Moriarty, Michael. Review of Thomas Parker's VIOLITION, RHETORIC AND EMOTION IN THE WORK OF PASCAL. NDPR (January 2009).

Parker, Thomas. Volition, Rhetoric, and Emotion in the Work of Pascal. London: Routledge, 2008. Thomas Parker rightly identifies the will as an absolutely central concept in the work of Pascal, and one deserving a specific study. Moreover, he seeks, very sensibly, to link Pascal's concept of the will with his strategy of persuasion. It is good to see a philosophical study of Pascal from the English-speaking world, in which his work, apart from the Wager, is often ignored by philosophers. Parker's work, moreover, draws on the best French-language scholarship on Pascal -- Philippe Sellier, Gérard Ferreyrolles, Jean Mesnard, Hélène Michon, Vincent Carraud are all cited -- as well as on English-language sources. It seeks to position Pascal's discourse of the will with respect to the seventeenth-century intellectual context and to investigate the relation between the will and knowledge, and between the will and eloquence. This is a promising basic framework. . . . Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=15085.