St. Augustine’s Press

"Infini Rien"

Pascal's Wager and the Human Paradox

Armour, Leslie

The wager fragment in Pascal’s Penseés opens with the phrase “infini rien” – “infinity nothing” – which is meant to describe the human condition. Pascal was reacting to the notion that we seem to be able to know much about the world but less about ourselves. His famous wager – betting in favor of God’s existence, since the rewards for being right are infinitely good, but the loss for being wrong are utterly trivial – is one of the most celebrated and disputed in the history of philosophy.