Playing with Truth

• Introduction - etat present, terminology, de l'esprit geometrique and Port-Royal. Part 1 Language and order in the "Pensees": language in the "Pensees" - parole/mot, the tyranny of speech - dire/contredire, interpretation; ordre - ordonner, order and fragmentation, L532 - "le veritable ordre", ordre as dispositio, memoria, order, truth and language. Part 2 La condition de l'homme: inconstance - inconstance et bizarrerie, inconstant/constant, constance; ennui - ennui/neant, ennui and divertissement, ennui and the possibility of salvation; inquietude - the anxiety of man's fallen state, inquietude and curiosite, inquietude and continued spiritual endeavour; repos - pyrrhonism and stoicism - tranquilite, paix, human repos, spiritual repos; bonheur/felicite - sur la conversion du pecheur, false happiness, happiness and divertissement, spiritual happiness; justice - injustice, human justice, natural justice, political justice, les justes, divine justice, Christ as mediator. Part 3 Playing with truth: truth and play, verite, truth and corruption, raison des effets, figures and miracles.

`Hammond probably knows the Pensées better than anyone in England, and his use of Pascal's manuscript - his eye, for instance, for the significance of Pascal's erasures and rewritings - is particularly impressive ... his central claim ... is new and persuasive.'Times Literary Supplement