Pascal and Commitment

Does Pascal’s Understanding of Commitment See the Good of Life Stunted by Death?

The Pensées of Blaise Pascal are notes for a book he never wrote; they are by turns brilliant and baffling, inspiring and provoking. Among those that have provoked readers most are some that devalue life in this world and urge a frankly self-interested pursuit of life in the next. But these difficult and unfashionable thoughts are worth looking at more closely: they suggest that a principled and generous commitment to our present life might require both a clear view of its limitations and our self-interest. Professor Steven Justice will take a close look at a handful of these passages.

Date: Saturday, October 8th

Time: 4-5:30PM

Location: 2134 Allston Way, 2nd Floor

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Professor Steven Justice

Professor emeritus of English at UC Berkeley, where he taught topics in medieval literary history and literary criticism. Justice has been a fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center and Council of the Humanities Fellow at Princeton University, and has also held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Huntington Library, and the University of California. He is the author of Writing and Rebellion: England in 1381 (University of California Press, 1994), Adam Usk’s Secret (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), and numerous essays; he is currently at work on vol. 3 of The Penn Commentary on Piers Plowman.