Cambridge Companion to Pascal

Each volume of this series of companions to major philosophers contains specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars, together with a substantial bibliography, and will serve as a reference work for students and nonspecialists. One aim of the series is to dispel the intimidation such readers often feel when faced with the work of a difficult and challenging thinker. Blaise Pascal (1623–62) occupies a position of pivotal importance in many domains: philosophy, mathematics, physics, religious polemics and apologetics. In this volume a team of leading scholars presents the full range of Pascal's achievement and surveys the intellectual background of his thought and the reception of his work. New readers and nonspecialists will find this the most convenient and accessible guide to Pascal currently available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Pascal.

'A treasure trove for the Pascal enthusiast.' Scientific and Medical Network Review, 'There can be no doubt that the Cambridge Companions series serves a very useful purpose. … Fouke's and Clarke's essays do the work that a historian might expect. … a good bibliography … there is certainly enough interest in this book to make it worth the attention of the historian of science.' British Journal of the History of Science

Nicholas Hammond is Reader in the Department of French at the University of Cambridge. His books include Playing with Truth: Language and the Human Condition in Pascal's Pensées (1994), Creative Tensions: An Introduction to Seventeenth-Century French Literature (1997), Fragmentary Voices: Memory and Education at Port-Royal (2004) and Gossip, Sexuality and Scandal in France, 1610–1715 (2011). He is also co-editor of The Cambridge History of French Literature (Cambridge, 2011).