Blaise Pascal
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    Blaise Pascal

    Blaise Pascal(1623–1662)

    French mathematician and physicist who also became one of the most penetrating religious thinkers of the seventeenth century. In the Pensées he explores human greatness and misery, the limits of reason, and the wager-like urgency of religious commitment.

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    Thoughts on Religion

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    Thoughts on religion, and other important subjects; recently tr. from the French of Blaise Pascal. With memoirs of his life and writings

    The Dial's edition: London, 1806

    Pensées, a collection of fragments written in the 17th century. Left incomplete at Pascal's death in 1662, these notes were intended as a defense of Christianity. The work introduces 'Pascal's wager' and challenges both cosmological proofs of God and atheist critiques of faith. Pascal argues that God is hidden and found only through sincere seeking. Translated by Thomas Chevalier.

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    Read by Emerson (see Emerson's Library)