Pascal: Adversary and Advocate

by Robert J. Nelson

Overview

The life of the paradoxical seventeenth-century philosopher and mathematician is examined here along three axes—psychological, theological, and linguistic—to present the first rounded portrayal of the querulous, intense, ever-committed Pascal. In drawing this portrait, the author restores Pascal to the general reader after twenty years of scholarship that has embroiled this historic thinker in academic quarrels.

Robert Nelson confronts the contradictions in Pascal's life and personality: intensely religious according to the demands of his time, yet simultaneously committed to rigorous scientific inquiry, no matter where it led; fascinated by rebellion, yet deeply dependent on the authority of father, spiritual adviser, church, and science. Mr. Nelson sees the resolution of these personal dilemmas in Pascal's growing interest in language—the essential relation between word and object, signifier and signified, which form a style of "Pascalian linguistics" different from those of Descartes or Port Royal.

Through the scrutiny of Pascal's biography and analysis of the entire body of his writing, Nelson reveals Pascal the man, the scientist, the theologian, and the literary genius.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674182905
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	04/03/2014
Edition description:	Reprint 2014
Pages:	292
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.69(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Nelson Robert J. :

Robert J. Nelson is Professor of Comparative Literature and French at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Table of Contents

Introduction

I.The Adversary

1. Adversarial Believer, Adversarial Man of Science

2. The Adversarial Believer and His Family

3. The Adversarial Believer And The World

II. Transition

4. The Convert

5. The Convert's Agony

6. The Convert as Private Adversary

7. The Convert as Public Adversary: Provincial Letters 1-16

III. The Advocate

8. The Final Provincial Letters

9. The Letters To The Roannez

10. The Thoughts

Conclusion: Adversary And Advocate in the Final Writings

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

The book lives up to very high standards of scholarship. It is written with the passion and commitment that the subject demands, and addresses genuine questions.

From the Publisher

The book lives up to very high standards of scholarship. It is written with the passion and commitment that the subject demands, and addresses genuine questions.

Paul De Man