Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Pascal’s life and times
- 2 Pascal’s reading and the inheritance of Montaigne and Descartes
- 3 Pascal’s work on probability
- 4 Pascal and decision theory
- 5 Pascal’s physics
- 6 Pascal’s philosophy of science
- 7 Pascal’s theory of knowledge
- 8 Grace and religious belief in Pascal
- 9 Pascal and holy writ
- 10 Pascal’s Lettres provinciales
- 11 Pascal and the social world
- 12 Pascal and philosophical method
- 13 Pascal’s Pensées and the art of persuasion
- 14 The reception of Pascal’s Pensées in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Pascal’s theory of knowledge
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Pascal’s life and times
- 2 Pascal’s reading and the inheritance of Montaigne and Descartes
- 3 Pascal’s work on probability
- 4 Pascal and decision theory
- 5 Pascal’s physics
- 6 Pascal’s philosophy of science
- 7 Pascal’s theory of knowledge
- 8 Grace and religious belief in Pascal
- 9 Pascal and holy writ
- 10 Pascal’s Lettres provinciales
- 11 Pascal and the social world
- 12 Pascal and philosophical method
- 13 Pascal’s Pensées and the art of persuasion
- 14 The reception of Pascal’s Pensées in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In a letter of 1660 to Pierre Fermat, Pascal describes geometry in the following terms:
For to speak frankly to you of geometry, I find it to be the highest exercise of the mind; but at the same time I know it to be so useless, that I make little difference between a man who is only a geometer and an able craftsman. Therefore I call it the finest occupation [métier] in the world; but after all, it is only an occupation; and I have often said that it is good for the trial but not for the employment of our strength, so that I would not walk two steps for geometry, and I am persuaded that you are strongly of my opinion.
This paradoxical praise of geometry addressed to a man he considered a great mathematician is one of many texts where Pascal expresses doubts regarding human knowledge.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Pascal , pp. 122 - 143Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003
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