Abstract
In his Pensées, Blaise Pascal gives vivid voice to both the wonder and anxiety that many early modern thinkers felt towards infinity. Contemplating our place between the infinite expanse of space and the infinite divisibility of matter, Pascal writes:
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Notes
- 1.
The translation is ours. We have consulted the translations by Levi in Pascal (1995) and Strickland in Leibniz (2003). For the original French text, see, Pascal, Blaise. “Pensèes.” In Œuvres Complètes, edited by Louis Lafuma. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1963, 199, and the website: http://www.penseesdepascal.fr/Transition/Transition4-moderne.php.
- 2.
Principles of Philosophy, part I, article 23; CSM 201. Descartes also derives the laws of motion and the conservation of the quantity of motion in the universe from the eternal and immutable nature of God. See Principles of Philosophy, Part II, article 36; CMS 240.
- 3.
Leibniz to Foucher in Leibniz, G.W. (1978, 416).
- 4.
See Richard Arthur’s contribution to this volume.
References
Euler, L. (1833). Letters of euler on different subjects in natural philosophy addressed to a German princess with notes, and a life of Euler. (Vol. 2, D. Brewster, Trans.). New York: Harper & Brothers.
Leibniz, G. W. (1978). In C. I. Gerhardt (Ed.), Die philosophischen Schriften von Leibniz (Vol. 7, pp. 1875–1890). Berlin/Hildesheim: Weidmann/Olms.
Leibniz, G. W. (1989). In R. Ariew & D. Garber (Eds.), Leibniz: Philosophical essays. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Leibniz, G. W. (2003). Double infinity in pascal and monad (L. Strickland, Trans.). Leibniz Translations. http://www.leibniztranslations.com/pascal.htm. Last Accessed 6 July 2017.
Pascal, B. (1995). Pensées and other writings (H. Levi, Trans.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Nachtomy, O., Winegar, R. (2018). Introduction: Infinity in Early Modern Philosophy. In: Nachtomy, O., Winegar, R. (eds) Infinity in Early Modern Philosophy. The New Synthese Historical Library, vol 76. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94556-9_1
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