Alexandre Koyré and Blaise Pascal

Alexandre Koyre’s views on Pascal have been published twice, in the proceedings of the “colloque de Royaumont”, ed. de Minuit, 1956, and in the Etudes d’histoire de la pensee scientifique. His speech in Royaumont is still famous, as he disturbed the French audience by questioning the genius of Pascal as a mathematician and the reality of the celebrated Rouen experiments, two largely admitted ideas in France. However, by this speech, he opened a new field, which had never clearly appeared before: the important part of the “art de persuader” in Pascal’s scientific works.