In the Pensées, 44, Blaise Pascal talks about imagination. Imagination, as it is deceptive, presents a danger for reason.
It is thus opposed to knowledge. It is misleading for science.
Thoughts, 44, Imagination
1. Imagination “mistress of error and falsity”
Imagination
“It is that dominant part of man, that mistress of error and falsity, and all the more deceitful because it is not always so, for it would be an infallible rule of truth, if it were infallible of falsehood.”
2. Danger that the imagination represents for the reason
“This superb power, enemy of reason, which likes to control and to dominate it.”
3. The process of the imagination to corrupt the reason passes by the feeling by making the senses suspend:
“It makes believe, doubt, deny the reason. It suspends the senses, it makes them feel.”
Short Bibliography of Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal was born in 1623 in Clermont-Ferrand and died in 1662. The Pensées are a work published posthumously in 1669, from fragments he left behind fragments he left behind.
