THE BOOK
Since they cannot compel obedience to justice, they make obedience to force just; since they cannot strengthen justice, they justify force.
Writing in his famous Thoughts on the dire ontological position and ultimately the misery that characterizes our species, the “mathematical philosopher” Blaise Pascal does not disown or coldly abhor. He simply sees the world and himself from a dizzying distance: for the enigma of our existence no longer makes man the measure of all things but the pendulum between zero and infinity – a small hesitation of the universe. And he still has the insight, already in the 17th century, not to propose any system, only the admission that no system is sufficient – a genuine philosophical declaration of uncertainty, in the form of a spiritual confession, redeemed by its own anguish.
THE CREATOR
One is probably amazed by the breadth of the intellect of the mathematician, physicist, philosopher and charismatic writer Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), founder of the theory of probability and combinatorics in mathematics and responsible, among other things, for Pascal's Principle (the basic law of hydrostatics) and the use of the barometer to measure altitude. Over the course of his life, however, his interest in mathematics seems to have diminished and his attention turned to philosophy and theology. His monumental Meditations (original title Apology of the Christian Religion), a work aimed at the logical substantiation of Christianity, remained unfinished due to his deteriorating health or, according to thinkers such as Bertrand Russell, due to the dead ends his reasoning encountered.