[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"archetype-name-map":3,"thinker-blaise-pascal":100,"$fFA0FdqZy3uecSW7v75dqiAQBg05OK3eM0byv3MsP5z4":254},[4,7,10,13,16,19,22,25,28,31,34,37,40,43,46,49,52,55,58,61,64,67,70,73,76,79,82,85,88,91,94,97],{"slug":5,"name":6},"anarcho-capitalist","Anarcho-Capitalist",{"slug":8,"name":9},"establishment-progressive","Establishment Progressive",{"slug":11,"name":12},"progressive-activist","Progressive Activist",{"slug":14,"name":15},"techno-progressive","Techno-Progressive",{"slug":17,"name":18},"patriotic-progressive","Patriotic Progressive",{"slug":20,"name":21},"conservative-democrat","Conservative Democrat",{"slug":23,"name":24},"moderate-conservative","Moderate Conservative",{"slug":26,"name":27},"reform-conservative","Reform Conservative",{"slug":29,"name":30},"religious-conservative","Religious Conservative",{"slug":32,"name":33},"traditionalist","Traditionalist",{"slug":35,"name":36},"national-populist","National Populist",{"slug":38,"name":39},"left-nationalist","Left Nationalist",{"slug":41,"name":42},"moderate-liberal","Moderate Liberal",{"slug":44,"name":45},"pragmatic-centrist","Pragmatic Centrist",{"slug":47,"name":48},"authoritarian-left","Authoritarian Left",{"slug":50,"name":51},"authoritarian-right","Authoritarian Right",{"slug":53,"name":54},"welfare-nationalist","Welfare Nationalist",{"slug":56,"name":57},"democratic-socialist","Democratic Socialist",{"slug":59,"name":60},"christian-socialist","Christian Socialist",{"slug":62,"name":63},"market-socialist","Market Socialist",{"slug":65,"name":66},"trad-socialist","Trad Socialist",{"slug":68,"name":69},"civil-libertarian","Civil Libertarian",{"slug":71,"name":72},"compassionate-libertarian","Compassionate Libertarian",{"slug":74,"name":75},"left-libertarian","Left Libertarian",{"slug":77,"name":78},"traditional-libertarian","Traditional Libertarian",{"slug":80,"name":81},"classical-liberal","Classical Liberal",{"slug":83,"name":84},"social-liberal","Social Liberal",{"slug":86,"name":87},"national-conservative","National Conservative",{"slug":89,"name":90},"neoconservative","Neoconservative",{"slug":92,"name":93},"techno-authoritarian","Techno-Authoritarian",{"slug":95,"name":96},"market-liberal","Market Liberal",{"slug":98,"name":99},"independent-thinker","Independent Thinker",{"thinker":101,"archetypes":113,"traditions":114,"traditionLinks":134,"homeOut":135,"homeIn":141,"works":146,"homeTradition":117,"siblings":160},{"id":102,"slug":103,"name":104,"one_line":105,"bio":106,"birth_year":107,"death_year":108,"nationality":109,"primary_role":110,"era":111,"portrait_url":112,"figure_class":112},1177,"blaise-pascal","Blaise Pascal","Mathematician and Jansenist who founded probability theory, wrote the deadliest polemic in French, and argued that reason cannot reach the questions that matter most.","Blaise Pascal invented a calculating machine at nineteen, established the existence of the vacuum against Aristotelian physics, and with Fermat founded the mathematical theory of probability. In 1654 he had a religious experience he recorded on a scrap of parchment sewn into his coat and worn for the rest of his life, and thereafter wrote almost nothing that was not in some sense about God. He died at thirty-nine.\n\nThe Provincial Letters, published pseudonymously in 1656-57 during the campaign against Port-Royal, are eighteen letters attacking Jesuit moral casuistry — the doctrines of probabilism and mental reservation by which, Pascal argued, almost any act could be excused. They are devastating because they are funny: he quotes his opponents at length and lets them convict themselves. Voltaire, who agreed with none of his conclusions, said the letters were the first work of genius in French prose, and the word Jesuitical still carries the charge Pascal put on it.\n\nThe Pensées are fragments for an unfinished apology for the Christian religion, and their strategy is not to prove anything. Pascal thought the metaphysical proofs of God worthless — remote from human reasoning and forgotten an hour later. Instead he anatomises the human condition: the wretchedness of a creature who cannot sit quietly in a room, who pursues diversion to avoid thinking about death, who is a thinking reed, feeble but aware of it, and whose reason is perpetually undermined by imagination, custom and self-love. The heart has its reasons which reason does not know. Only after establishing that the human situation is genuinely desperate does he offer Christianity as the only account that explains both our greatness and our misery.\n\nThe wager belongs to this strategy: addressed to someone who accepts that reason cannot decide the question, it argues that the stakes make belief the rational bet, and that one should proceed as if believing until belief follows. It is the first serious use of decision under uncertainty in philosophy.\n\nOn politics he is unillusioned to the point of bleakness: justice is unenforceable and force is unjust, so men have made what is strong just, and custom is obeyed only because it is custom. Being unable to make what is just strong, we made what is strong just.",1623,1662,"French","philosopher","Early Modern",null,[],[115,122,128],{"is_primary":116,"traditions":117},false,{"id":118,"name":119,"slug":120,"short_description":121},8,"Moral Philosophy","moral-philosophy","The discipline of reflecting systematically on ethics, virtue, and the conditions of a good life.",{"is_primary":116,"traditions":123},{"id":124,"name":125,"slug":126,"short_description":127},158,"Political Theology","political-theology","The tradition of reflecting systematically on the relationship between religious concepts and political authority, and on how theological categories underlie ostensibly secular political thought.",{"is_primary":116,"traditions":129},{"id":130,"name":131,"slug":132,"short_description":133},41,"Skepticism","skepticism","The philosophical tradition of doubting whether we can have certain knowledge of the world, the self, or moral truths.",[],[136],{"relation_type":137,"traditions":138},"descends_from",{"name":139,"slug":140},"Ancient Philosophy","ancient-philosophy",[142],{"relation_type":137,"traditions":143},{"name":144,"slug":145},"Political Economy","political-economy",[147,154],{"title":148,"year":149,"year_display":150,"description":151,"kind":152,"sort_order":153},"Pensées",1670,"published 1670","Fragments of an unfinished apology that abandons proof for anatomy: diversion, the thinking reed, the heart's reasons, and the wager.","work",1,{"title":155,"year":156,"year_display":157,"description":158,"kind":152,"sort_order":159},"The Provincial Letters",1657,"1656-57","Eighteen letters against Jesuit casuistry, devastating because they are funny; Voltaire called them the first work of genius in French prose.",2,[161,165,169,173,177,181,185,189,193,194,198,202,206,210,214,218,222,226,230,234,238,242,246,250],{"name":162,"slug":163,"birth_year":164},"Confucius","confucius",-551,{"name":166,"slug":167,"birth_year":168},"Socrates","socrates",-470,{"name":170,"slug":171,"birth_year":172},"Seneca","seneca",4,{"name":174,"slug":175,"birth_year":176},"Epictetus","epictetus",50,{"name":178,"slug":179,"birth_year":180},"Peter Abelard","peter-abelard",1079,{"name":182,"slug":183,"birth_year":184},"John Duns Scotus","duns-scotus",1266,{"name":186,"slug":187,"birth_year":188},"Michel de Montaigne","michel-de-montaigne",1533,{"name":190,"slug":191,"birth_year":192},"Ralph Cudworth","ralph-cudworth",1617,{"name":104,"slug":103,"birth_year":107},{"name":195,"slug":196,"birth_year":197},"Francis Hutcheson","francis-hutcheson",1694,{"name":199,"slug":200,"birth_year":201},"Henry Home, Lord Kames","lord-kames",1696,{"name":203,"slug":204,"birth_year":205},"Thomas Reid","thomas-reid",1710,{"name":207,"slug":208,"birth_year":209},"Adam Smith","adam-smith",1723,{"name":211,"slug":212,"birth_year":213},"William Paley","william-paley",1743,{"name":215,"slug":216,"birth_year":217},"Dugald Stewart","dugald-stewart",1753,{"name":219,"slug":220,"birth_year":221},"Arthur Schopenhauer","arthur-schopenhauer",1788,{"name":223,"slug":224,"birth_year":225},"Henry Sidgwick","henry-sidgwick",1838,{"name":227,"slug":228,"birth_year":229},"Charles Sanders Peirce","charles-peirce",1839,{"name":231,"slug":232,"birth_year":233},"Bertrand Russell","bertrand-russell",1872,{"name":235,"slug":236,"birth_year":237},"Reinhold Niebuhr","reinhold-niebuhr",1892,{"name":239,"slug":240,"birth_year":241},"Peter Singer","peter-singer",1946,{"name":243,"slug":244,"birth_year":245},"Jonathan Haidt","jonathan-haidt",1963,{"name":247,"slug":248,"birth_year":249},"Nick Bostrom","nick-bostrom",1973,{"name":251,"slug":252,"birth_year":253},"Eliezer Yudkowsky","eliezer-yudkowsky",1979,{"cards":255,"influenced":260,"shapedBy":264,"outbound":153},[256],{"slug":187,"name":186,"type":257,"strength":258,"description":259},"influenced","foundational","Pascal read the Essais for years and wrote against them: the anatomy of diversion and self-love is taken over entire, the equanimity Montaigne drew from it rejected.",[261],{"slug":262,"name":263},"soren-kierkegaard","Søren Kierkegaard",[]]