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Pensées
1670 · translated from the French · 330 pages
Pensées
by Blaise Pascal
Pascal died at thirty-nine leaving behind bundles of notes for an apologetic he never wrote, and the fragments were published posthumously in 1670. What survives is the most penetrating account in French of the human condition as Pascal saw it — the wretchedness and greatness of man, diversion, the wager, the hiddenness of God — all of it addressed to the intelligent unbeliever he took his reader to be.
The convert behind the argument
An honest note about this entry: Pascal does not meet the criterion the rest of this shelf is built on. He was a Catholic from childhood, and the famous night of fire in November 1654 intensified a faith he already had rather than creating one. He is here because the argument is aimed at exactly the reader every other author on this shelf once was.
Summary
The Pensées are not a book but the materials for one. Pascal was working toward a sustained apology for the Christian religion when he died in 1662; what he left was a mass of notes, some grouped into bundles and some loose, which his family and the Port-Royal circle arranged and published in 1670. Every edition since has had to decide on an order, and they differ.
The argument, so far as the fragments show it, begins in anthropology rather than theology: man is at once wretched and great, incapable of rest, driven into diversion to avoid thinking about his condition. The proposal is that only the Christian account — greatness by creation, wretchedness by fall — fits both halves of what we actually observe.
The best-known fragments are the wager, the two infinities, the thinking reed, and the passage in which Christ speaks — 'thou wouldst not seek Me, if thou hadst not found Me.' Pascal's manner is aphoristic and unfinished by accident rather than design, which is part of why the book has never stopped being read.
Who was Blaise Pascal?
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) was a French mathematician, physicist and writer, born at Clermont in Auvergne, who did foundational work on probability, the vacuum and mechanical calculation before turning increasingly to religious questions.
He was associated with Port-Royal and the Jansenist movement, and wrote the Provincial Letters against the Jesuits. He experienced an intense religious event on the night of 23 November 1654, recorded on a scrap of parchment he sewed into his coat and carried for the rest of his life. He was, however, a believer from childhood — which is why we flag him plainly as the exception on this shelf.
Common questions
- Was Pascal a convert to Christianity?
- No, and we say so plainly. Pascal was raised Catholic and remained one; the celebrated 'night of fire' of 23 November 1654 deepened an existing faith rather than beginning it. He appears on this shelf because the Pensées are addressed to the unbeliever, not because he was one.
- What is Pascal's wager?
- A fragment arguing that, under genuine uncertainty about God's existence, the stakes are asymmetric: what is risked by believing is finite and what is gained is infinite. It is one argument among many in the Pensées and was never intended to stand alone.
- Why are the Pensées disordered?
- Because Pascal died before writing the book they were notes for. He left bundles of fragments, some sorted and some not; every editor since 1670 has had to impose an order, and different editions number the fragments differently.
A note on the text. Pensées is in the public domain. What you're buying is our edition: the careful typesetting and correction. The original text is also available free here.