Suchergebnisse

Abstract
In the Infini-Rien fragment of his Pensées, Blaise Pascal develops an argument for the rationality of faith in God, which posthumously became known as Pascal's Wager and at the same time represents a cornerstone of modern probability theory. While this betting argument has been the subject of much philosophical investigation, the contribution of this paper lies in the following: On the one hand, the bet is reconstructed in its basic features as well as its structure with the help of modern decision and probability theory tools. Thus, it is shown that Pascal's betting argument, in distinction to Hacking 1972 for instance, has the form of an a fortiori argument. On the other hand, as far as objections to Pascal's argument are concerned, it is true that the premises have often been called into doubt, more or less convincingly. On the other hand, this article is dedicated to the question, often emphatically – especially in Hacking 1972 – and perhaps carelessly affirmed in Pascal research, whether Pascal's premises imply his conclusion at all.

The interconnectedness of the world's civilizations as a consequent of the growing digitalization and globalization since the early 21st century requires new foreign policy strategies. On the one hand, the crisis and conflicts in foreign countries and world regions increasingly affect national politics, but on the other hand, the globalization opens economic and demographic opportunities, like never before. The German foreign policy tries to take advantage of those opportunities and designed some initiatives of which I want to introduce a compelling one: "PASCH-Schools: Partners for the future".