Voltaire
For Voltaire, fanaticism and superstition must be fought with reason and tolerance – and no one should pretend this is the best of all possible worlds.
Placement
Champion of the Enlightenment against fanaticism; in “Candide” he mocked Leibniz’s optimism.
Key ideas
- Tolerance
- “Écrasez l’infâme”
- Satire of optimism
Influence
Influenced by 6
Confucius
influenced by ✓
Voltaire’s Essay on Manners (1756), which opens with China, presented Confucius as a sage who taught morality without revelation or miracles. Voltaire, Essai sur les mœurs et l’esprit des nations (1756); Dictionnaire philosophique (1764), “De la Chine”; B. Guy, The French Image of China before and after Voltaire (1963)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Confucius › traditionally 551–479 BCE
John Locke
influenced by ✓
In the Philosophical Letters (1734) Voltaire praised Locke’s modest ‘history of the soul’ and his suggestion that God could give matter the power of thought. Voltaire, Lettres philosophiques (1734), “Sur M. Locke”; SEP “Voltaire”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
John Locke › 1632–1704
Isaac Newton
influenced by ✓
In the Philosophical Letters (1734) Voltaire set Newton’s attraction against Descartes’ vortices and introduced Newtonian physics to a French public. Voltaire, Lettres philosophiques (1734); SEP “Voltaire”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Isaac Newton › 1643–1727
Pierre Bayle
influenced by ✓
Voltaire took up Bayle’s critical method against dogma, and in the Poem on the Lisbon Disaster (1756) invoked Bayle, who ‘teaches doubt’, against philosophical optimism. Voltaire, Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne (1756); SEP “Pierre Bayle”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Pierre Bayle › 1647–1706
Émilie du Châtelet influenced
influenced by
Voltaire wrote his Elements of Newton’s Philosophy (1738) at Cirey with Du Châtelet’s help and acknowledged her in its dedication and frontispiece. Voltaire, Éléments de la philosophie de Newton (1738); SEP “Émilie Du Châtelet”
Evidence: AI draft
influenced ✓
At Cirey, where she lived with Voltaire from 1734, Du Châtelet worked with him on Newton; for the Academy’s prize on fire (1738) she wrote her own essay. É. Du Châtelet, Dissertation sur la nature et la propagation du feu (1739; rev. 1744); Voltaire, Essai sur la nature du feu (1739); SEP “Émilie Du Châtelet”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Émilie du Châtelet › 1706–1749
Cesare Beccaria
influenced by
Voltaire’s Commentary on the Book On Crimes and Punishments (1766) took up Beccaria’s case against torture and cruel penalties and applied it to French criminal justice. Voltaire, Commentaire sur le livre Des délits et des peines (1766); C. Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene (1764)
Evidence: AI draft
Cesare Beccaria › 1738–1794
Influenced 1
Friedrich Nietzsche
influenced ✓
Nietzsche dedicated Human, All Too Human (1878) to Voltaire’s memory on the centenary of his death, marking his turn to free-spirited critique in an Enlightenment vein. F. Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches (1878), dedication; SEP “Friedrich Nietzsche”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Friedrich Nietzsche › 1844–1900
Criticism
Criticized by 1
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
criticised by
Rousseau answered Voltaire’s Lisbon poem by defending Providence: the city’s people, not nature, had crowded twenty thousand tall houses together (Letter to Voltaire, 18 August 1756). J.-J. Rousseau, Lettre à Voltaire sur la Providence, 18 Aug. 1756; Voltaire, Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne (1756)
Evidence: AI draft
Jean-Jacques Rousseau › 1712–1778
Criticizes 2
Blaise Pascal
criticised
In the 25th of his Philosophical Letters (1734) Voltaire took the side of humanity ‘against that sublime misanthrope’ Pascal, rejecting his picture of human wretchedness and the wager. Voltaire, Lettres philosophiques (1734), Letter XXV, “Sur les Pensées de M. Pascal”
Evidence: AI draft
Blaise Pascal › 1623–1662
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
criticised
Voltaire mocked Leibnizian optimism through Pangloss, for whom all is for the best in the best of possible worlds (Candide, 1759; Poem on the Lisbon Disaster, 1756). Voltaire, Candide, ou l’Optimisme (1759); Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne (1756)
Evidence: AI draft
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz › 1646–1716
Works
Praise of England, Locke and Newton – and a letter against Pascal.
A satire on “the best of all possible worlds”.
Position
Voltaire was less a systematic philosopher than the great campaigner of the Enlightenment. His Philosophical Letters held up English liberty, Locke’s empiricism and Newton’s science as models for France. He attacked religious fanaticism, superstition and the power of the Church – “crush the infamous thing” – and fought publicly for victims of injustice such as Jean Calas. He was not an atheist but a deist who saw in the order of nature a reasonable creator. In Candide he mocked Leibniz’s claim that this is the best of all possible worlds, in the light of the Lisbon earthquake. With satire and clear prose he made tolerance a public cause. Yet his writings also contain antisemitic passages, for instance in the Philosophical Dictionary, and he held that the human races had separate origins (polygenism).
Life & context
François-Marie Arouet, born in Paris in 1694, took the name Voltaire as a writer. Twice imprisoned in the Bastille, he spent 1726–1728 in England. He lived for years with Émilie du Châtelet at Cirey, then at the court of Frederick the Great in Potsdam. From 1759 his estate at Ferney near Geneva became a centre of the European Enlightenment. He died in Paris in 1778.
Further main works
- Elements of the Philosophy of Newton (1738)
- Treatise on Tolerance (1763)
- Philosophical Dictionary (1764)
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