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HAMMOND, Nicholas, editor. The Cambridge Companion to Pascal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. xvi + 287 pp. Cloth, $60.00; paper, $23.00-This collection of fourteen essays (plus an introduction) is arguably the best available resource for any one wishing an accessible but in-depth introduction to Pascal. Because the essays are so rich in information and range widely, from a biography of Pascal to an overview of his experimental work in physics to a discussion of Pascal's view of rhetoric, the specialist is likely to find items of interest here as well. Although the division is messy, I will review the essays as either historical studies or as methodological studies. Of course, many of the essays classified as methodological are historical studies as well.
Among the historical studies, Ben Rogers performs the unglamorous duty of providing a concise biography of Pascal in "Pascal's life and times." Henry Phillips examines Pascal's study and use of Montaigne and Descartes in "Pascal's reading and inheritance of Montaigne and Descartes." This essay is quite informative about Pascal's apologetic project and the use made of Montaigne and Descartes in that project. An especially interesting feature of this essay is the contrast of the Pascalian apologetic project and the Cartesian. Michael Moriarty, in "Grace and religious belief in Pascal," offers a very helpful way of distinguishing Jansenism from Calvinism, and from the Semi-Pelagianism of the Jesuits. In "Pascal and holy writ," David Wetsel offers an exposition of Pascal's (projected) use of the Bible as a "proof of the truth of Christian belief. Richard Parish, in his "Pascal's Lettres provinciales:...