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Author: Michael Moriarty
Publisher:
Published: 2020
Total Pages: 426
ISBN-13: 0198849117
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMichael Moriarty presents the deepest and broadest study for many years of Blaise Pascal's philosophy and theology, as represented in his Pensees, a seminal work in the development of modern thought. Central themes are the distinction between faith and reason, the contradictions within human nature, and the relation between mind and body.
Author: Blaise Pascal
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2013-08-20
Total Pages: 424
ISBN-13: 1627933646
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis collection chronicles the fiction and non fiction classics by the greatest writers the world has ever known. The inclusion of both popular as well as overlooked pieces is pivotal to providing a broad and representative collection of classic works.
Author: Michael Moriarty
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2020-02-13
Total Pages: 653
ISBN-13: 0192588990
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book is a study of Blaise Pascal's defence of Christian belief in the Pensées. Michael Moriarty aims to expound--and in places to criticize--what he argues is a coherent and original apologetic strategy. Setting out the basic philosophical and theological presuppositions of Pascal's project, the present volume draws the distinction between convictions attained by reason and those inspired by God-given faith. It also presents Pascal's view of the contradictions within human nature, between the 'wretchedness' (our inability to live the life of reason, to attain secure and durable happiness) and the 'greatness' (the power of thought, manifested in the very awareness of our wretchedness). His mind-body dualism and his mechanistic conception of non-human animals are discussed. Pascal invokes the biblical story of the Fall and the doctrine of original sin as the only credible explanation of these contradictions. His analysis of human occupations as powered by the twin desire to escape from painful thoughts and to gratify one's vanity is subjected to critical examination, as is his conception of the self and self-love. Pascal argues that just as Christianity propounds the only explanation for the human condition, so it offers the only kind of happiness that would satisfy our deepest longings. He thus reasons that we have an interest in investigating its truth-claims as rooted in the Bible and in history. The closing chapters of this book discuss Pascal's view of Christian morality and the famous 'wager' argument for opting in favour of Christian belief.
Author: Michael Moriarty
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2020-02-13
Total Pages: 426
ISBN-13: 0192588982
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book is a study of Blaise Pascal's defence of Christian belief in the Pensées. Michael Moriarty aims to expound—and in places to criticize—what he argues is a coherent and original apologetic strategy. Setting out the basic philosophical and theological presuppositions of Pascal's project, the present volume draws the distinction between convictions attained by reason and those inspired by God-given faith. It also presents Pascal's view of the contradictions within human nature, between the 'wretchedness' (our inability to live the life of reason, to attain secure and durable happiness) and the 'greatness' (the power of thought, manifested in the very awareness of our wretchedness). His mind-body dualism and his mechanistic conception of non-human animals are discussed. Pascal invokes the biblical story of the Fall and the doctrine of original sin as the only credible explanation of these contradictions. His analysis of human occupations as powered by the twin desire to escape from painful thoughts and to gratify one's vanity is subjected to critical examination, as is his conception of the self and self-love. Pascal argues that just as Christianity propounds the only explanation for the human condition, so it offers the only kind of happiness that would satisfy our deepest longings. He thus reasons that we have an interest in investigating its truth-claims as rooted in the Bible and in history. The closing chapters of this book discuss Pascal's view of Christian morality and the famous 'wager' argument for opting in favour of Christian belief.
Author: Michael Rota
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2016-04-21
Total Pages: 254
ISBN-13: 0830899995
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBlaise Pascal's wager argues that since there is much to gain and relatively little to lose, the wise decision is to seek a relationship with God and live a Christian life. Michael Rota explores the dynamics of doubt, evidence and decision-making in order to consider what is necessary for people to embrace the Christian faith—and the difference it makes in people's lives.
Author: Jeff Jordan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2006-10-26
Total Pages: 240
ISBN-13: 0199291322
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhat if there is no strong evidence that God exists? Is belief in God when faced with a lack of evidence illegitimate and improper? Evidentialism answers yes. According to Evidentialism, it is impermissible to believe any proposition lacking adequate evidence. And if any thesis enjoys the status of a dogma among philosophers, it is Evidentialism. Presenting a direct challenge to Evidentialism are pragmatic arguments for theism, which are designed to support belief in the absenceof adequate evidence. Pascal's Wager is the most prominent theistic pragmatic argument, and issues in epistemology, the ethics of belief, and decision theory, as well as philosophical theology, all intersect at the Wager. Other prominent theistic pragmatic arguments include William James'scelebrated essay, 'The Will to Believe'; a posthumously published and largely ignored pragmatic argument authored by J.S. Mill, supporting the propriety of hoping that quasi-theism is true; the eighteenth-century Scottish essayist James Beattie's argument that the consoling benefit of theistic belief is so great that theistic belief is permissible even when one thinks that the existence of God is less likely than not; and an argument championed by the nineteenth-century French philosopher JulesLachelier, which based its case for theistic belief on the empirical benefits of believing as a theist, even if theism was very probably false.In Pascal's Wager: Pragmatic Arguments and Belief in God, Jeff Jordan explores various theistic pragmatic arguments, and the objections employed against them. Jordan presents a new version of the Wager, what he calls the 'Jamesian Wager', and argues that the Jamesian Wager survives the objections hurled against theistic pragmatic arguments and provides strong support for theistic belief. In addition to arguing for a sound version of the Wager, Jordan also argues that there is aversion of Evidentialism compatible with a principled use of pragmatic arguments, and that the Argument from Divine Silence fails. Objections found in Voltaire, Hume, and Nietzsche against the Wager are scrutinized, as are objections issued by Richard Swinburne, Richard Gale, and other contemporary philosophers.The ethics of belief, the many-gods objection, the problem of infinite utilities, and the propriety of a hope based acceptance are also examined.
Author: Michael Moriarty
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2006-05-25
Total Pages: 449
ISBN-13: 0199291039
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"Fallen Nature, Fallen Selves is an investigation of psychological and ethical thought in seventeenth-century France, emphasizing both continuities and discontinuities with ancient and medieval thought. Michael Moriarty's examination discusses most of the period's major authors, some well-known, others less so: the abstract and general analyses of philosophers and theologians (Descartes, Jansenius, Malebranche) are juxtaposed with the less systematic and more concrete investigations of writers like Montaigne and La Rochefoucauld, not to mention the theatre of Corneille, Moliere, and Racine. This study will be of interest to all researchers working in early modern French literature and in the history of ideas."--BOOK JACKET.
Author: Michael Moriarty
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2003
Total Pages: 294
ISBN-13: 9780199261468
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book is an examination of three major French thinkers of the seventeenth century, Descartes, Pascal, and Malebranche, of whom the latter two are comparatively little studied in the English-speaking world. It deals with a common attitude of suspicion towards everyday experience, which theysee as dominated and obscured by sensation, imagination, and the presence of the body. This attitude, however, obliges them to develop detailed and sophisticated accounts of the shaping of experience not only by the body but by interpersonal and social relationships, and of the tension between humannature as it is and as we experience it. The treatment of Descartes thus challenges the interpretation that sees him as eliminating the body from 'subjectivity', while that of Pascal and Malebranche shows how their critical attitude towards experience (a fertile source for twentieth-century Frenchthinkers) is linked with their religious doctrines, especially their Augustinian emphasis on Original Sin.
Author: Blaise Pascal
Publisher: Penguin UK
Published: 1995-12
Total Pages: 716
ISBN-13: 0140446451
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBlaise Pascal, the precociously brilliant contemporary of Descartes, was a gifted mathematician and physicist, but it is his unfinished apologia for the Christian religion upon which his reputation now rests. The Penseés is a collection of philosohical fragments, notes and essays in which Pascal explores the contradictions of human nature in pscyhological, social, metaphysical and - above all - theological terms. Mankind emerges from Pascal's analysis as a wretched and desolate creature within an impersonal universe, but who can be transformed through faith in God's grace. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Author: Jeff Jordan
Publisher: Rl Innactive Titles
Published: 1994
Total Pages: 180
ISBN-13: 9780847678334
DOWNLOAD EBOOKGambling on God brings together a superb collection of new and classic essays that provide the first sustained analysis of Pascal's Wager and the idea of an infinite utility as well as the first in-depth look at moral objections to the Wager.
