What are Blaise Pascal's Pensées and Lettres provinciales?

Blaise Pascal's Lettres provinciales and Pensées are his two most famous philosophical and theological works, written following his religious experiences and alignment with Jansenism. The Lettres provinciales engaged in the conflict between Jansenists and Jesuits, while the Pensées was a collection of draft notes defending the Christian religion. Published posthumously, the Pensées also introduced Pascal's wager, a probabilistic argument for believing in God.

What we know

• The Lettres provinciales and the Pensées are Blaise Pascal's two most famous works dating from his period of writing on philosophy and theology. [3]
• The Lettres provinciales was set in the conflict between Jansenists and Jesuits. [3]
• The Pensées is a collection of draft notes left behind when Pascal died in 1662 and was first published in 1670. [2]
• Pascal's wager stems from a portion of the Pensées, representing a fideistic probabilistic argument for why one should believe in God. [2, 3, 4]

Still open

• The original intended order for reading the draft notes comprising the Pensées was unclear, leading subsequent editions to order them by themes or writing dates.

Where to go next

• a case in pointWhat was Pascal's wager?
• whoWho was Blaise Pascal?
• what caused itWhat was the conflict between Jansenists and Jesuits?
• the bigger pictureHow did Pascal contribute to probability theory?
• an unexpected connectionWhat was the Pascaline calculating machine?

Sources

• [1]Pensées (Wikidata Q17360856) · CC0 1.0
• [2]Pensées · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [3]Blaise Pascal · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [4]Pascal's wager · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [5]Gilberte Périer · CC BY-SA 4.0