Author: Pascal Translation sequence The author of this book, Pascal (Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662) was one of the most outstanding mathematical scientists in the seventeenth century, and he made great historical contributions to both theoretical science and experimental science in the early modern period.His series of scientific works, represented by "Theory of Vacuum", are basically materialistic and full of fighting style, and have become glorious classics in the history of science and thought for more than three centuries. Pascal's theory of thought is concentrated in his book "Thoughts".This book is different from Descartes's rationalism trend of thought; on the one hand, it inherits and develops the tradition of rationalism, and criticizes everything with reason; Under this leading idea, it points out the internal contradictions and boundaries of reason itself, and uses his unique method of revealing contradictions (the so-called "Pascal method"), from the concept of two poles (he himself is the founder of the concept of limit in modern times) ), and examines the so-called human nature, the world, life, society, history, philosophical knowledge, religious beliefs and many other theoretical issues.There are some elements of dialectical thinking mixed in it, but also a layer of pessimistic agnosticism is thickly shrouded.

The system of this book is idealistic, but in inheriting the ideological tradition of Montaigne and other "humanists" and advocating the bourgeois theory of human nature, it has a sharp debate with the official theological theory of the Catholic Church represented by the Jesuits. It has a distinct significance of anti-feudal historical progress.It (and the author's other book, Letters to the Provincials) reflect an important aspect of the ideology of the middle-class opposition on the Continent of Western Europe in the early modern period. There is a great deal of theological polemic in the book, which at first sight would suffocate a modern reader; yet some brilliant fragments of his thought often lie in theological crevices.The Jansenius (1585-1638) doctrine he inherited was essentially a variant of the Calvinist Reformation, representing the requirements of primitive capital accumulation.All theological theories are nothing more than a disguise of secular interests; as long as theology is reduced to secularism, it is not difficult to discover the essence of thought concealed under the cloak of theology.Moreover, although the Jansenist-Jesuit controversy took place within a narrow theological sphere, Pascal's own thought highlighted this narrow sphere on many important issues, both in terms of content and thought. Methodology.

Modern dialectics is based on Kant, and one of Kant's sources is Leibniz.When Leibniz lived in Paris from 1672 to 1676, he met Antoine Arnauld (1612-1694), one of the main representatives of the Jansen School, and studied Pascal's manuscripts in depth, and was greatly influenced by him.As is well known, Leibniz's work on automata was directly inspired by Pascal's design of computers; the beginning of modern computing.The concept of limits was another influence; it laid the foundations of modern calculus.But Pascal's influence on Leibniz was much more than that. An important turning point in the history of modern thought is the revival of ancient Augustine's views.According to the founder of cybernetics Wiener (N. Wiener, 1894-1964), the revolution in modern physical science did not start with Planck or Einstein, but with Gibbs (J.W. Gibbs, 1839-1964). 1903); Cybernetics is established on the basis of Gibbs' view of the constant increase of the probability entropy of the universe and the earlier Leibniz's information concept.Wiener believes that the world of probability proposed by Gibbs is very close to the Augustinian tradition in recognizing that there is a fundamental element of chance in the structure of the universe itself.Pascal himself is not only the founder of modern probability theory; at the same time, as the most prominent theoretical representative of Jansenism, he re-proposed Augustine's point of view in the history of thought.Thus Pascal's thought constitutes an important intermediate link between ancient and modern times.This thread from Pascal through Leibniz to Kant offers one of the most probing topics in the history of modern thought.However, such a clue, and the interrelationship between the development of modern thought and the methodology of thought in general, has often been ignored by researchers throughout the history.In addition, due to the limitations of the times, classes and his own tendencies, many negative factors that inevitably appeared in his thoughts, and their close origins with certain schools of modern idealism-these are still to be discussed. Therefore, researchers have further explored it from a historically critical perspective.

The book Pascal's "Thoughts" was originally a manuscript that the author had not completed before his death. Some parts of it have been roughly organized, readable, fluent, and clear as water; other parts have not yet been finalized or only have headings or outlines Concise and concise words or even no idioms make it difficult for readers to understand.Since the nineteenth century, there have been many works that have been sorted out and annotated by Pascal, and Leon Brunschvicg's is the most refined review, which can roughly clear up the outline of the book "Thoughts".Where there are difficulties in the translation, it is basically based on Brunsweig’s explanation; most of the annotations in the translation are also added and deleted from Brunsweig’s annotations, and sometimes other books are also used or occasional thoughts , in order to help understand the original text.This is the reason why the translation is based on the Brunsweig version, but not on the later published "Pascal's Complete Works" (J. Chevalier edited Paris, Gallimard edition, 1957).

Among the three editions of Brunsweig, Boutroux, and Complete Works, the arrangement order of the first two editions is exactly the same, but there is a big difference with the latter; but The text content of each paragraph is not different in each volume.There are quotations from Latin in the book, and most of the various copies have not been translated. Although there are translations in some places, they are also very unfaithful.Therefore, whenever Latin is encountered, the translation must be retranslated; but due to the limitation of my own level, I hope readers can correct me if I am wrong.The places where the Bible is quoted in the book are often different from the original scriptures because the author wrote them from memory, and the Mandarin Chinese version is also considered outdated; therefore, the translations of all the scriptures quoted in the book are based on the original text of the author. Translated, and the Mandarin version is attached as a translation note for reference.There are a few pages in the book that deal with Jewish scriptures, and the Brunswick version and several other popular books have not commented here; I am an amateur here, so I can only add a few necessary comments at my discretion. Dare to be confident.See the appendix for a biography of Pascal and his scientific contributions, as well as a description of translations of some of the terms in the book.

After the Second World War, there were four kinds of "Pascal's Complete Works", which are: 1. Chevalier, ed., 1957. 2. Louis Laeuma, ed., 1960. 3. Jean Mesnard, ed., 1964. 4. L． Brunschvicg and P． Boutroux, ed., reprinted 1966 (1908-25). Also, the scientific writings on Pascal are: R． Pascal's Scientific Works, edited by Taton, 1948. The translation of this book is due to the encouragement and help of Comrade Gu Shouguan from Youyou Commercial Press, and I would like to thank you for this. translator Beijing in 1979 The text of this book is arranged according to the Brunsweig sequence, the number in bold in the middle is the sequence code, and the numbers in white on both sides are for comparison with the other two versions.