Pascal's Pensees is generally acknowledged as one of the greatest masterpieces of seventeenth-century France, an unfinished work which has both inspired and perplexed readers in succeeding centuries.
Playing with Truth is the first comprehensive book on Pascal to be devoted to his use of key terms depicting the central subject of the Pensees, the human condition. Nicholas Hammond explores such fundamental notions as language and order, proceeding with a detailed analysis of the words inconstance, ennui, inquietude, bonheur, felicite, and justice. Developing and challenging the most recent scholarship about the text, Hammond identifies
the crucial notion of play (as exemplified in the term divertissement) which underlies all these words and applies his findings to the notoriously unstable concept of truth. Through the fragmentary nature of the Pensees and the shifting meaning of terms, Pascal is shown to be deliberately engaging the reader in a game to make sense of the text.
Giving an in-depth account of a many important critical controversies of the day, as well as offering a novel and provocative insight into the persuasive purpose of the Pensees, this study will be of interest to specialist and undergraduate readers alike.
- ISBN10 0198158939
- ISBN13 9780198158936
- Publish Date 23 June 1994
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Oxford University Press
- Imprint Clarendon Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 272
- Language English