Pascal (The Great Philosophers Series)

Synopsis

"The title implies that this book is a short biography of Pascal's life and his writings. Instead, the author's design is to examine only a secondary theme in just one of Pascal's works - the 900+ notes that comprise the Pensees. Yet once past the initial disappointment, I found that the book held my interest and left me better informed about Pascal's religious beliefs." [Reviewer on Amazon] "Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic theologian. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalising the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Pascal also wrote in defence of the scientific method. . . . N 1646, he and his sister Jacqueline identified with the religious movement within Catholicism known by its detractors as Jansenism.[8] His father died in 1651. Following a religious experience in late 1654, he began writing influential works on philosophy and theology. His two most famous works date from this period: the Lettres provinciales and the Pensées, the former set in the conflict between Jansenists and Jesuits." [Wikipedia]

RefTags

Released

1999

Location

Global

Setting

1623-1662;