Thomas Bellon

This paper aims to show that Pascal's criticism of logicians in the De l'Art de persuader sheds light on his epistemological purposes through a meditation on the “spirit” of the rules of geometry. By examining Pascal's conception of logic, this study identifies the semantic motive behind the rejection of Scholastic logic, dismissed as a confusing and artificial sign system arising from a misunderstanding of the fundamental rules of geometry regarding definition. This ultimately allows us to reexamine Pascal's relation to formal logic, revealing the role it plays in several places of his epistemology, more specifically with reference to his conception of the nature and truth of principles.

In this study, we attempt to show how the "art of persuasion" delivers a new conception of method, one that makes it possible to resolve the practical problems imposed by grounding truth in evidence alone. In this way, we show that the different determinations of the art of persuasion that run through the eponymous text, describe the various modalities of a single doctrine of persuasion that substitutes the precept of evidence – without denying it – for the need to define and demonstrate principles.