christian Religion and which was never completed.

Although the Pensées appears to consist of ideas and jottings, some of which are incomplete, it is believed that Pascal had, prior to his death in 1662, already planned out the order of the book and had begun the task of cutting and pasting his draft notes into a coherent form. His task incomplete, subsequent editors have disagreed on the order, if any, in which his writings should be read.

This eloquent and philosophically astute translation by Roger Ariew is the first complete English translation based on the Sellier edition of Pascal's manuscript, widely accepted as the manuscript that is closest to the version Pascal left behind on his death in 1662.

A brief history of the text, a select bibliography of primary and secondary sources, a chronology of Pascal's life and works, concordances between the Sellier and Lafuma editions of the original, and an index are provided.