Pascal and the Arts of the Mind [Paperback]

This 1993 book examines the ways in which Pascal posed and solved intellectual problems.This book examines the ways in which Pascal posed and solved intellectual problems in his immense and varied output. Hugh Davidson shows how three of the classical 'liberal arts', rhetoric, dialectic and geometry, pervade Pascal's method as liberating and guiding influences in his search for truth, both in his attacks on and in his defences of tradition. Professor Davidson throws new light on both the diversity and the unity of Pascal's thought, and places it in the context of other seventeenth-century innovations in the use of traditional disciplines.This book examines the ways in which Pascal posed and solved intellectual problems in his immense and varied output. Hugh Davidson shows how three of the classical 'liberal arts', rhetoric, dialectic and geometry, pervade Pascal's method as liberating and guiding influences in his search for truth, both in his attacks on and in his defences of tradition. Professor Davidson throws new light on both the diversity and the unity of Pascal's thought, and places it in the context of other seventeenth-century innovations in the use of traditional disciplines.This book examines the ways in which Pascal posed and solved intellectual problems in his immense and varied output. Hugh Davidson shows how three of the classical liberal arts -- rhetoric, dialectic and geometry--pervade Pascal's method as liberating and guiding influences in his search for truth, both in his attacks on and in his defenses of tradition. Professor Davidson throws new light on both the diversity and the unity of Pascal's thought, and places it in the context of other seventeenth-century innovations in the use of traditional disciplines.Preface and acknowledgments; 1. Nature and the world; 2. Elements, complexes and geometric; 3. Multiplicity, unity and dialectic; 4. Ends, means and rhetoric; 5. Restatement and conclusion; Bibliography; Index.