Pensées

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The Pensées in an edition from 1670 by Blaise Pascal

Pensées (“thoughts”) is a work by Blaise Pascal (1623–1663) and one of the most widely read philosophical and theological texts in European intellectual history. It is not a closed, finished work, but a compilation of notes from the author's estate that diverges from edition to edition.

The creation of the pensées

The notes were made from around 1657 and were used to prepare a work to praise and justify the Christian faith from the point of view of a Jansenist . They were published for the first time in 1670 under the title Pensées sur la religion et autres sujets by friends of Pascal in excerpts and with a supposedly meaningful order. When he died, all of the note material consisted of around 1,000 pieces of paper, which he himself had probably had approx. 60 bundles had been combined. Immediately after his death, on behalf of his older sister, they were copied twice, bundle by bundle, but were later rearranged by a nephew and stuck on large sheets of paper. If for a long time (just like the first editors and the nephew) one had not seen a proper order in the bundles and slips of paper, but tried to create one according to different criteria, it was recognized around 1930 that there were at least 27 bundles of as many logically arranged chapters and that the remaining 30 bundles of the so-called "annex materials" were more organized than previously thought. The newer editors therefore adhere as closely as possible to the two copies from 1663, but in the knowledge that they neither exactly correspond to the order intended by Pascal, nor do they reproduce the presumably definitive wording.

Basic idea

Pascal pursues a single goal in this work: he wants to convert people. On the one hand, he will portray the misery of man and especially man without God . On the other hand, he will develop the famous theory of “pari” ( Pascal's bet ). Even if one cannot prove the existence of God , argues Pascal, it is still advantageous to “ bet ” that he exists. If you are wrong, you have lost nothing, and if you are right, you can guarantee the salvation of your soul .

See also

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