Tag Archives: Blaise Pascal

Arts, Christianity, Culture, History, Philosophy

Philosophy: Scholasticism and dogma

CHRISTIANITY AND PHILOSOPHY

Intro: Medieval European culture was dominated by the Church, and the classical philosophy of Plato and Aristotle was only gradually assimilated into Christian teaching

THE Church wielded considerable social and political power in medieval Europe, and also controlled access to learning. Education was provided by the Church and necessarily followed Christian doctrine, while institutions like libraries and universities were funded by the Church and staffed by monastic orders. Monks preserved and translated many ancient texts, mostly of Greek philosophy and latterly acquired from Islamic scholars and scribes.

Scholasticism was a method of tuition that used rigorous dialectical reasoning both to teach Christian theology and to scrutinise these texts. Clerics and academics used methods of reasoning developed by Plato and Aristotle to assess the compatibility of ideas with Christian doctrine. The theories of philosophers including Augustine and Thomas Aquinas were also carefully examined, and either adopted to defend Christian dogma or dismissed as heretical. Scholasticism played an important part in the integration of philosophical ideas into Christianity, remaining the prominent ethos for Christian education and theology until supplanted by humanist and scientific ideas during the Renaissance.

Existence of God: the ontological argument

With the rise of scholasticism and the Church’s embrace of Aristotelian logic in the 11th century came a renewed interest in reconciling matters of faith with reasoned argument. One of the founding fathers of the scholastic movement was Saint Anselm of Canterbury, best known for proposing the so-called ontological argument for the existence of God.

Anselm asks us to imagine the most perfect being possible. The logic and reasoned arguments pledged by him are difficult to interpret and understand, but it leads us to a conclusion that the most perfect being possible must exist – in Anselm’s words, “God is that, than which nothing greater can be achieved”. From that premise he methodically shows that if God exists in our imagination, then an even greater God is possible: one that exists in reality.

Yet, contemporaries of the time such as Gaunilo of Marmoutiers pointed out that the logic put forward by Anselm was flawed, because “his reasons could be used to prove the existence of anything.” Later philosophers, notably Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant, showed that while the argument presented a notion of God’s essence, it was no proof of His existence.

Pascal’s wager

Today, it is generally agreed that there can be no logical proof either way for the existence of God, and that this is purely a matter of faith and belief. Philosophical speculation on the subject, however, continued well into the so-called “Age of Reason”. One novel take on the problem was raised by the distinguished mathematician Blaise Pascal in the 17th century.

“Pascal’s wager” examines whether, given that we have no proof of His existence, it is a better bet to believe in God or not. Pascal weighs up the pros and cons in terms of the consequences: if God exists and I deny his existence, I run the risk of eternal damnation; if He exists and I accept His existence, I earn eternal life in Paradise; but if He doesn’t exist, it will make no difference to me. Pascal devised a matrix in which different options are placed.

On balance, then, it is a safer bet to believe in His existence. Although Pascal’s wager is an interesting exercise in logic and rudimentary game theory, it is based on some unsound and shaky assumptions. For example, Aristotle’s idea of an “unmoved mover” or first cause is a direct challenge.

Creating Eternity

A major stumbling block for Christian philosophers trying to integrate Aristotelian ideas into Christian doctrine was Aristotle’s assertion that the universe has no end and no beginning. This contradicts the Biblical description of God’s creation of the world.

Thomas Aquinas, however, believed that since human reason and Christian doctrine are both gifts from God, they cannot be contradictory.  Using his ‘God-given’ reason, he argued that Aristotle was not mistaken in his concept of an eternal universe, but that God was indeed its creator: in the beginning, God created the universe, but could have also created a universe that is eternal.

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Arts, History, Science

Quantum Leaps: Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662…

PASCAL

Blaise Pascal, a Frenchman who passed away at the age of just thirty-nine, his time on earth unfortunately cut short by poor health, made significant contributions to the fields of mathematics and science – this, despite his abandonment of scientific study in favour of religious devotion in 1655.

During his twenties Pascal spent a large amount of time undertaking experiments in the field of physics. The most important of these involved measuring air pressure. An Italian scientist, Evangelista Torricelli (1608 – 47), had argued that air pressure would decrease at higher altitudes. Pascal set out to prove this by using a mercury barometer. He took initial measurements in Paris and then, at the 1200m-high Puy de Dome in 1646, confirmed in no uncertain terms that Torricelli’s speculation was true.

  • Pascal’s Law

More significantly, though, his studies in this area led him to develop Pascal’s Principle or Law, which states that pressure applied to liquid in an enclosed space distributes equally in all directions. This became the basic principle from which all hydraulic systems derived, such as those involved in the manufacture of car brakes, as well as explaining how small devices such as the car jack are able to raise a vehicle. This is because the small force created by moving the jacking handle in a sizeable sweep equates to a large amount of pressure sufficient to move the jack head a few centimetres. Applying the lessons of his studies in a practical way, Pascal went on to invent the syringe and, in 1650, the hydraulic press.

  • Child prodigy

In spite of these developments, however, Pascal is probably better remembered for his work in the area of mathematics. It was here that he showed his genius from an early age. For example, having independently discovered a number of Euclid’s theorems for himself by the age of just eleven, he went on to master The Elements, the great mathematician’s definitive text, a year later. When he was sixteen he published mathematical papers which his older contemporary Descartes at first refused to believe could have been written by someone so young. In 1642, still only nineteen, Pascal began work on inventing a mechanical calculating machine which could add and subtract. He had finished what was effectively the first digital calculator by 1644 and presented it to his father to help him in his business affairs.

  • Theory of Probability

It was not until later in his short life, around 1654, that Pascal jointly made the mathematical discovery which would have the most impact on future generations. It had begun with a request by an obsessive gambler, the Chevalier de Méré, for assistance in calculating the chance of success in the games he played. Together with Pierre de Fermat, another French mathematician, Pascal developed the theory of probabilities, using his now famous Pascal’s Triangle, in the process. As well as its obvious impact upon all parts of the gambling industry, the importance of understanding probability has had subsequent application in areas stretching from statistics to theoretical physics.

The SI unit of pressure – the pascal – and the computer language, Pascal (named in honour of his contribution to computing through his invention of the early calculator), are named after him in recognition of two of his main areas of scientific success.

Seven of the calculating devices that he produced in 1649 survive to this day.

  • Pascal’s Wager

Like many of his contemporaries, Pascal did not separate his science from philosophy, and his book Pensees, he applies his mathematical probability theory to the perennial philosophical problem of the existence of God. In the absence of evidence for or against God’s existence, says Pascal, the wise man will choose to believe, since if he is correct he will gain his reward, and if he is incorrect he stands to lose nothing, an interesting, if somewhat cynical argument.

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