/lit/ - Literature

He's generally recognized as a proto-existentialist for being one of the first philosophers to approach things from the point of view of existence instead of systemizing things. Pascal's wager is a good example of this, where a lot of new atheists think he is making a metaphysical claim when it's an argument for someone making a personal, existential decision, regardless of if it's ultimately true or not (though Pascal knew Christ to be True). The Pensées were initially notes for a work to be called something along the lines of "Apology of the Christian Faith", and while they are only brief notes they are still appreciated as apologetics due to the existential point of view and his great wisdm. In my opinion this makes it even more relevant these days in an era of nihilism and post-modernism.

He's more in line with Montaigne than Descartes and Spinoza, a lot of excerpts from Pensées are paraphrases of Montaigne, and many of them are direct counterarguments to Montaigne. This makes it difficult to know on which points he did agree with Montaigne since he might as well just have written them down to remind himself to write a counter argument.

If you have the pleasure of reading the original French I suggest the Michel Le Guern edition.