@ARTICLE{Kawalec_Paweł_Against_2023,
 author={Kawalec, Paweł},
 number={No 4},
 pages={235-250},
 journal={Przegląd Filozoficzny. Nowa Seria},
 howpublished={online},
 year={2023},
 publisher={Komitet Nauk Filozoficznych PAN},
 publisher={Wydział Filozofii Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego},
 abstract={The popular reading of Pascal’s Wager in contemporary analytical philosophy is predominantly influenced by the rational reconstruction proposed by Ian Hacking. It separates, however, one fragment of the text – the so-called mathematical wager – from the integral whole, entitled in Pascal’s four-page manuscript Infini rien. I argue that Hacking’s reconstruction leads to a significant distortion of Pascal’s original idea. We should note that Pascal used a paraphrase that can be found in Antoine Sirmond’s earlier text not with the intention of creating a valid and conclusive argument – i.e. constructed more geometrico – which predominates in Hacking’s reconstruction of Pascal’s text, but rather he used it instrumentally to bring to the fore the real obstacles which arise when libertines contemplate adopting faith. The wager points out that the adoption of faith and pious life is disrupted by passions and self-love. The acceptance of Hacking’s reconstruction blurs therefore the real intention of Pascal and imposes inconsistency on his thought, as Henri de Villars correctly pointed out. My paper challenges the interpretation proposed by Hacking by pointing out that it undermines the intentions expressed in Infini rien. This critique does not undermine the legitimacy of either interpretation of the wager, but indicates that they are different and must be analyzed separately. All the same, the historically correct understanding should be based on a literal reading of the entire text of Infini rien, even though the pure ‘Pascalian Wager’ (or as it should be named more accurately, ‘the Sirmondian Wager’) can be treated as an argument isolated from the historical whole. One way or the other, it adds an interesting gloss to numerous arguments about God’s existence.},
 title={Against the Rational Reconstruction of Pascal’s Wager},
 type={Artykuł},
 URL={http://journals.pan.pl/Content/134637/PDF/2023-04-PFIL-16.pdf},
 doi={10.24425/pfns.2023.148658},
 keywords={context of justification, geometry of hazard, I. Hacking, „Infini rien”},
}