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Pascal And Disbelief
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Book Synopsis Pascal and Disbelief by : David Wetsel
Download or read book Pascal and Disbelief written by David Wetsel and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seeks to answer a question that has puzzled readers since the Pensees -- a work conceived principally as an Apology for the Christian Religion -- first appeared in 1670: To whom is Pascal's call to Christian conversion really addressed?
Book Synopsis Pascal: Reasoning and Belief by : Michael Moriarty
Download or read book Pascal: Reasoning and Belief written by Michael Moriarty and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-02 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a study of Blaise Pascal's defence of Christian belief in the Pensees. Michael Moriarty aims to expound--and in places to criticize--what he argues is a coherent and original apologetic strategy. Setting out the basic philosophical and theological presuppositions of Pascal's project, the present volume draws the distinction between convictions attained by reason and those inspired by God-given faith. It also presents Pascal's view of the contradictions within human nature, between the 'wretchedness' (our inability to live the life of reason, to attain secure and durable happiness) and the 'greatness' (the power of thought, manifested in the very awareness of our wretchedness). His mind-body dualism and his mechanistic conception of non-human animals are discussed. Pascal invokes the biblical story of the Fall and the doctrine of original sin as the only credible explanation of these contradictions. His analysis of human occupations as powered by the twin desire to escape from painful thoughts and to gratify one's vanity is subjected to critical examination, as is his conception of the self and self-love. Pascal argues that just as Christianity propounds the only explanation for the human condition, so it offers the only kind of happiness that would satisfy our deepest longings. He thus reasons that we have an interest in investigating its truth-claims as rooted in the Bible and in history. The closing chapters of this book discuss Pascal's view of Christian morality and the famous 'wager' argument for opting in favour of Christian belief.
Download or read book Pensées written by Blaise Pascal and published by Catholic University of America Press. This book was released on 2021-02-26 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher, who laid the foundation for the modern theory of probabilities. The Pensées are made up of some 800 fragments, that have proven to be an enduring masterpiece since their initial publication in 1670. This volume is a translation of Philippe Sellier's edition of Pascal's Pensées, in addition to two shorter texts, the Exchange with M. de Sacy and The Life of Monsieur Pascal by Pascal's sister, Gilberte Périer. In addition to a Preface and an Introduction, there is a comprehensive apparatus criticus. The text was originally produced by a team of international Pascal scholars, who translated individual sections and was revised by the General Editor. The introduction situates the Sellier edition in the history of Pascal scholarship and highlights the advance its reordering of the fragments and of the folders or bundles represents, both the translation itself and the notes allow for a deeper reading of the text. It not only gives English readers a version of the authoritative Sellier edition of the collection of reflections known as The Pensées, it also proposes material which help assess the philosopher's significance and the originality of his thought. On the whole, this translation gives a comprehensive view of the progress of Pascal's intended Apology of the Christian Religion as well as of other writings on related topics. It also provides today's readers with a challenging set of arguments, prayer, and quotations from Scripture, and even the record of a mystical experience, known as the Memorial. It highlights all facets of Pascal's genius, his familiarity with Scripture combined with a talent for controversy, irony mixed with fervor, and altogether the production of an intriguing and challenging writer and thinker.
Download or read book Pascal's Pensées written by Blaise Pascal and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2023-11-26 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pascal's Pensées or, Thoughts is a collection of fragments written by the French 17th-century philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal. Pascal's religious conversion led him into a life of asceticism, and the Pensées was in many ways his life's work. It represented Pascal's defense of the Christian religion, and the concept of "Pascal's wager" stems from a portion of this work.
Book Synopsis Why Read Pascal? by : Paul J. Griffiths
Download or read book Why Read Pascal? written by Paul J. Griffiths and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2021-05-07 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) is known in the English-speaking world principally for the wager (an argument that it is rational to do what will affect belief in God and irrational not to), and, more generally, for the Pensées, a collection of philosophical and theological fragments of unusual emotional and intellectual intensity collected and published after his death. He thought and wrote, however, about much more than this: mathematics; physics; grace, freedom, and predestination; the nature of the church; the Christian life; what it is to write and read; the order of things; the nature and purpose of human life; and more. He was among the polymaths of the seventeenth century, and among the principal apologists of his time for the Catholic faith, against both its Protestant opponents and its secular critics. Why Read Pascal? engages all the major topics of Pascal's theological and philosophical writing. It provides discussion of Pascal's literary style, his linked understandings of knowledge and of the various orders of things, his anthropology (with special attention to his presentation of affliction, death, and boredom), his politics, and his understanding of the relation between Christianity and Judaism. Pascal emerges as a literary stylist of a high order, a witty and polemical writer (never have the Jesuits been more thoroughly eviscerated), and, perhaps above all else, as someone concerned to show to Christianity's cultured despisers that the fabric of their own lives implies the truth of Christianity if only they can be brought to look at what their lives are like. Why Read Pascal? is the first book in English in a generation to engage all the principal themes in Pascal's theology and philosophy. The book takes Pascal seriously as an interlocutor and as a contributor of continuing relevance to Catholic thought; but it also offers criticisms of some among the positions he takes, showing, in doing so, how lively his writing remains for us now.
Book Synopsis Blaise Pascal on Duplicity, Sin, and the Fall by : William Wood
Download or read book Blaise Pascal on Duplicity, Sin, and the Fall written by William Wood and published by Oxford University Press (UK). This book was released on 2013-07-04 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blaise Pascal on Duplicity, Sin, and the Fall: The Secret Instinct is the first book on Pascal's theology to appear in English in more than 40 years. It is about Pascal's understanding of the cognitive consequences of the Fall. According to Pascal, human beings have an innate aversion to the truth that is also, at the same time, an aversion to God. We are born into a duplicitous world that shapes us into duplicitous agents, and so we find it easy toreject God continually and deceive ourselves about our own sinfulness. This book offers more than just a novel interpretation of Pascal's main text, the Pensées. It also shows that Pascal is a long-neglectedresource for constructive theology and that 'Pascalian' theology is both possible and fruitful.
Download or read book Pascal's Wager written by Jeff Jordan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006-10-26 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if there is no strong evidence that God exists? Is belief in God when faced with a lack of evidence illegitimate and improper? Evidentialism answers yes. According to Evidentialism, it is impermissible to believe any proposition lacking adequate evidence. And if any thesis enjoys the status of a dogma among philosophers, it is Evidentialism. Presenting a direct challenge to Evidentialism are pragmatic arguments for theism, which are designed to support belief in the absenceof adequate evidence. Pascal's Wager is the most prominent theistic pragmatic argument, and issues in epistemology, the ethics of belief, and decision theory, as well as philosophical theology, all intersect at the Wager. Other prominent theistic pragmatic arguments include William James'scelebrated essay, 'The Will to Believe'; a posthumously published and largely ignored pragmatic argument authored by J.S. Mill, supporting the propriety of hoping that quasi-theism is true; the eighteenth-century Scottish essayist James Beattie's argument that the consoling benefit of theistic belief is so great that theistic belief is permissible even when one thinks that the existence of God is less likely than not; and an argument championed by the nineteenth-century French philosopher JulesLachelier, which based its case for theistic belief on the empirical benefits of believing as a theist, even if theism was very probably false.In Pascal's Wager: Pragmatic Arguments and Belief in God, Jeff Jordan explores various theistic pragmatic arguments, and the objections employed against them. Jordan presents a new version of the Wager, what he calls the 'Jamesian Wager', and argues that the Jamesian Wager survives the objections hurled against theistic pragmatic arguments and provides strong support for theistic belief. In addition to arguing for a sound version of the Wager, Jordan also argues that there is aversion of Evidentialism compatible with a principled use of pragmatic arguments, and that the Argument from Divine Silence fails. Objections found in Voltaire, Hume, and Nietzsche against the Wager are scrutinized, as are objections issued by Richard Swinburne, Richard Gale, and other contemporary philosophers.The ethics of belief, the many-gods objection, the problem of infinite utilities, and the propriety of a hope based acceptance are also examined.
Book Synopsis Pascal, Pensées by : John Cruickshank
Download or read book Pascal, Pensées written by John Cruickshank and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Pascal's Wager written by Paul Bartha and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-31 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his famous Wager, Blaise Pascal (1623–62) offers the reader an argument that it is rational to strive to believe in God. Philosophical debates about this classic argument have continued until our own times. This volume provides a comprehensive examination of Pascal's Wager, including its theological framework, its place in the history of philosophy, and its importance to contemporary decision theory. The volume starts with a valuable primer on infinity and decision theory for students and non-specialists. A sequence of chapters then examines topics including the Wager's underlying theology, its influence on later philosophical figures, and contemporary analyses of the Wager including Alan Hájek's challenge to its validity, the many gods objection, and the ethics of belief. The final five chapters explore various ways in which the Wager has inspired contemporary decision theory, including questions related to infinite utility, imprecise probabilities, and infinitesimals.
Download or read book Pascal's Pensees written by Blaise Pascal and published by Prabhat Prakashan. This book was released on 2023-10-01 with total page 660 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pascal's Pensées by Blaise Pascal: Pascal's Pensées is a collection of philosophical and theological thoughts by mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal. The collection contains a series of fragmented reflections on various subjects, including human nature, faith, skepticism, and the search for meaning in life. Key Aspects of the Book "Pascal's Pensées": Philosophical Musings: Pascal's Pensées presents a series of profound and contemplative reflections on a wide range of philosophical and theological topics. Exploration of Faith and Skepticism: The book delves into the tension between faith and skepticism, examining the rational and emotional aspects of belief in the divine. Insights into Human Nature: Pascal offers insights into the complexities of human nature, examining the paradoxes, desires, and motivations that shape human behavior. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. He made significant contributions to mathematics and the development of probability theory. Pascal's Pensées, written during his final years, showcases his philosophical and theological thoughts, reflecting his profound intellect and introspective nature.
Download or read book Pascal and Theology written by Jan Miel and published by . This book was released on 1969 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1970. The question of man's freedom to exercise his will—as active an issue among twentieth-century philosophers and theologians as it was in the Jesuit and Jansenist camps known to Pascal—is basic to this study. Pascal's theological thinking, which Professor Miel demonstrates to be the source of unity and coherence in virtually all phases of his thought, is preoccupied by a concern for man's limitations. In his analysis of Pascal's theology, Miel is concerned not only with characterizing Pascal's theological position but also with evaluating it in terms of the history of the church. In a concise and lucid review of the Christian doctrine of grace from the pre-Augustinians through the Renaissance, the author identifies the intellectual-theological atmosphere that created the need for Pascal's strong defense of Augustinian theology. Miel considers Pascal's Écrits sur la grâce, Lettres provincials, and Pensées as well as shorter compositions and correspondence. He establishes the content of Pascal's vision of grace and free will, noting both its originality and its sense of history. Most importantly, he asserts that Pascal's affirmation of Jansenism predated his association with Port Royal and, indeed, was basic to all his adult thought and work. The author finds in the writings of Pascal a style that anticipates twentieth-century theology, a sophistication that belies charges of Pascal's theological naïveté, and a concern to uphold rather than to undermine doctrinal traditions of the church.
Book Synopsis The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal by : Blaise Pascal
Download or read book The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal written by Blaise Pascal and published by . This book was released on 1885 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Anna Karenina and Others by : Liza Knapp
Download or read book Anna Karenina and Others written by Liza Knapp and published by University of Wisconsin Pres. This book was released on 2016-07-31 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Liza Knapp offers a fresh approach to understanding Tolstoy's construction of his novel Anna Karenina and how he creates patterns of meaning. Her analysis draws on works that were critical to his understanding of the interconnectedness of human lives, including The Scarlet Letter, Middlemarch, and Blaise Pascal's Pens es. Knapp concludes with a tour-de-force reading of Mrs. Dalloway as Virginia Woolf's response to Tolstoy's treatment of Anna Karenina and others.
Book Synopsis The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal by : Blaise Pascal
Download or read book The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal written by Blaise Pascal and published by . This book was released on 1885 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Blaise Pascal by : Marvin R. O'Connell
Download or read book Blaise Pascal written by Marvin R. O'Connell and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 1997 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), mathematician, physicist, inventor, and religious thinker was a man at odds with his time. The optimism of the Enlightenment and the belief among philosophers and scientists that the universe was both discoverable and rational made them feel invincible. Reason alone, declared the intellectuals, could discover a God of natural religion that was to replace the God of traditional Christianity. Pascal, on the other hand, was not so confident. In his Pens es, he wrote, "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread." For Pascal, the universe was full of a mystery that went far beyond the powers of reason. Blaise Pascal: Reasons of the Heart, the latest addition to Eerdmans LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY series, captures Pascal's life and times with a chronicle narrative based on the published sources and Pascal's own works. Marvin O'Connell takes readers on an eloquent journey into Pascal's world, showing the passion that drove the man and the radical spirituality he sought in his own heart. In the process, O'Connell also illumines the social, political, and religious intrigue of seventeenth-century Paris, especially the winner-take-all struggle between the Jesuits and the Jansenists, with whom Pascal himself was allied. Written in an enjoyable style accessible to all, this meticulously researched biography will acquaint readers with the life and thought of Blaise Pascal, a remarkable human being and luminous Christian thinker.
Book Synopsis Sceptical Doubt and Disbelief in Modern European Thought by : Vicente Raga Rosaleny
Download or read book Sceptical Doubt and Disbelief in Modern European Thought written by Vicente Raga Rosaleny and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-10-19 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines modern scepticism in all main philosophical areas: epistemology, science, metaphysics, morals, and religion. It features sixteen essays that explore its importance for modern thought. The contributions present diverse, mutually enriching interpretations of key thinkers, from Montaigne to Nietzsche. The book includes a look both at the relationship between Montaigne and Pascal and at Montaigne’s criticism of religious rationalism. It turns its attention to an investigation into the links between ancient scepticism and Bacon’s Doctrine of the Idols, as well as into the ancient problem of the criterion in Cartesian philosophy. Next, three essays focus on more general topics, like modern sceptical disturbances, clandestine literature and irreligion. Two essays investigate the role of scepticism in Bayle’s moral thinking and his theory of religious toleration. Hume’s sceptical philosophy is the subject of two papers by distinguished scholars. In addition, many contributors address the presence of scepticism in Kant and in the German Idealism, such as the role of Schulze's scepticism in the works of the young Hegel. The book closes with a paper on Nietzsche and scepticism, and an essay on the role of Popkin’s and Schmitt’s works on modern scepticism. This collection continues along a rich, fruitful path opened by Richard H. Popkin and pursued by many important scholars, like Gianni Paganini, John-Christian Laursen, and José Raimundo Maia Neto. It re-establishes that necessary dialogue between researchers of scepticism from all over the Americas, which began with Popkin, Oswaldo Porchat and Ezequiel de Olaso long ago. This insightful reflection on modern European scepticism will also serve as an important resource in the history of modern philosophy.
Book Synopsis Pascal's God-Shaped Vacuum by : Peter Brian Gilbert
Download or read book Pascal's God-Shaped Vacuum written by Peter Brian Gilbert and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blaise Pascal wrote the Pensées to his skeptical and restless friends to move them to seek God. The Pensées are widely regarded as one of the most exhilarating and effective defenses of the Christian faith ever written, particularly for today's readers who resemble Pascal's friends. This comprehensive guided tour of Pascal's Pensées, plus biography of Pascal's courageous life, aims to benefit seekers and believers by conveying Pascal's insights into: (1) Why a human being is miserable without God; (2) Why Christianity uniquely offers a winsome and efficacious cure; and (3) Why Christianity, despite modern objections, is plausibly true. The greatest significance of Pascal's Pensées may be their compelling articulation of the unique relevance of Christ's gospel for our time. In T.S. Eliot's words, “But I can think of no Christian writer, not Newman even, more to be commended than Pascal to those who doubt, but who have the mind to conceive, and the sensibility to feel, the disorder, the futility, the meaninglessness, the mystery of life and suffering, and who can only find peace through a satisfaction of the whole being.”Pascal's signature Pensée undergirding the themes of this guided tour is number 148: “What else does this craving proclaim but that there was once in man a true state of happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object, in other words by God himself.” Through this Pensée and many others Pascal wakes us up to appreciate that we may have a God-shaped vacuum in our heart, as suggested, for example, by our affinity for diversions and indifference as ways to avoid addressing our grimmest problems such as our impending deaths, unhappiness, and unjust self-absorption. The Pensées in particular address how a person this side of the technological revolution can seriously consider Christian truth and life in the face of contemporary countervailing currents including scientism, cynicism, and entertainment culture. Pascal's case for why to seek and believe is especially relevant for today because he wrote to modern secular society, to ambitious pursuers of career success, to the bored and indifferent, to intellectual skeptics. In contrast, classical rational apologetics hardly penetrate this group, because they neglect the readers' psychology, mistakenly pre-supposing they are open to seeking God. By combining style, wit, and reasoned arguments to move both the heart and mind, Pascal's Pensées are known for setting his listeners on fire to take up an interest in seeking. The Pensées will appeal to those who enjoy brilliant writing and wish to gain deeper insight into the human condition. As Professor Henry Phillips put it, “Pascal offers a portrait of the human condition that provokes questions whose answers will be found only in the Christian religion.” The Pensées are especially on target for readers who struggle with how a reasonable person living in today's technological era can be a Christian; for these Pascal is indispensible reading and the ultimate mentor. In addition to helping seekers work out their doubts about belief, this guided tour aims to make Pascal's thoughts practically helpful for a Christian to live life congruently with the gospel, and in particular to better weather modern doubts and criticisms. This book was inspired by the excellent guided tour of the Pensées (Christianity for Modern Pagans, 1993) by Professor Peter Kreeft, and from learning that many fellow Christians count the Pensées as one of their all-time most helpful reads. Given the stature of Pascal as a colossal Christian thinker, it is surprising that very few comprehensive guided tours with objective to help modern seekers and believers have been published, and this book helps fill this space.Forward by Reverand Earl F. Palmer
