Pascal, Blaise

Abstract

Blaise Pascal was born on 19 June 1623 in Clermont-Ferrand. His father Etienne looked after his scientific and religious education. The former was highly empirical in its inspiration, while the second was influenced by the thinking of Saint-Cyran and increasingly came to feature strict Jansenist traits, developing first in Paris and then in Rouen, where his father had been appointed king’s commissioner in 1639. His so-called “first conversion” dates from 1646. However, it did not have a profound influence on Blaise, who was involved above all in his scientific research at this time, most noteworthily the work relating to vacuums, carried out in the footsteps of Torricelli. He published New Experiments Concerning the Vacuum (1647). It was a period of intense engagement, with serious consequences on his fragile physique, and Pascal had to accept the doctors’ advice to curb his activities. In this period, he met Descartes, but the pair did not agree over scientific matters. What has been defined as the “worldly” period of his life took place between 1647 and 1654 when he frequented milieus close to libertinism and skepticism. He devoted himself to calculating probabilities and infinitesimal calculus. However, this did not mean that his thinking was lacking a religious component, as shown by his correspondence to his sister Gilberte and brother-in-law Monsieur Périer (letters of 26.1., 1. 4., 5. 11. 1648 and 17.10. 1651 on occasion of his father’s death). He wrote to Christina, queen of Sweden, praising her union of “sovereign authority and solid science” (June 1652).

Originally published in Mortimer Sellers and Stephan Kirste, Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, © Springer Nature B.V. 2021, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6730-0_638-1.