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This biography by Marvin O'Connell captures Blaise Pascal's life and times with a chronological narrative based on the published sources and Pascal's own works. He illuminates the passion that drove the man and the radical spirituality he sought and found. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

A Good Description of Pascal's Theology!
Not a bad introduction to Pascal's life, but be forewarned:this is not a beginner's book.The author dives deeply into the details of Pascal's and the Jansenists' theology, so if you're just looking for the basic facts you're not going to like this one.Still, there's a good introduction into his thinking and writing here with a lot of historical and theological background included.

Reasons of the Heart
Although in the beginning of the book the reader may be confused by the fact that the author explains many historical facts of the time, if bare with the author the reader shall find that this information is fully needed to be able to understand Pascal's life and efforts better. I thought that the book was very informing although could be a bit boring at times.

A Fine Intro to Pascal for Americans
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662,) along with Michel de Montaigne, has always incarnated the French ideal of the introspective intellectual, the man of thought engaged with the vital questions of his time, the theorist of existence fearlessly involved in life's choices. He has been a key figure to Christian and secular thinkers alike, both for his deep psychological insights into man's inner workings-his own-as well as keen analysis of what goes into said man's options. Pascal is to French culture what Jonathan Edwards and Carl Jung, rolled into one, are to American culture.

Pascal's dense, rich analytical prose has been a decisive influence in the language of personal expression, in French and therefore in all language. Existentialism and psychoanalysis owe much to Pascal, who was, himself, a passionately committed Christian moralist. Largely ignored in the 18th Century, and known only to a few French intellectuals in the 19th, Pascal came to the fore in the 20th: the century of the conscious and the subconscious.

Marvin Richard O' Connell writes a præternaturally clear, entertaining, unpretentious short biography, suitably aware of the necessities of the dumbed-down, but never condescending. Ethical controversies in 17th Century France are eminently complicated to non-specialists, but O' Connell manages to keep things going with utmost confidence and gusto; no mean feat. He avoids the severity of French intellectual prose, but never sounds banale.A fine contribution.

BlueJay54 on Blaise Pascal ???Please
Bluejay54 You Had Me interested at the beginning with your comments.You sounded reasonably intelligent until I came to your comment:

Mind you, one should not expect to learn this from a Christian writer and a Christian publishing house, but Pascal's natal astrology chart clearly illustrates the problems and paradoxes that he faced in life: Venus in Cancer squaring the Moon's Nodes and opposing Mars in Capricorn, with healing Chiron in Taurus, and a Stellium (Jupiter conjunct Saturn conjunct Uranus) in Leo. No wonder Pascal felt so torn by fame-and-fortune seeking of his keen mind, yet was irresistibly drawn to a fiery fundamentalism and an ascetic life-style!

Christianity, Pascal--NO God Himself--can't be Viewed, Explained, argued Logically, or Intelligently from "ASTROLOGICAL" Premises.

I did however find your comments, amusing, and commical.

What reasons?
Make no mistake: this is *not* a book about Pascal the man, nor even a book about Pascal the (ascetic) Christian, but an excruciatingly painful book about the minutiae of Pasal's historical milieu and a long-winded discussion of the Jesuit/Jansenist dispute.I found the writing awkward in the extreme, with topical areas abstruse and singularly irrelevant to learning anything particularly useful about Pascal's life.(Well, given Pascal's later penchant for asceticism and renunciation of all pleasures--like enjoying steak dinners, the company of friends, or exercising his intellectual curiosity by inventing probability theory--at least that style was rhetorically appropriate!)Most of what *was" useful here can easily be found elsewhere.For example, when the converted Pascal visited his secular friends, he used to wear a belt studded with pins or nails on the inside so they poked him painfully in the waist, lest he enjoy their company too much.This fact I discovered in Guinness' introductory essay to Houston's "Mind on Fire" and *not* in the present book.In fact, I learned more about Pascal there and from on-line biographies that from this piece of work.Mind you, one should not expect to learn this from a Christian writer and a Christian publishing house, but Pascal's natal astrology chart clearly illustrates the problems and paradoxes that he faced in life:Venus in Cancer squaring the Moon's Nodes and opposing Mars in Capricorn, with healing Chiron in Taurus, and a Stellium (Jupiter conjunct Saturn conjunct Uranus) in Leo.No wonder Pascal felt so torn by fame-and-fortune seeking of his keen mind, yet was irresistibly drawn to a fiery fundamentalism and an ascetic life-style! But all Mr. O'Connell can do is muster up a bit of pity for poor Blaise's "restless heart [that] never quite purged itself of a lust for fame and worldly success [6]."Overall, the book did virtually nothing to illuminate the quote that inspired the title:"The heart has its reasons, of which Reason knows nothing," which was my reason for reading the book.Nor does it adequately explain other paradoxes: How could a genius like Pascal, fundamentalist or not, turn in a friend to the religious police for being a heretic? Why he was so bonded to his sister and why, with Cancer so prominent in his chart, did he never marry?Why his extremist embrace of original sin and human depravity?The book may have value or even be a big hit among believing Christians.But for a pagan neo-Vedantist yogi like me, this book shed absolutely no light at all on how a genius like Pascal wrestled with Ego to reconcile himself to Abstinence or (to paraphrase Kant) how he denied Reason in order to affirm Spirit.I'll have to find those reasons elsewhere.... ... Read more

Product Description
This work offers a clear, much-needed introduction to the ideas of randomness that are central to modern physics.These are the concepts that have been instrumental in overthrowing the notion of the classical "clock-work" universe of earlier centuries. The author shows how the laws of probability and statistics were developed by such mathematicians as Fermat, Pascal, and Gauss, and how they received their first major application in physics in the kinetic theory of gases developed by Maxwell and Boltzmann.Here the use of statistics was necessary because the number of particles involved is too great for a deterministic calculation. But soon the mathematician and physicist Poincare demonstrated the unpredictability of certain systems containing only a small number of bodies, because of extreme sensitivity to initial conditions. He thus became a founder of chaos theory. Finally, with the advent of quantum theory, physics--and reality itself-- seemed to be based on an essential randomness, an idea that was debated by Bohr and Einstein until the end of their lives. Only recently, in the experiments of Alain Aspect, has a convincing demonstration been given the inescapable randomness of quantum theory is a fact of nature. The author skillfully guides the reader through these developments and provides mathematical details in appendices, offering an accessible introduction to the modern physicist's conception of the world of cause and chance. Of special interest to physics students and teachers, the book will also appeal to anyone seeking a better understanding of modern physics, quantum theory, and the concept of chaos. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Impresive exposition of theory and experiment
For anyone not afraid of a little mathematics and graphs, this book provides a wonderful account of some of the ways in which probability plays a role in physics.It takes a selection of standard topics but treats them in a serious, careful and well written way, via a "horizontal integration" of math theory, its meaning within physics and its experimental verification.Topics include measurement error, the Maxwell velocity distribution for an ideal gas, Boltzmann's statistical physics, deterministic chaos illustrated by a compass needle undergoing forced oscillations, a detailed account of the quantum theory of interference and an "inseparable photons" experiment.For an introduction to these subjects, this book is surely better than your college textbook.

Chances are, you'll like this book
If you ever read one book on quantum theory, then this is the book you should read.Especially if you want to understand Bell's Inequality and how the experiments done by Alain Aspect in the 1980's verified that the inequality is violated.

I first heard of Bell's inequality and the EPR Paradox while reading an article by David Mermin in "Science News" and did not understand it at all.Then I read Robert Adair's account of it in "The Great Design" (a good book to have) and I began to gain a rudimentary appreciation of what was going on.But it wasn't until I read Ruhla's "Physics of Chance" that I learned how to derive the predictions of quantum theory - the predictions which show that two distant objects can exert influence on one another, "faster than the speed of light."

But Bell's Inequality is not the only subject in here.The text begins with rather simple treatments of probability, applied to coin tosses and telephone queues, on to Boltzmann Statistics, and then finally to quantum theory.So as your reading through the chapters in the book, you pick up the "tools" you need as you go along, in order to understand the more difficult material later on.

Ruhla's writing style is engaging, although silly at times....

A wonderful overview of statistical physics
This book is extraordinarily well written and illustrated.It introduces the major themes of statistical physics at a level that shold be readily accessible to senior undergraduates or scientists and engineers who are non-specialists. Highly recommended; a gem! ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's preservation reformatting program. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the text that can both be accessed online and used to create new print copies. This book and thousands of others can be found in the digital collections of the University of Michigan Library. The University Library also understands and values the utility of print, and makes reprints available through its Scholarly Publishing Office. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Religion of the Heart and Head
"The Mind on Fire" is predominantly a modern translation and editing of Blaise Pascal's "Pensees" along with a few other short works and a sampling of his letters. It is quite user-friendly and a good place to start when reading Pascal.

Before actually reading "Pensees," I knew Blaise Pascal and his "Pensees" only from snippets of quotes such as, "The heart has its reason of which reason knows nothing" and from "Pascal's Wager": better to risk believing in God and living with Him for all eternity and being wrong, then risk not believing in God and living apart from Him in all eternity and because you were wrong.

Having read him, I know now that the quote and wager just mentoned, though only snippets, do summarize his brilliance and his beauty. Like few others, Pascal fuses head and heart in his defense of Christianity. His ability is likely due to his brilliant mind that on November 23, 1654, from 10:30 PM to 12:30 AM encountered God in a mysterious, mystical experience that he could only describe with the one-word epitaph: "Fire."

For the rest of his brief life (he died at age 39), the fire in his soul and the genius of his mind merged in the "writing" of "Pensees." I place "writing" in quotation marks because Pascal's early death never allowed him to finish "Pensees." What we have is akin to his outline (though 325 pages in length!). Imagine if he had actually finished it. Pascal, ever the absent-minded professor, would have a thought run through his mind, write it down, cut it in a strip, and splice it in with other similar subject headings.

It's helpful to understand this before reading "Pensee" for what you find is brilliant disorder--an incomplete sentence here, half a thought there, then long and insightful paragraphs here. In other words, you do need to wade through the unusual design of the book, but in the wading you will find oceans of depth that flood both your heart and your head with passion and reason to love and know God.

Pascal's "real world" arguments for God are the most rationally and personally compelling ones that I have ever read. Pascal honestly faces the reality that we see God only in part and that by evidence alone, whether of reason or nature or both, we might just as well conclude that there is no God (the atheists), or that He is not loving, or not powerful, or that He is disinterested (Deism), or dispassionate (the Greek philosophers). He then explains that God reveals enough in nature to cause us to perceive His existence and to perceive that we are finite and fallen. Nature, according to Pascal, points more to the Mediator--Christ--the One who reveals the hidden God as a God of holiness and love, and the One who reveals us as God's prodigal children who need to come home.

Reviewer: Dr. Robert W. Kellemen is the author of "Soul Physicians: A Theology of Soul Care and Spiritual Direction," "Spiritual Friends: A Methodology of Soul Care and Spiritual Direction," and the forthcoming "Sacred Companions: A History of Soul Care and Spiritual Direction."

SET YOUR MIND ON FIRE!
Indeed friends this is a most excellent book. The translation is great, easy to read, down to earth and fluent. There are many places that one could start with the Pensees, but this is certainly not a mistake. Pascal was and is a certified genius, study his work and gain valuable insight into the story of man and the life of faith and the role of reason. "Mind on Fire" is a good place to start. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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Mathematics would not be the same without him, but Pascal's love for learning paled next to his passion for Christ.Few men have ever lived who thought more deeply upon the nature of reality. "At an age when others have hardly begun to see the light, he had completed the cycle of human knowledge," and seeing its emptiness, Pascal directed his energies to know Him in whom is hidden all the wisdom and the glory of God.Some of his reflections appear in this pocket-size book. Though space permits only a few to be cited, it is our hope that reading these thoughts will bring one to feel something of his passion for God, and thereby, to experience more fully the Word aflame with love. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

"The power of thoughts"
In the era of Internet discussions, such "virtual timetravel" Blaise Pascal sounds a very ancient thinker. However, if you ever read "Thoughts" you might see that he isn't just a religious thinker and not just a strangescientist, who loves spiritual philosophies. In "Thoughts" Pascalis teaching mankind of a way of thinking that is a privilege only to thegenies. Here he shares with us what is more, then "Homo-sapiens"we created, and what is waiting us to awake ourselves of that lethargicdream we call today "terrestrial boundaries"... Great book forall times and generations so long "we" exist! Call me for more.

Piercing insights with lasting relevance
It is a common fallacy to assume that science and philosophy first got underway at the end of the 19th Century, and that what went before were rudimentary efforts, at best.Blaise Pascal, writing in the early 17th Century, had the capacity for profound thought, and was blessed with the ability to reveal his thinking with a clarity that would have been the envy of Hemingway. Reading his "Thoughts" left me overjoyed. ... Read more

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Philosopher James R. Peters defends the reasonableness of the Christian faith in The Logic of the Heart. He paves a middle road between the Enlightenment's worship of reason and postmodernism's emphasis on freedom and self-rule. He delves into the thought of theologian St. Augustine and philosopher-mathematician Blaise Pascal and engages the skeptic David Hume, who argued against the possibility of miracles. Throughout this process, Peters provides an alternative to postmodern thought as well as the widespread New Atheism. This work is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students pursuing studies in philosophy of religion and historical theology. Since Peters writes in nontechnical language, readers interested in the relationship between faith and reason will also benefit from The Logic of the Heart. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

This Is How an Academic Book SHOULD be Written
But they are so seldom! I read and review books in theology all the time. Increasingly, I grow weary of the turgid, inept prose in them, and their seeming eagerness to make important, interesting ideas as obscure and meaningless as possible. This book is written in some of the most elegant prose I've read in years. It also bursts with the passion that the author has for his subject matter, and is based on a depth of knowledge of the subject that is amazing. These qualities mean that on every page, a reader will find insights and analyses that s/he will understand and treasure. If you are interested in the relation of faith and reason and would like a guide in your investigation, this is definitely the book for you. I can't recommend it enough. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Written as accessibly as possible
Designing Experiments & Games Of Chance: The Unconventional Science Of Blaise Pascal by William R. Shea (Galileo Professor of History of Science at the University of Padua) is an informed and informative survey and analysis of the life's work of the talented mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher Blaise Pascal. Investigating Pascal's ingenious mathematical experiments, his philosophies of experimental science, his pioneering work concerning theories of probability, and more, Designing Experiments & Games Of Chance is an introduction into the lasting wisdom of a great thinker. Written as accessibly as possible for readers of all background with a basic grounding in math, Designing Experiments & Games Of Chance is a work of impressive scholarship and a welcome addition to academic Science History reference collections. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's preservation reformatting program. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the text that can both be accessed online and used to create new print copies. This book and thousands of others can be found in the digital collections of the University of Michigan Library. The University Library also understands and values the utility of print, and makes reprints available through its Scholarly Publishing Office. ... Read more

Product Description
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1819 edition by Lefèvre, Paris. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more