Blaise Pascal and the Pensées

Two weeks ago I mentioned Blaise Pascal in my blog, but actually I don’t know much about this person, although he was one of the great scientists and scholars of modern times. Maybe this is a good reason to write a blog about him.

In fact, I am not really unknown with Pascal’s writings for several years ago I read his famous Pensées (“Thoughts”), one of those classical works that is still widely read, like Montaigne’s Essays, for instance. Actually this is Pascal’s most interesting work for philosophers. But before writing a few words about this book, let me tell first a little bit about the person. Pascal (1623-1662) was brought up by his father, after the early death of his mother. Soon his father saw his talents and he succeeded to introduce his son in the circles of famous French scientists. Pascal corresponded also with well-known scientists, mathematicians and scholars like Pierre de Fermat, Christiaan Huygens and Gottfried Leibniz. This made that he, too, could become one of the most famous mathematicians and physicists of his time. His contributions to the development of science and mathematics are significant. His probability theory had a big influence on the development of economics and the social sciences. He developed also one of the first mechanic calculators and he thought up also a regular coach service in Paris as a kind of public transport. During his life he became increasingly interested in theological and philosophical questions and this made him write his Provincial Letters and his Pensées. The first book was a contribution to the discussions between the Jesuits and the Jansenists then, but it was also valued as a literary work as such. The Pensées is an uncompleted collection of fragments. It is mainly theological but large parts of it are purely philosophical.

In a sense the Pensées can be compared with Montaigne’s Essays. Like the Essays, also the Pensées consists of reflections on philosophical, cultural and, of course, theological themes that showed Pascal’s vision on contemporary issues. However, unlike Montaigne, Pascal explicitly doesn’t write about himself. Even more, he writes about Montaigne’s Essays: “His foolish project of describing himself!” (Pensées, II, 62) Nevertheless Pascal has been influenced much by Montaigne, although his own project was not self-descriptive. (see my blog dated 23 December 2013) But were these Pensées really not about Pascal himself, at least for a part? “Tell me his thoughts and I’ll say who he is” is often not too strong a statement, I think. Anyway, Pascal expressed in his Pensées clearly personal ideas.

Another difference between the Essays and the Pensées is that the former work consists of separate chapters, each treating a certain theme. The later work is a continuous treatise divided into “Articles”. The articles are divided into numbered sections. Since I am not a theologian and moreover since I don’t want to write about theological questions in my blogs, my notices here on the Pensées are limited and one-sided. But even with a philosophical interest “only” the work is still worth reading. Like Montaigne, Pascal writes a lot about things that are important in daily life, like our prejudices, habits and customs, our imagination, justice, politics, morals, and so on. Too many subjects to mention them here all. Therefore, I’ll finish this blog with quoting some passages. Maybe they’ll provoke you to read the work.

– Those who are accustomed to judge by feeling do not understand the process of reasoning, for they would understand at first sight, and are not used to seek for principles. And others, on the contrary, who are accustomed to reason from principles, do not at all understand matters of feeling, seeking principles, and being unable to see at a glance. (I, 3)

– How comes it that a cripple does not offend us, but that a crippled mind does? Because a cripple recognises that we walk straight, whereas a crippled mind declares that it is we who are limp-brained; if it were not so, we should feel pity and not anger. (II, 80)

– Things which have most hold on us, as the concealment of our few possessions, are often a mere nothing. It is a nothing which our imagination magnifies into a mountain. Another turn of the imagination would make us discover this without difficulty. (II, 85)

– ... if they are greater than we, it is because their heads are higher; but their feet are as low as ours. They are all on the same level, and rest on the same earth ... (II, 103)

– As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all. (II, 168)

– Contradiction is a bad sign of truth; several things which are certain are contradicted; several things which are false pass without contradiction. Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the want of contradiction a sign of truth. (VI, 384)

But maybe you consider my thoughts in this blog crippled (see the second quote above). If so, then I have an excuse, for, as Pascal also writes “The mind of this sovereign judge of the world is not so independent that it is not liable to be disturbed by the first din about it. The noise of a cannon is not necessary to hinder its thoughts; it needs only the creaking of a weathercock or a pulley. Do not wonder if at present it does not reason well; a fly is buzzing in its ears; that is enough to render it incapable of good judgment.” (VI, 366). The latter is what was happening when I wrote this blog.

Source of the quotes: Blaise Pascal, Pensées, on http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18269/18269-h/18269-h.htm#SECTION_II I have changed the quote from II, 80 and made it closer to the original French text.

Who are we?

When someone uses the personal pronoun “I” it’s clear who is meant with the person it refers to. The word can only mean the one who utters the word. But how about “we”? What does a person mean when he or she uses this word? It’s clear that “we” involves the speaker, but it refers also to others. Does the speaker mean “you and I” and maybe also some or all others present? Often the context makes this clear. However, this can be problematic if you are speaking in a cultural context different from yours, especially if the context is also a different language context. This is illustrated in an anecdote I came across in a book titled The philosophy of grammar, written about hundred years ago by the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen: A missionary, who tries to convert people to Christianity somewhere in Africa tells the people present: “We are all of us sinners, and we all need conversion”. When you – having a good knowledge of English and maybe even being a native speaker of English – read this sentence, you’ll probably understand these words as: “We all who are present here together are sinners and we all need to be converted”. However, not so the public of the missionary. They understood the sentence as: “I, the missionary who is speaking to you, and all the people that I represent are sinners and need to be converted.” You can fill in “that I represent” how you like, such as “the British”, if he was a British missionary, “all whites”, since the missionary was a white man and his public was black, or what you think it must be. But you may not fill in “I and all of us who are here together in this space”, for what the missionary didn’t know or realize is that the language spoken by his public has two words for “we”. One “we” (let me call it “we1”) refers to I and you and the persons around here, and the other we (“we2”) refers to I and my group (whatever it is). Since the missionary used the we2 (by mistake or by ignorance), his public will not have got the idea that they were sinners and needed to be converted. “Why does this man make such a fuss?” is what they may have thought.

In order to separate these two types of “we” Jespersen distinguished an inclusive and an exclusive we. The inclusive we is what I just called we1. It means I and you and you and you ... all here present, in contrast to “they” who don’t belong to us. For instance, you have been shopping with your partner and you are tired. “Let’s go home”, you say then to your partner. The exclusive we is what I called we2, so I and the group I represent or belong to, in contrast to you. For instance, “We cannot accept this proposal”, the spokeswoman says in the parliament, meaning herself and the fraction she represents, even if the other members of her fraction are not in the room. Some languages have different words for the inclusive and exclusive we (like the language of the public of the missionary), while other languages use the same word for both meanings, like English and Dutch. If you think that a simple “we” is too vague in a certain situation, you can specify it with an addition like “we philosophers”, “we in this room”, etc.

If there is only one word for we1 and we2, the context often makes clear what is meant, as said. Nevertheless, the absence of this distinction in a language is sometimes confusing or the difference between both meanings is difficult to disentangle. In discussions “we” is often used ambiguously, although the speakers may not realize it. This is especially so in discussions with a political content. Politicians often give the impression to use the inclusive we (we1) in their speeches, saying that they want to do what we actually all wish and what is good for “us”. But don’t they actually mean what is good only for those who think like them or even only for their own clique? The rhetoric and propaganda of the former communist states are clear instances. And that’s what the demonstrators wanted to denounce when they walked through the streets of Leipzig in 1989 and shouted “We are the people”. Here the “we” in the slogan had an inclusive meaning referring to all people in the former German Democratic Republic, instead of only to the political leaders of this state (who had given it an exclusive meaning). But 20 years later the slogan got another meaning when it was adopted by rightwing groups. It’s no longer used to unmask a corrupt regime but now it stands for a certain rightwing political idea. With this also the “we” in the “We are the people” turned from an inclusive we into an exclusive we. The “we” represents now only the followers of this political idea. Look around, listen and see what politicians and other people say and do. Instead of using “we” to include people it is often used to exclude them.

Sources

- Otto Jespersen, The philosophy of grammar, on https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.282299/page/n190    

- Vincent Descombes, Les embarras de l’identité. Paris: Gallimard, 2013; esp. pp. 221-224.

Being yourself

In his book on identity, the French philosopher Vincent Descombes tells a fable made by Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) for teaching one of his pupils (1). Usually I look up the original source of such a text, but since it’s not important here, I’m too lazy to do this and I follow Descombes’s interpretation (more or less). Here is the story:

A shipwrecked person is washed ashore on an unknown island. By chance, not so long before the king of the island had disappeared and the islanders couldn’t trace him, despite their efforts. However, since the shipwrecked person resembles the disappeared king, the islanders think that he is the lost ruler and they reinstall him on the throne. The person doesn’t protest and accepts being the king. From now on he has double thoughts, so Pascal. On the one hand he has the thoughts as the king he now is, but behind these thought he hides the thoughts of the person he really is. We can also say that from now on the shipwrecked person leads a double life: In public as the king and in his heart as the man he really is. In fact, so Descombes explains, we have here an identity problem: Because the “king” doesn’t want to reveal his real identity, he must continuously be on the alert, just as impostors must be.

Pascal used this fable to teach his pupil, the son of a duke, that in future he’ll come across the same problem. Of course, the future duke is not an impostor, but once when he has become duke, people will bow for him, will praise him, will be friends with him, simply because he is the duke and not because of the person he “really” is and because of what he thinks of it himself. For the duke then the problem is how to handle this double identity. He can behave like two very different persons: in public as the duke and in private as himself. Then he must fully separate the two persons functionally as much as he can. Or he can try to integrate both persons and to put as much of himself in his function as the duke, in addition to what the function formally requires. Rules are always open to a strict interpretation or a lenient interpretation and not everything is prescribed. In other words, the boy who has become the duke must continuously ask himself: Who am I? On the one hand, I am the duke, a function that I inherited from my father; a function with rules I didn’t make myself; a function I got without desiring it but imposed on me by others. On the other hand, I am myself, with all my personal preferences, desires, likes and dislikes, characteristics, and so on. To what extent must I, can I and do I want to keep these functions apart?

Actually, the problem that Pascal puts forward here is one of the basic problems of life: How to be authentic and when to be authentic? How and when to be yourself? In fact, Pascal wasn’t original when he raised the problem, for implicitly we find it already in Shakespeare’s words “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”. In his fable Pascal dealt with a function that we are thrown in by others; a function we cannot help to be charged with. But functions – or roles, to go on with Shakespeare’s metaphor of the world as a stage – can also be chosen by ourselves. They can be taken up voluntarily. But even when the choice of the role (function) is voluntarily, the rules of the role usually aren’t. It’s an exception that the main lines of a role are made by ourselves. Usually they are already prescribed. So in any role we play, in any function we occupy the basic question always is: Will I be authentic in this function or will I not; and to what extent? Will I play a role or will I play myself?

In the Internet you can find many websites on how to be authentic and how to be yourself. I arbitrarily mention two websites (both by chance from Psychology Today): “Develop Authenticity: 20 Ways To Be A More Authentic Person” (2) and “4 Ways To Be A More Authentic Person” (3). It seems simple: Follow the rules there and you’ll become more authentic in what you do (if you wish). However, I can assure you that being authentic, being yourself is not as easy as that. Being yourself is very difficult and often it is impossible, even if you are and want to be honest. The reason for this is simple: Being yourself is not only dependent on you but also on the people around you; the people you go along with or those you meet in your role. Often authenticity is not valued by them.

Sources

(1) Vincent Descombes, Les embarras de l’identité. Paris: Gallimard, 2013 ; esp. pp. 147-156.

(2) https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/click-here-happiness/201904/develop-authenticity-20-ways-be-more-authentic-person

(3) https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hope-relationships/201503/4-ways-be-more-authentic-person

The base rate fallacy

Faulty base, faulty result

There is a lot more to say about fallacies than I did in my recent blogs. It is important to avoid fallacies, for they are mistakes in reasoning and they distort the way we look at the world around us and how we get along with others and with ourselves as well! Often fallacies lead to wrong decisions or you can get unnecessarily worried about things that might happen. The book Bad arguments that I used for my lasts blogs treats hundred fallacies, but actually it’s only a selection of all the ways we can reason in the wrong manner. Sometimes one wonders how it is possible to survive, if you can make so many mistakes, but the practice is that we do, more and more successfully.

I end the present series of blogs on fallacies by discussing one that is very common: The base rate fallacy. This is the fallacy in which basic information is ignored or is confused with specific information. If you fall into this trap, you get a completely wrong image of what is happening around you or what is happening with you. You can become worried without reason, as said, for instance when you take part in a medical examination of the population and then it appears that you have a positive test result, so you may have a serious illness.

Say, a medical examination of the population is done for a certain deadly disease. 0.1% of the adult population is infected and the government thinks that it is worth to test the whole adult population of the country, for the disease can be well treated if discovered in time. Let’s assume that there are ten million adults in this country and that every adult takes part in the test. The test has a false positive rate of 5% and no false negative rate, so – besides those with a correct positive test result – 5% of the adults with a positive test result actually is not infected, while nobody who with a negative result is infected. The next step is then that everybody with a positive result is called up for further medical examinations. Now it often happens that people in this selected group think that they have a 95 chance of being really infected, for isn’t it so that the test is 95% accurate? By thinking this way these people ignore, however, that this 95% tells us only something about the quality of the test, not about the presence of the disease in the population, which is 0.1% (among adults). Therefore they may become more worried than they need to. Let me show:

- The test is applied to 10,000,000 (ten million) people and 0.1% is infected. So 10,000 people are infected. They all have positive test results.

- 5% of the tests indicate that the tested persons are infected, while actually they are healthy. So

499,500 (5% of “10,000,000 minus 10,000”) people have a positive test result, but they are not infected.

- Both the first group and the second group will have to undergo extra medical examinations in order to determine whether they are really ill or whether they aren’t. So 10,000 + 499,500 people have to undergo extra examinations, which are altogether 509,500 people.

- Only 10,000 people among these 509,500 people are really infected, so 1,96% of the selected group is really infected. Therefore, if you belong to the group selected by the first test, the chance then that you have really been infected in this example is not a high 95% but only about a tiny 2 %. Although this may be serious enough, don’t be more worried than you need to.

In his article on the base rate fallacy (see below), Manninen discusses yet another case where the base rate is ignored. In short it is this: Between 1999 and 2011, 2151 whites were killed by the police in the USA and 1130 blacks were. Therefore whites are worse off than blacks. Is it true? If you look only at the figures given here, you would think “yes”. However, according to the 2010 Census in the USA, 72,4% of the population was white and 12,6% was black. When you add this basic information to the example, the picture completely changes. Need I further explain? If you have come thus far, I assume that you are smart enough to see that in proportion to the respective populations by far more blacks were killed by the police than whites were.

There is a phrase that says “there are lies, there are damned lies and there are statistics”. However, statistics lie only because we don’t know how to use them or use them intentionally in the wrong way.

Sources,

- “Base rate fallacy”, in Wikipedia on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy

- Manninen, Thomas W., “Base rate”, in Arp, Robert; Steven Barbone; Michael Bruce (eds.), Bad arguments. 100 of the most important fallacies in Western philosophy. Oxford, etc.: Wiley Blackwell, 2019; pp. 133-136.