Blaise Pascal · Mathematics
Pascal turns reason on the probability of <em>belief</em>: the <em>Provincial Letters</em> demolish the lax ‘probabilism’ of the casuists, and the Wager of the <em>Pensées</em> applies the mathematics of expectation - which Pascal helped invent - to the ultimate decision under uncertainty, whether to believe in God.
You learned that the Provincial Letters attacked the casuists’ ‘probabilism’ (that one may follow any opinion made ‘probable’ by a single authority), and that the Wager applies mathematical expectation to belief in God - the first use of expected value in a decision problem. Explain both…
Leads to Christiaan Huygens.
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