Values Quotes – Blaise Pascal on Reason

Todays quote is from Blaise Pascal, the famous French mathematician from the 1600s. He was also a physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher.

Pascal made the following profound statement:
“The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.”

Pascal was clearly more than a brilliant mathematician. He understood the limitations of human thought.

As a differentiating value, Reason means capacity for rational thought or inference. It also means having good sense and sound judgment.

When I think about “thinking” and the concept of acquiring knowledge, I consider the statement attributed to the U.S. Commissioner of Patents in 1899, where he said: “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” Regardless whether he actually made this statement or not (that’s not the point here), we all can suffer from this kind of thinking.  I find that when we think we’re getting close to understanding a topic, our eyes are suddenly opened to even more portals of knowledge.

In other words, it’s endless. It’s beyond reason.

Now, Pascal wasn’t suggesting we should stop learning, thinking, and growing. On the contrary, expanding our capacity for rational thought is an integral part of living a meaningful life.

However, we do need to recognize our limits. Or at least that we possess them.  Here I think a quote from Socrates is well applied: “the more you know, the more you know you don’t know.” Now, that makes good sense to me.

 

Today’s value was selected from the “Effectiveness-Influence” category, based on the e-book Developing Your Differentiating Values.