Greetings Friends,
Thank you for reading and listening this week! Below is a short contemplation from Blaise Pascal, along with links to this week’s meditations.
Until next week, be wise and be well!
📿 On First Principles
This week’s contemplation comes from the French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623—1662). In his Pensees, Pascal observed,
We know the truth not only through our reason but also through our hearts. It is through the latter that we know first principles, and reason, which has nothing to do with it, tries in vain to refute them. The skeptics have no other object than that, and they work at it for no purpose. We know that we are not dreaming, but however unable we may be to prove it rationally, our inability proves nothing but the weakness of our reason and not the uncertainty of all our knowledge, as they maintain.
For knowledge of first principles, like space, time, motion, and number, is as solid as any derived through reason, and it is on such knowledge, coming from the heart and instinct, that reason has to depend and base all its argument. …
Pascal continued,
Principles are felt, propositions proved, and both with certainty though by different means. It is just as pointless and absurd for reason to demand proof of first principles from the heart before agreeing to accept them as it would be absurd for the heart to demand an intuition of all the propositions demonstrated by reason before agreeing to accept them. …
Our inability must therefore serve only to humble reason, which would like to be the judge of everything, but not to confute our certainty. As if reason were the only way we could learn! …
Contemplation Questions (Pick one or create your own!):
What does thinking with “reason and heart” mean?
How does one “humble reason” in daily life?
This Week’s Meditations…
This Week’s Videos…
Here’s the full video from my conversation with Samir Chopra, author of Anxiety: A Philosophical Guide.
Here’s a clip from the latest episode of Paradoxically Speaking:
—
Thank you for reading/listening this week; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
J.W.
P.S. If you’re interested in becoming a member but cannot afford it, feel free to request a complimentary membership or use this discount link.