Pensées

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1670

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Section 1

Section 2

Section 3

Section 4

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Background

Religious Context: The Conflict Between the Jansenists and the Jesuits

In the Pensées and other works, Blaise Pascal contributed to an intense debate between the two major religious groups in France at the time. The Jesuits (or Society of Jesus) were a religious order founded a hundred years previously by St. Ignatius Loyola, whose members had become influential leaders in the Catholic world. The Jansenists were a newer religious order based on the teachings of Cornelius Jansen, a Dutch priest and theologian. Advocating a return to the teachings of the early church father St. Augustine, Jansen accused contemporary Catholicism—especially the Jesuits—of deemphasizing the idea of penance and the seriousness of sin in an effort to make the spiritual life easier for ordinary people.

Jansen’s religious movement attracted many followers in French society because of its moral seriousness. However, the Catholic establishment suspected Jansenism of denying free will and affirming predestination—beliefs more typical of Protestant theology, especially Calvinism, and considered heretical by the Catholic Church. The polemical battle between the Jesuits and the Jansenists was a major feature of religious life in France during the 17th century.

Pascal and his family were influenced by the Jansenist movement; his sister Jacqueline became a nun in the order, and Pascal himself lived near the Jansenist monastery at Port Royal after his “Night of Fire.” Scholars disagree, however, as to how closely Pascal embraced the movement’s teachings. In his Provincial Letters (1657), he used a witty and satirical style to defend a prominent Jansenist leader and accuse the Jesuits of moral dishonesty. Many of the sayings in the Pensées also reflect the background of the controversy, such as the discussion of human self-deception (324-326) and the insistence on God’s grace as essential for mankind (12), as well as Sections Three and Four containing what appear to be Pascal’s notes in self-defense against the Jesuits.

While the emphasis on inner religious feeling and conviction in the Pensées potentially reflects the influence of Jansenist spirituality, Pascal also makes critical remarks about the religious order in a number of places in the book. This might suggest that his identification with the Jansenist movement was qualified and that his disagreement with the Jesuits was the stronger motivating force for him. Perhaps the main significance of the Jansenist/Jesuit controversy for Pascal as a writer was to foster an atmosphere of serious, inward-focused spiritual and moral reflection that would result in one of the most popular philosophical works of all time.

Philosophical Context: 17th-Century Rationalism

Pascal wrote the Pensées against the background of rationalism, the dominant philosophical perspective during the 17th and early 18th centuries in France. Aided by new developments in science during the Age of Reason, a number of philosophers of the period came to the conviction that “reality has a rational structure in that all aspects of it can be grasped through mathematical and logical principles” (“Rationalism.” The Basics of Philosophy).

Exemplified by such thinkers as René Descartes (whose philosophical system is known as “Cartesianism”), Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Leibniz, 17th-century rationalists believed that reason, such as applied in the scientific method and in mathematics, was the chief source and test for knowledge. Although empirical knowledge—knowledge gained through sense experience—was also essential in scientific and other inquiries, Descartes and other rationalists argued that the mind could reach “eternal truths” not accessible to the senses through the use of pure reason.

For example, Descartes aimed to prove the existence of God as a self-evident rational principle. In his Discourse on Method, Descartes affirmed the primacy of reason through a unique method of preliminary doubt or skepticism, using self-awareness (Cogito, ergo sum—“I think, therefore I am”) as proof for the existence of innate and self-evident principles in the mind. Rationalists tended to exalt thought itself as the highest activity and to see the universe in strictly intellectual terms; Spinoza conceived of God as an absolutely perfect being eternally contemplating itself.

Although Pascal shared a similar background with Descartes and other rationalists—notably his training in mathematics—he disagreed with the conclusions of rationalism, as can be seen in many passages in the Pensées. While Pascal accepts the need for deductive reasoning in mathematics and science, he rejects the claim that one can know eternal truths through reason alone and without the aid of faith, intuition, or revelation. In particular, Pascal is critical of Descartes, his older contemporary, for his treatment of the existence of God and his claim that reason is an infallible guide to knowledge. Indeed, Pascal deems Descartes to be “useless and uncertain” as a philosopher (F 887).

In general, Pascal exemplifies a reaction against rationalism that would become a major strain in Western philosophy in the modern era, with such notable manifestations as the Romantic movement. Empiricism would also emerge as a rival philosophy to rationalism, especially popular in Britain, while rationalism would remain the philosophy of choice in France and continental Europe. However, thanks to critics like Pascal, the dominance of rationalism would never remain unquestioned.