The general question of this post is of the relation between
The specific question is why Pascal juxtaposes Abraham and Gideon in two fragments of the Pensées.
A simple answer to the specific question is that
Caravaggio, Sacrifice of Isaac, 1603, Uffizi
Of this reading, of Pensées Diverses I, a theme is—no theme! There is no general rule—Il n’y a point de règle générale—in the following matters.
Before the annotated text of the Pensées of Pascal, Sellier 415–437, here is an attempt at a detailed summary. I have tried to indicate all chapters of the Bible (OT, Apocrypha, NT) quoted from by Pascal or by me. I may have figured out what passages are by looking at the notes of Descotes and Proust. I may not always have completed this work, which can be tedious and which I hope not to be doing so much for later readings. Pascal may be study scripture as scientists such as himself study nature, and Isaac Newton (nineteen years younger) may resemble him in this.
The present reading of the Pensées of Pascal comprises the following sections, each consisting of the fragments given in the numberings of Sellier and Lafuma:
PREUVES DE JÉSUS-CHRIST (S 329–53, L 298–322)
I see two points:
There are three orders, of body, mind, and wisdom. As Archimedes is above most of us in mind (or spirit), Jesus is above him and everybody else in wisdom (or charity).
Through the Babylonian Captivity, the Jewish people were sustained by their prophets, who passed along the promise that the sceptre would be returned. The Romans took the worldly or carnal sceptre away again, and it has not been returned.
PROPHÉTIES (S 354–80, L 323–48)
The last point is fleshed out more, and there is a definition:
Prophétiser c’est parler de Dieu, non par preuves du dehors, mais par sentiment intérieur et immédiat.
FIGURES PARTICULIÈRES (S 381–2, L 349–50)
Two short fragments, one possibly alluding to the three orders above:
Double loi, doubles tables de la loi, double temple, double captivité.
There are doubles, or pairs, in the next section:
MORALE CHRÉTIENNE (S 383–408, L 351–76)
We are vile and in the image of God, and the Christian is neither abject nor proud about it. We are so miserable that only a god can save us. We should understand ourselves as members of a body.
CONCLUSION (S 409–14, L 377–82)
There’s a long distance between knowing and loving God. Miracles don’t convert, but condemn. You can be a believer without the Bible; you just cannot convert anybody else.
The present reading of the Pensées of Pascal comprises the following sections, each consisting of the fragments given in the numberings of Sellier and Lafuma:
RENDRE LA RELIGION AIMABLE (S 254–5, L 221–2)
FONDEMENTS (S 256–77, L 223–44)
LOI FIGURATIVE (S 278–307, L 245–76)
RABBINAGE (S 308–10, L 277–8)
PERPÉTUITÉ (S 311–21, L 279–89)
PREUVES DE MOISE (S 322–8, L 290–7)
I attempt brief summaries of these sections.
Below is the text, in French, of the first in a series of readings of
Pascal’s Pensées, being discussed over Zoom in the spring of
2021. Here is the complete list of readings, linked to blog posts like
this one, along with additional related posts:
By the account of Martha Nussbaum, philosophy is one of two things:
Nussbaum prefers the first, though having appeared in a film that promotes the second.
I watched and enjoyed the film, which is by Astra Taylor and is called Examined Life (2008). I first found it through a touching fragment, featuring a stroll in San Francisco by Judith Butler and Taylor’s sister Sunaura. Because they have a conversation at all, and on the theme that we all need one another’s help, the film becomes less subject to Nussbaum’s charge:
Portraying philosophers as authority figures is a baneful inversion of the entire Socratic process, which aimed to replace authority with reason.
This document contains fragments
edition of Pascal’s Pensées, in modernized French and the following sections:
In some of the Pensées, Pascal contrasts reason with instinct, passions, folly, the senses, and imagination.
Here I investigate Pascal’s raison, after one session of an ongoing discussion of the Pensées that is being carried out on Zoom.
Polytropy 