Blaise Pascal, Pensées | Diversions, Happiness, and Misery

Blaise Pascal, Pensées | Diversions, Happiness, and Misery | Philosophy Core Concepts

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5 жыл бұрын

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This is a video in my new Core Concepts series -- designed to provide students and lifelong learners a brief discussion focused on one main concept from a classic philosophical text and thinker.
This Core Concept video focuses on Blaise Pascal's unfinished work, the Pensées, specifically on his discussion about the role that "diversions" (divertissments) play in our lives. We engage in them at least in part, to avoid facing up to our actual condition, which is typically more miserable than we acknowledge. We also engage in them, aiming to enjoy some happiness, not realizing that genuine happiness lies elsewhere.
If you'd like to support my work producing videos like this, become a Patreon supporter! Here's the link to find out more - including the rewards I offer backers: / sadler
You can also make a direct contribution to help fund my ongoing educational projects, by clicking here: www.paypal.me/ReasonIO
If you're interested in philosophy tutorial sessions with me - especially on Pascal's thought and works - click here: reasonio.wordpress.com/tutori...
You can find the copy of the text I am using for this sequence on Pascal's Pensées here - amzn.to/2NnuEAx

Пікірлер: 26

@nishantpatil1847 2 жыл бұрын

this was the best concept i ever came across. i had never thought that these very trivial things could be understood in such an articulate manner. thanks for pascal to churn his head upon it, and to you sir for making it so easy to digest for us. the happiness in understanding about these issues is infinite when compared to other joys.

@GregoryBSadler 2 жыл бұрын

Yes, Pascal is well worth the read!

@jeremiahmullikin 5 жыл бұрын

I learned a lot from this, thanks!

@GregoryBSadler 5 жыл бұрын

You're welcome!

@jorgez.e3111 3 жыл бұрын

Thank you gregory for your insights on pascal. I did just know him for his advancements in mathematics and just now I am discovering his philosophical side.

@GregoryBSadler 3 жыл бұрын

Pensees is a great work, well worth reading

@lj5652 5 жыл бұрын

We are ready for half hour pascal.

@AjaxNixon 5 жыл бұрын

Im not ready! But, its what we need.

@lj5652 5 жыл бұрын

Basekitball it could be called "passing the time with pascal" although pascal would not want us just to "pass the time"

@GregoryBSadler 5 жыл бұрын

Well, my plans for the next texts to give the "half hour" treatment to are Descartes' Meditations and Anselm's Proslogion. . . .

@GregoryBSadler 5 жыл бұрын

Being and Time is a big book. I've been quite clear that I don't plan to do the half hour treatment with a long book like that again until 1) Hegel is completely finished, and 2) It's clear there's a lot of financial support for the time I'd be devoting to it. I've already done the half hour treatment with a shorter text - Epictetus' Enchiridion

@Markka161 5 жыл бұрын

All right I haven't followed you too closely just picked it up from somewhere. My comment was quickly written and the logic of it is like painting. Suddenly head doesn't come out of body but out of ass. Bringing out mortality as these half hours (or your living KZfaq account) easily make us feel they would come out forever. Ultimately it's about trying to create clearmindedness. It has to do much with thinking with strong feelings rather than making logical football game which is quite opposite to a way of Philosophy professor, I suppose! Last night I had very well structured dream and through that I realized human mind (how we make sense of things) is structured like poetry. If you fill the gaps and make story then you are just cheating. Dreams are not structured as stories but as poetry. Of course I'm simplifying a bit but wanted to make that point about dreams being poetic rather than stories (they can be articulated into being less primordial) and that's the most primordial truth and how we are connected. But of course you might hit me because I'm living through this understanding. This understanding is fighting against established manners and try to bring all people to be more intimate with each other. No wonder that philosophers were so gay in Ancient Greek!

@maryl6584 4 жыл бұрын

Awesome . The best

@GregoryBSadler 4 жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it

@Pascalierity 5 жыл бұрын

Pascal was such a polymath that it is quite possible that he was as productive as he was because he could not be satisfied with anything he accomplished and would be working on many ideas nearly simultaneously to greater or lesser extent depending on how long it took to figure out the most current obstacle. Diversions allow us to solve problems by NOT focusing on them directly, metaphorically putting them on the back burner while turning our attentions to more relaxing endeavors. And then Voila -- the solution occurs to him. Also, there is something truly humorous, some irony, about this passage from the Pensees. I've read at one place and another how sad it was he did not finish the work for which these notes were in preparation. But look at how many diversions have been derived from them as people speculated as to where the thoughts could lead. I predict that because he was so brilliant that there really is no limit as to what can yet be gleaned from the Pensees. So the result is that the speculations he yet provokes with them would be diversions beyond the idle. He knew he was dying. Could this be another of his gifts to us? I surmise it is.

@gabriels.i.780 5 жыл бұрын

As I read through the Pensées, I cherish the (actually, quite abundant) moments in which he fist-bumps Lacan.

@BakersDelightSam 5 жыл бұрын

I really enjoyed this video. Anytime a philosopher discusses distractions it peaks my interest. I wonder if philosophical thought is just a distraction or it is close to spending time with your own thoughts in a safe way. I am less unhappy (not more happy?) if I ponder life with a bit of a philosophical mindset, but not when I think of the hours spent in a career, relationships or hobby.

@GregoryBSadler 5 жыл бұрын

Whether philosophical thoughts are a distraction really depends on what you're doing with the thoughts, I suppose