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Title
Pascal : Adversary and Advocate / Robert J. Nelson.
Edition
Reprint 2014
ISBN
9780674182912
Published
Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2013]
Copyright
©1981
Language
English
Language Note
In English.
Description
1 online resource (286 p.)
Other Standard Identifiers
10.4159/harvard.9780674182912 doi
Dewey Decimal Classification
194
Summary
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.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics
text file PDF
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 30. Aug 2021)
Available in Other Form
print 9780674182905
Frontmatter
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PART I. The Adversary
1. ADVERSARIAL BELIEVER, ADVERSARIAL MAN OF SCIENCE
2. THE ADVERSARIAL BELIEVER AND HIS FAMILY
3. THE ADVERSARIAL BELIEVER AND THE WORLD
P A R T II. Transition
4.THE CONVERT1
5. THE CONVERT'S AGONY
6. THE CONVERT AS PRIVATE ADVERSARY
7. THE CONVERT AS PUBLIC ADVERSARY: PROVINCIAL LETTERS 1-16
PART 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
