“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire

“Voltaire left France a poet, and returned a sage.” — Lord Morley

Voltaire’s name derives from an anagram of Arovet Li and Le Jeune. In a letter to Rosseau he explained how unhappy he was carrying his real name Francois-Marie Arouet. He used multiple pen names, but today he ist known to everyone as Voltaire.

Voltaire joined the ranks of philosophers late in life. It was only in 1934 at the age of forty, when he published the Letters on the English, a series of essays recounting his experiences living in England. It was only then that his career as a philosopher turned.

Voltaire was born rather wealthy and privileged. His family was well established within the elite society in France. His father was a public official, and his mother an aristocratic wife. He was born as the fourth of five children.

He received a first-class education. He was educated by Jesuits early in life, at the prestiguous College Louis Le Grand in Paris. His father was active in the literary culture in Paris. His introduction to modern letters came through his father, who was active in the literary culture in Paris. Voltaire wanted to be a playwright but his father opposed it and wanted for him to work in a public office. At first, Voltaire obliged and tried to fulfill his father’s wish. He was a law student, later a lawyer’s apprentice, and still later secretary to a French diplomat.

He strived to be an independent man of letters. He retreated into libertine sociability of Paris and established himself as a popular figure through his wit and popularity. He was able to make some artfully beautiful composed writings. He made a couple of well-made contacts and was even successful as an investor. Eventually Oedipe, a tragedy that first performed in 1718, elevated him to the elite literary circle.

His early influence and mentor Lord Bolingbrake was an aristocrat, freethinker and Jacobite, who lived in exile in France. Voltaire paid him many visits at his estate. And it was probably there that he was first introduced to natural philosophy, including John Locke and English Newtonians.

Voltaire was accused of defamation and subsequently left Paris for England in 1926. It was there that he build a new identity. He was influenced by Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, which had political criticism embedded in its work. He met Newtonians and Newton’s sister, who would tell him the myth of Newton’s apple analogy. Voltaire did not meet Newton himself until his death. During his time in England, he also visited Holland. He became a very astute student of English natural philosophy.

While the quote was probably exaggerated, he indeed transformed as a writer. His identity as a poet and philosopher never separated. Through speculation and his father’s inheritance, he had reached financial independence. That freed him from the patronage system. Unlike other writers he did not need to appeal to rich patrons for his work.

When Voltaire returned from England in 1629, he was banned from the Royal Court. Only three years later, after slowly regaining his public stature through his writings, he was again residing at the Royal Court.

His relationship with Émilie du Châtelet turned out to be of great benefit to Voltaire. Du Châtelet, too, had received a first class education. She had translated Newton’s Principia Mathematica into French. Between 1734 and 1749, Voltaire spend most of his time at her family estate. The influence that the two had on each other is undeniable. Montesquieu and Swift were the other two great influences for Voltaire from the Lettres philosophique.

When Voltaire published without official permission from the royal censors, he turned into an intellectual outlaw. The family estate of du Châtelet turned into a safe haven for Voltaire and a platform for his subsequent writings. He did not really enjoy being an outlaw but decided to endorse his role.

As the legitimacy of Newtonian science was under siege in France, Voltaire positioned himself in support of Newton. He used Newtonian science as a vehicle for transformation. His Elements de la Philosophie de Newton was written in a way to make Newton accessible to ignorant Frenchman. Only with the final version of Elements in 1750 occured a change in perception from backward Cartesians to enlightened Newtonians.

He briefly rehabilitated his status as an outlaw when he reestablished his old identity in the Old Regime. He was a Royal Historiographer of France. He received an invitation to join the court of the young Frederick the Great. But his dispute with Pierre Louis Maupertuis about Leipnizian rationalism and metaphysics made him a rebel yet again.

His biggest contribution was his social criticism and reformist political action. He defended Diderot’s Encyclopédie and opposed the Jesuits. His most famous work, Candide, published in 1759, a French satire was yet to arrive.

A brief summary of the themes of Voltaire’s Candide

“This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.” — Voltaire This is a presentation from my undergraduate years at the London School of Economics. I thought maybe someone could use it, in whatever way. Beware academic language.

Lisbon Earthquake of 1755

The Battle of Kolin — The disastrous defeat of Frederick the Great by the Austrians, caused by Frederick’s overconfidence. Seven Years War in 1754

Themes The satire evolves around the following two themes:

Satirization and ridicule of the philosophy of Optimism espoused by Leibniz and Pope.

Satirization of organized religion such as the institution of the Church.

Satire on Optimism

Parody of idle philosophers

Pangloss’s school of thought named metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology

Candide’s experience in war and army contradict teaching of Pangloss

Mockery of blind optimism

“This is the best of all possible worlds”

Pangloss responds to Jacques’s death by asserting that the bay outside Lisbon had been formed “expressly for this Anabaptist to drown in.” This argument is a parody of the complacent reasoning of optimistic philosophers.

At one point, when Candide is knocked down by rubble and begs Pangloss to bring him wine and oil, Pangloss ignores Candide’s request and rambles on about the causes and ultimate purpose of the earthquake

The old woman’s story serves a dual purpose. The catalogue of her sufferings illustrates a vast array of human evils that contradict Pangloss’s optimistic view of the world. Direct experience dictates her worldview, and her pragmatism lends her more wisdom and credibility than any of her travel companions. Voltaire reiterates the importance of actual, verifiable evidence and the limited value of judgments based on empty philosophical rhetoric

Like Pangloss’s unqualified optimism, Martin’s unqualified pessimism keeps him from taking active steps to improve the world.

“Well, my dear Pangloss, Candide said to him, now that you have been hanged, dissected, beaten to a pulp, and sentenced to the galleys, do you still think everything is for the best in this world? —I am still of my first opinion, replied Pangloss; for after all I am a philosopher, and it would not be right for me to recant since Leibniz could not possibly be wrong, and besides pre- established harmony is the finest notion in the world.” The meal was certainly a sad affair, and the guests wept as they ate; but Pangloss consoled them with the assurance that things could not be otherwise: “For all this,” said he, “is a manifestation of the rightness of things, since if there is a volcano at Lisbon it could not be anywhere else. For it is impossible for things not to be where they are, because everything is for the best.” Satire on Organized Religion

Religious hypocrisy, i.e. Dutch orator cares more about his theological doctrine than helping people.

Exaggeration to show the irrationality of certain beliefs, or any belief carried out to an extreme degree.

Mockery of aristocratic belief in natural superiority by birth. For example, Baron’s sister refuses to marry Candide’s father because he has only 71 quarterings.

Absurd reaction to earthquake

”It had been decided by the University of Coimbra, that the burning of a few people alive by a slow fire, and with great ceremony, is an infallible secret to hinder the earth from quaking”

“No, my sister shall marry none but a baron of the Holy Roman Empire.”

Cunégonde threw herself at his feet and bathed them with her tears, but the Baron was inflexible. “You unspeakable ass!” exclaimed Candide. “I have taken you from the galleys and paid your ransom, and I have paid your sister’s, too. I found her washing dishes, and she’s as ugly as a witch. Yet when I have the decency to make her my wife, you still pretend to raise objections.”

Those of us who work in the factories and happen to catch a finger in the grindstone have a hand chopped off; if we try to escape, they cut off one leg. Both accidents happened to me. That’s the price of your eating sugar in Europe…The Dutch fetishes, who converted me, tell me every Sunday that we are all children of Adam, black and white alike. I am no geneologist; but if these preachers speak the truth, we must all be cousins. Now, you will surely agree that relations could not be treated more horribly.

Practical over contemplative action

The characters finally realize their desires, but misery still reigns in the world outside their garden.

Candide and his friends are wealthy and secure—in a perfect position to try to change the world for the better. Yet, rather than engaging the world in an attempt to improve it, they withdraw from it in an attempt to escape their own petty unhappiness.