Pensees (Royal Collector's Edition) (Case Laminate Hardcover with Jacket)

Pensees, or thoughts, is a collection of fragments on theology and philosophy written by 17th-century philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal. Pascal often examined the same event or example through many different lenses. Pascal's religious conversion led him into a life of asceticism, and the Pensees was in many ways his life's work. Pensees represented Pascal's defense of the Christian religion, and is widely considered to be a masterpiece, and a landmark in French prose.

When Paschal died, his executors, failing to recognize the basic structure of Pensees, handed them over to be edited, and they were published in 1670. Since then, the proper order of the Pensees is heavily disputed. One of the text's main strategies was to use the contradictory philosophies of Pyrrhonism and Stoicism, personalized by Montaigne on one hand, and Epictetus on the other, in order to bring the unbeliever to such despair and confusion that he would embrace God.

This case laminate collector's edition includes a Victorian inspired dust-jacket.