Blaise Pascal

French mathematician, physicist, religious thinker, and writer (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662). Author of the Pensées (posthumous; compositional fragments 1657–62), the Provincial Letters (1656–57), De l'esprit géométrique (c. 1657), works on the vacuum (1647), hydrostatics, and probability theory (the Pascal-Fermat correspondence of 1654). One of the founding figures of probability theory and modern Christian apologetics. Pascal's Jansenist position (opposed to the Jesuits, deeply influenced by Saint-Cyran and Antoine Arnauld) shapes his theological writings. On the wiki, Pascal enters via *The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume II* S8 (5 March 2003), where his "Memorial" (1654) is read against Heidegger's causa sui in *Identität und Differenz* (1957). The "Memorial" provides BS-II's most direct figure of the God to whom one can pray — set against the philosopher's God of onto-theology.

Key Points

  • The "Memorial" of 23 November 1654. On the night of 23 November 1654, Pascal had a religious experience he recorded on a small piece of paper, which he then sewed into the lining of his clothing and carried with him for the remaining eight years of his life. The paper was discovered after his death by a servant. The text begins: "FEU. / Dieu d'Abraham, Dieu d'Isaac, Dieu de Jacob, / non des philosophes et des savants" ("FIRE. / God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, / not of philosophers and savants"). Derrida reads this text against Heidegger's "Identität und Differenz" passage on the causa sui — the God of onto-theology to whom one cannot pray. Pascal's God of Abraham is the God to whom one can pray. The opposition structures BS-II's Walten-question. (derrida-2002-bete-souverain-ii S8, pp. 209–214.)
  • The other "little paper." Pascal also carried (or wrote) a smaller paper note: "It is unjust to make any attachment ... I am no ultimate end." Derrida reads this as the "do not love me" gesture: the saint forbidding the disciples to attach themselves to him, only to the God-toward-whom he points. (derrida-2002-bete-souverain-ii S8, p. 211.)
  • Pascal's "Memorial" as paradigm of posthumous writing. The "Memorial" was written for the writer alone (sewed into clothing, never shown), yet survives as trace. Derrida treats this as the structure of all writing-as-survival (survivance): even private testimonies are survivance-structures, living-dead, awaiting the future reader. The "Memorial" is paradigm of the posthumous. Connects to Derrida's "I posthume as I breathe" (Circumfession, 1991; re-cited at BS-II S7).
  • Pascal's causa sui critique avant la lettre. In the Pensées, Pascal famously distinguishes the God of the philosophers (a causa sui, a "God of metaphysics") from the God of Abraham-Isaac-Jacob (a God of personal address, prayer, history). Derrida treats this distinction as a Pascalian precursor to Heidegger's much-later (1957) distinction between causa sui (a God to whom one cannot pray) and "the Divine God" (a God closer to atheistic thinking than to onto-theology). Three centuries apart, the same critique.
  • Pascal, the Jesuits, and the Jansenists. Pascal's Provincial Letters (1656–57) attack Jesuit casuistry; he writes as a Jansenist defender. Augustinian theology underwrites his religious works ("the first among doctors, the first among fathers," Jansenius's praise of Augustine; cited at BS-II S8, p. 213). The seminar's S8 reading of Pascal threads through Gilberte Pascal Périer's Vie de Blaise Pascal (the biographical source for the "Memorial" discovery).
  • Pascal's mathematics and probability. Pascal-Fermat correspondence (1654, the same year as the "Memorial") founds probability theory. Not directly cited in BS-II but part of the Pascal context — the same Pascal who wrote on conditional probability also wrote on the wager. The "Wager" argument (a probabilistic argument for religious belief) is the conceptual cousin of Kant's als ob of the regulative idea (derrida-2002-bete-souverain-ii S10) — bet/wager-structure of religious-theoretical commitment.
  • Pascal's death and posthumous publication. Pascal died at 39 (19 August 1662). The Pensées were edited and published posthumously by the Jansenists at Port-Royal in 1670 (the "Port-Royal" edition); the modern critical editions (Lafuma, Sellier, Le Guern) restructure the fragments very differently. The "Memorial" itself was published only in 1740 (Père Guerrier's transcription). Pascal-as-author is by definition a posthumous author; his writings survive him as survivance.

Selected Bibliography

  • Pensées (composed 1657–62; published posthumously 1670; modern critical editions: Lafuma 1951, Sellier 1976, Le Guern 1977). Not directly cited at length in BS-II, but background.
  • Provincial Letters (Les Provinciales, 1656–57) — anti-Jesuit, pro-Jansenist polemical letters. Background.
  • De l'esprit géométrique (c. 1657) — on the geometric spirit; published posthumously. Background.
  • "Memorial" (23 November 1654) — discovered sewn into his clothing after his death. Principal Pascal text for BS-II. Text begins "FEU. / Dieu d'Abraham, Dieu d'Isaac, Dieu de Jacob."
  • Other "little paper" — "It is unjust to make any attachment ... I am no ultimate end." Briefly cited at BS-II S8.
  • Pascal-Fermat correspondence (1654) — on probability. Background.

Connections

  • is read by derrida-2002-bete-souverain-ii in S8 — the "Memorial" against Heidegger's causa sui
  • is the source of the God-to-whom-one-can-pray register, against *Walten* / causa sui / onto-theology
  • engages Heidegger via the Identität und Differenz (1957) causa sui passage — Heidegger's "God to whom one neither prays nor sacrifices" is precisely what Pascal's "Memorial" refuses
  • anticipates by three centuries Heidegger's onto-theology critique
  • is paradigm of survivance — the "Memorial" sewn into clothing as paradigm of posthumous writing
  • engages Augustine (light reference) — Jansenist Augustinianism
  • engages Antoine Arnauld and Saint-Cyran (Jansenist circle) — background only
  • is the conceptual cousin of Kant's als ob (BS-II S10) — both wager-structures of religious-theoretical commitment

Sources

  • derrida-2002-bete-souverain-ii — principal entry. S8 (pp. 209–214) develops the "Memorial" reading against Heidegger's causa sui. The text is cited via Gilberte Pascal Périer's Vie de Blaise Pascal (biographical source).
  • Cited via the Pléiade edition of the Pensées; cross-referenced to Derrida's Donner la mort (1992, The Gift of Death) for an earlier Derridean Pascal treatment (not foregrounded in BS-II).