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| Pensées | |
|---|---|
| Name | Pensées |
| Author | Blaise Pascal |
| Country | Kingdom of France |
| Language | French |
| Subject | Theology, Apologetics, Philosophy |
| Genre | Apologetic fragments, Philosophical notes |
| Pub date | 1670 (posthumous) |
| Pages | variable (editions) |
| Media type | Manuscript; print editions |
Pensées
Pensées is a posthumous collection of fragments and notes by Blaise Pascal that presents a Christian apologetic aimed at skeptical contemporaries through theological, philosophical, and literary means. Compiled from Pascal's notebooks and surviving manuscripts, the work addresses figures and debates of the seventeenth century while intersecting with broader currents involving René Descartes, Pierre Gassendi, and François de La Mothe Le Vayer. Its reputation rests on striking aphorisms, dialectical arguments, and sustained engagement with controversies such as the dispute over Jansenism and the Jesuits.
Pascal drafted notes during a period shaped by interactions with figures like Antoine Arnauld, Nicolas Denisot, and the convents of Port-Royal, and by events such as the Fronde and the ecclesiastical debates surrounding the papacy and the Council of Trent. Influences include the works of René Descartes, Michel de Montaigne, Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, and contemporaries in Parisian salons such as Marin Mersenne and Christiaan Huygens. Manuscripts circulated among friends and critics, including Jean Racine and members of Académie Française, before the first printed editions appeared in the 1670s amid controversies involving Jansenism and the Jesuits (Society of Jesus). Scholarship on provenance has invoked archival materials associated with Pierre Nicole, Armand Jean le Bouthillier de Rancé, and libraries in Rouen and Paris.
The composition is fragmentary, lacking a definitive linear order, and editors such as Antoine Arnauld, Etienne Pasquier, and later Louis Lafuma produced competing arrangements. Passages address apologetic strategies, including the famous "wager" directed toward readers like Cardinal Richelieu's circle and opponents such as Nicolas de Malebranche and Gottfried Leibniz's precursors; other notes engage theological authorities including Pope Innocent X and citations from Council of Trent decrees. Thematically, discrete sections deal with human misery and grandeur, the nature of faith, and proofs of God, invoking exemplars like King Louis XIV's court and intellectual milieus such as the salons of Madame de Sévigné and Madame de Staël in later interpretation. Editions differ: some follow a systematic plan sketched by Pascal referencing topics like "God," "Man," "Reason," and "Worship"; others present a chronological grouping linked to Pascal's late-life conversion and the casuistical controversies addressed to figures in Port-Royal-des-Champs.
Central themes include human wretchedness and greatness, the limits of reason vis-à-vis revelations advanced by authorities like Saint Augustine and Martin Luther; the existential condition echoes debates with Pierre Gassendi and responses to Cartesianism promoted by Antoine Arnauld. Pascal advances a probabilistic or pragmatic defense of belief—commonly called the Wager—targeting interlocutors such as Blaise de Vigenère's skeptics and readers in circles around Jean-Baptiste Colbert. He juxtaposes skepticism associated with Michel de Montaigne and the empiricism of Francis Bacon against theological commitments championed by Cornelius Jansen's supporters and critics in the Sorbonne. Ethical reflections respond to casuists in Jesuit colleges and to the pastoral practice of confession debated in provincial parishes and monasteries like Saint-Sulpice.
Pascal's prose interweaves rhetorical devices used by contemporaries such as Pierre Corneille and Molière with biblical registers drawn from King James Bible translations and Vulgate phrasing. The text is notable for epigrammatic lines that entered cultural memory alongside quotations from Horace and Seneca cited by later critics like Denis Diderot and Voltaire. Aphorisms engage readers through paradoxes and contrasts exemplified in dialogues reminiscent of Sénèquean moral letters and the theater of Jean Racine, aiming to persuade public intellectuals and clerics including members of Parlement of Paris.
Initial reception oscillated between endorsement by Jansenist circles at Port-Royal and condemnation by Jesuit critics and royal censors linked to Louis XIV's administration. Eighteenth-century Enlightenment figures—Voltaire, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Denis Diderot—debated Pascal's arguments, while nineteenth-century thinkers such as Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and John Stuart Mill referenced his insights on faith and reason. The work influenced theologians and literary figures ranging from Alfred de Musset and Charles Péguy to twentieth-century philosophers like Ludwig Wittgenstein and Gabriel Marcel, and impacted apologetic strategies employed by institutions including University of Paris faculties and seminaries.
Major French editions include those by editors like Blaise Pascal's contemporaries and by modern scholars Louis Lafuma, Benoît P. Soler, and editorial collections housed in archives such as the Bibliothèque nationale de France. English translations have been produced by translators associated with publishing houses and academic presses, often referencing parallel translations into German by scholars influenced by Friedrich Schleiermacher and Wilhelm Dilthey. Critical editions compare manuscripts preserved in repositories linked to Port-Royal and private collections once held by Pierre Nicole and Antoine Arnauld, while annotated scholarly volumes align Pascal's fragments with debates involving Descartes and the early modern republic of letters centered on Paris and Amsterdam.
Category:17th-century books