Blaise Pascal’s texts
Pascal, Blaise. Essai pour les coniques (1640). [Essay on Conics]
Pascal, Blaise. Expériences nouvelles touchant le vide (1647). [New experiments with the vacuum]
Pascal, Blaise. Récit de la grande expérience de l’équilibre des liqueurs (1648). [Account of the great experience on equilibrium in liquids]
Pascal, Blaise. Traité de la pesanteur de la masse de l’air (1651-1653). [Treatise on the weight of the mass of the air]
Pascal, Blaise. Traité du triangle arithmétique (1654). [Treatise on the arithmetrical triangle]
Pascal, Blaise. Lettres Provinciales (1656-1657). [The provincial letters]
Pascal, Blaise. Éléments de géométrie (1657). [Elements of geometry]
Pascal, Blaise. De l’Esprit géométrique et de l’Art de persuader (1657). [On the geometrical spirit and the art of persuasion]
Pascal, Blaise. Histoire de la roulette (1658). [History of roulette]
Pascal, Blaise. Abrégé de la vie de Jésus-Christ (recovered 1840, published 1846). [Sections from the life of Jesus Christ]
Pascal, Blaise. Pensées (1669, posthumous). [Thoughts]
Secondary sources:
Hájek, Alan. “Waging War on Pascal’s Wager.” The Philosophical Review, vol. 112, no. 1, 2003, pp. 27–56. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3595561.
This article posits that Pascal’s Wager, the argument that it is in one’s rational self-interest to act as if God exists, is invalid. The author appeals to logic and set theory to show that even if all the premises in the argument are true, they do not logically entail the conclusion. The flaw lies within the assumption that there is infinite value to be gained from the Wager’s dictum.
Jones, Matthew. “Writing and Sentiment: Blaise Pascal, the Vacuum, and the Pensées,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 32, issue 1, 2001, pp 139-181, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0039-3681(00)00024-8.
This article examines how Pascal’s earlier work in natural philosophy contains similar ideas and thought processes that would lead him to his account on human nature later in his writings. The author investigates the ways in which Pascal’s first pamphlet and questionable scientific experimentation reveal the flaws in our perception and understanding. Early in life, Pascal appeared to have neglected deduction in lieu of sentiment, which can be tied to his denunciation of divertissement and his calls to unearth the mind’s true functions.
Wood, William. “What is the Self? Imitation and subjectivity in Blaise Pascal’s Pensées.” Modern theology, vol 26. no. 3, 2010, p.417-436.
This article discusses Pascal’s conception of the self and human subjectivity. We are wretched and trapped in unending paradox, and fail to know ourselves in any true way, because we have fallen from some ideal state associated with Christianity. Our subjectivity stems from lack of self-knowledge that must be remedied, but the necessary tools cannot be found within ourselves.
Clarke, Desmond, “Blaise Pascal”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Fall 2015. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/pascal/