The Cambridge Companion to Pascal

Each volume of this series of companions to major philosophers contains specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars, together with a substantial bibliography, and will serve as a reference work for students and nonspecialists. One aim of the series is to dispel the intimidation such readers often feel when faced with the work of a difficult and challenging thinker. Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) occupies a position of pivotal importance in many domains: philosophy, mathematics, physics, religious polemics and apologetics. In this volume a team of leading scholars presents the full range of Pascal’s achievement and surveys the intellectual background of his thought and the reception of his work. New readers and nonspecialists will find this the most convenient and accessible guide to Pascal currently available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Pascal.

• The most comprehensive and accessible guide to Pascal currently available • It will appeal to specialists and non specialists alike • Nicholas Hammond is well regarded in the field of Pascal studies

Introduction; 1. Pascal’s life and times Ben Rogers; 2. Pascal’s reading and the inheritance of Montaigne and Descartes Henry Phillips; 3. Pascal’s work on probability A. W. F. Edwards; 4. Pascal and decision theory Jon Elster; 5. Pascal’s Physics Daniel Fouke; 6. Pascal’s Philosophy of Science Desmond M. Clarke; 7. Pascal’s theory of knowledge Jean Khalfa; 8. Grace and religious belief in Pascal Michael Moriarty; 9. Pascal and Holy Writ David Wetsel; 10. Pascal’s Lettres provinciales: from flippancy to fundamentals Richard Parish; 11. Pascal and the social world Hélène Bouchilloux; 12. Pascal and philosophical method Pierre Force; 13. Pascal’s Pensées and the art of persuasion Nicholas Hammond; 14. The reception of Pascal’s Pensées in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Antony McKenna.

\'There can be no doubt that the Cambridge Companions series serves a very useful purpose. … Fouke\'s and Clarke\'s essays do the work that a historian might expect. … a good bibliography … there is certainly enough interest in this book to make it worth the attention of the historian of science.\' – British Journal of the History of Science