Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal

Today we are going to talk about one of the men who has had the hardest time being recognized as a renowned thinker all the remarkable men in history. Is about Blaise Pascal. He was a mathematician, physicist, philosopher, biologist, moralist and controversialist. Although no one was ever able to discuss his enormous intellectual achievements, it was quite costly for him to be recognized as a renowned thinker. He has made some contributions to science and society in general. Many of his phrases as a good thinker are still present in our society today.

Therefore, we are going to dedicate this article to tell you everything you need to know about the biography and feats of Blaise Pascal.

Blaise Pascal Biography

mathematician and thinker

The development of science has made Blaise Pascal famous as a mathematician, but he has hidden his thoughts for a long time, and these thoughts involve all possible problems. Fortunately, history has been able to recover. Pascal was a primitive man in his own time, compared to his contemporary René Descartes, a dark and unsystematic inversion.

Blaise Pascal was born on June 19, 1623 in Clermont Ferrand, France, and belonged to the lower aristocratic family in the area. In addition to Bryce and his parents, the family consisted of his sister Gilbert (his first biographer) and the younger Jacqueline, and they established a close relationship with him. Especially in his childhood, Pascal's health was characterized by physical weakness.

Before he was two years old, he had already suffered from diseases that caused intestinal diseases and muscle atrophy, and over the years he developed strange phobias (such as intolerance to the bathroom or seeing his parents hug), which caused him nervous attacks. These conditions seemed to disappear later, but headaches, depression and pain continued to exist and would affect his life and philosophy.

He was given a careful education so that he would feel capable of achieving all of his goals. He received readings of Greek and Latin classics and the writings of great humanists, and his father marked a strong separation between scientific and religious questions.

Blaise Pascal's capabilities

blaise pascal painting

Blaise Pascal began to show some signs of his prodigious mind especially in the field of mathematics. When he was only 11 years old, he came across proposition 32 from Euclid's book Elements, which gives us a good example of his speculative abilities. He was really signaling his capacity for numbers.

But his work is not limited to theory. To help his father, who was a tax collector and required many calculations, he developed an "arithmetic machine" at the age of 19: a calculator. The possibility of this contradiction spread moderately in 1642 and became immediately apparent.

In 1647, a historical event happened: Pascal and Descartes finally met. They immediately hated each other. In his great philosophical work 'Mind', Pascal referred to the father of 'Methodological Words' as 'useless and uncertain', while Descartes considered Clermont Ferrand's work to be 'empty in his head'. No one". At the time, the existence of a vacuum was one of the hottest topics in science, mainly because it was often denied: How could “something” exist in “nothing”?

In the year 1648 Pascal began his experiment with a very clear objective: to show that what we call "nothing" is in fact "something", that it is a physical problem, not just a conceptual one. The proof comes from his book. The relationship between the great experiment of equilibrium between liquids, explaining that atmospheric pressure is the cause of the "horror of emptiness" of objects, was one of the feats of the time. Your weight and air pressure. Pascal himself was proud of the results and defined his work as "the most decisive of all that can be practiced on this subject."

One of the greatest contributions to mathematics by Blaise Pascal was the calculus of probabilities.

Philosophical and religious period

representation of pascal's life

At that time the second stage of Pascal's life began, leaving mathematics and science aside, and devoting more energy to philosophy. He abandoned his ongoing research, became more interested in theology, and wrote many introspective works. Pascal is obsessed with using religion and belief as the primary tools for discovering ideas from the depths of the soul.

It was at this time that he began to collect documents that he reflected in his theory. The work was never finished or published, it would be printed with the title "Thoughts" at the time of his death, and it is the most important philosophical work he has.

Around 1656 the Jansenist Antonie Arnaud, who had been accused of being a Calvinist, came to the aid of his friend. I would write for him what are known as Provincial letters, which would end up being one of the top works of French literature. The Letters created a great sensation in France because it was the first time that religion and philosophy had been taken out of libraries and classrooms and offered to people in their own simple language. Pascal draws the public's attention to questions of intellectual importance.

The legacy

Blaise Pascal represents thinkers who perfectly combine faith with science, speculation and rigorous experimentation. His attention is focused on all areas of knowledge: mathematics, theology, philosophy, etc. All the information was useful to him.

Unlike other people who base all human knowledge on reason, he did not want to leave out the emotional part, and defending knowledge must be a perfect combination of reason and heart. Like Schopenhauer later, he accused society of apparently not understanding the truth about moral decline, making it responsible for it. Therefore, we must remember him and place him in a position of honor. His critic / admirer Friedrich Nietzsche paid tribute to him: «Pascal, whom I love, has taught me infinite things. The only logical Christian in history ”.

I hope that with this information you can learn more about the history and biography of Blaise Pascal


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