Playing with Truth

Pascal's Pensées is generally acknowledged as one of the greatest masterpieces of seventeenth-century France, an unfinished work which has both inspired and perplexed readers in succeeding centuries. Playing with Truth is the first comprehensive book on Pascal to be devoted to his use of key terms depicting the central subject of the Pensées, the human condition. Nicholas Hammond explores such fundamental notions as language and order, proceeding with a detailed analysis of the words inconstance, ennui, inquiétude, bonheur, félicité, and justice. Developing and challenging the most recent scholarship about the text, Hammond identifies the crucial notion of play (as exemplified in the term divertissement) which underlies all these words and applies his findings to the notoriously unstable concept of truth. Through the fragmentary nature of the Pensées and the shifting meaning of terms, Pascal is shown to be deliberately engaging the reader in a game to make sense of the text. Giving an in-depth account of a many important critical controversies of the day, as well as offering a novel and provocative insight into the persuasive purpose of the Pensées, this study will be of interest to specialist and undergraduate readers alike.