Belief, uncertainty, and commitment › What the heart knows

Pascal's references to the heart can sound like an instruction to trust feelings over arguments. His use is more complicated. In fragment 282 he distinguishes the grasp of first principles from the reasoning that proceeds from them. Reasoning depends on starting points that are not all established by another argument of the same kind.

The point concerns the structure of knowledge as Pascal understands it. If every argument required its starting points to be proved by a preceding argument, an account of knowledge would still need to explain how reasoning begins. Pascal uses the heart in describing our immediate grasp of such principles. His terminology therefore reaches beyond passing emotion or personal preference.

He also gives the heart a religious role. Fragment 278 describes faith as experiencing God through the heart, while fragment 279 calls faith a gift of God. These passages prevent us from treating the Wager's calculation as sufficient to produce saving faith. Pascal also assigns habit and religious practice a role in bringing someone toward belief. In fragment 245, reason and custom help prepare a person, while inspiration alone has a saving effect. A calculation about what would be advantageous and a religious orientation toward God are different things in his own text.

There remains a serious question: how should someone distinguish an alleged insight of the heart from prejudice or wishful thinking? Pointing out that reasoning has starting points does not validate every conviction described as immediate. Pascal's distinction identifies a problem for accounts of knowledge; it does not remove the need to examine particular claims.