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Arts, History, Philosophy

(Philosophy): Voltaire

THE LIFE OF VOLTAIRE (1694-1778)

VOLTAIRE was the pen name of Francois-Marie Arouet, a prolific writer and philosopher whose vast oeuvre contained multiple literary forms including plays, poetry, novels, essays, historical and scientific works, over 21,000 letters and over 2,000 books and pamphlets. Many of his most popular prose works were in the form of swashbuckling, episodic, courtly romances. These were often written as polemics and contained scathing prefaces explaining the author’s motives.

Voltaire’s best-known work, Candide (1759), was constructed around a sustained and withering attack on the philosophy of Gottfried Leibniz and ironically satirises Leibniz’s particular brand of philosophical and moral optimism. Although regarded in some quarters as holding somewhat cynical views on human nature, Voltaire nonetheless believed that humans could find moral virtue through reason and that reason allied to observation of the natural world was sufficient to determine the existence of God.

Voltaire’s principal philosophical works are contained in his Dictionnaire Philosophique (“Philosophical Dictionary”), published in 1764, which was comprised of articles, essays and pamphlets attacking the French political establishment and in particular the Church. Among the many civil causes Voltaire advocated in his essays were the right to a fair trial, the freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and tolerance of other religions. He also sought to expose and denounce the hypocrisies and injustices he saw as inherent in the ancien régime, the social and political structure of France between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. The ancien regime, for Voltaire, was predicated on an imbalance of power, loaded firmly in favour of the clergy and noble aristocracy at the expense of the commoners and middle classes who were suppressed by crippling and corrupt systems of taxation. As the Church seemed to be not only complicit in this corruption and injustice but also a principal part of the state apparatus, the clergy naturally bore the brunt of Voltaire’s ire. Deeply opposed to organised religion, Voltaire was highly critical of the Church in Rome, and even held the view that the Bible was an outdated legal and moral reference guide, citing it was the work of man and not the inspired word of God.

There were, however, some curious inconsistencies in the radical positions that Voltaire chose to adopt. Capable of constructing impassioned and erudite arguments for the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in one essay, Voltaire would then reject the tenets of democracy for providing a voice to the ill-informed and ignorant masses in his next essay. Like Plato, Voltaire reviewed the role of the monarch in society from a position of modified absolutism – a system whereby the king or queen rules under the guidance of a group of appointed advisers who have the best concerns of the kingdom and its subjects at heart, for it is in the intertest of the monarch to ensure wealth and stability in society at large.

Voltaire’s oft-quoted assertion that “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him” has led to the misconception that he was an atheist. In fact, despite his opposition to the Church, Voltaire believed in God and built his own private chapel. The quote given is taken from one of Voltaire’s polemical poems, Epistle to the Author of the Book, The Three Imposters, and can be taken to mean that the central question of the existence of God is largely immaterial, as many civilisations have created gods to explain natural phenomena. As a follower of deism, Voltaire rejected the mysticism and strictures of religious teaching, believing that reason and nature provide the basis for spiritual beliefs: “It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason.”

Voltaire is best known for his memorable aphorisms. One of the most oft-cited quotations attributed to Voltaire about freedom of speech – “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” – is, however, totally apocryphal. It was actually written by the English writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall in her 1906 biography of Voltaire, The Friends of Voltaire.

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Arts, Philosophy

Care more about how people feel

COMMON FEELINGS

THE French writer and philosopher Voltaire told how Saladin, “the Conqueror of the East”, bequeathed his fortune to the poor, regardless of whether they be Muslim, Christian or otherwise.

His thinking was that we should care less about what people believe and more about what people feel.

Our expectations of the next life might differ. But while we are here, we all feel hunger, satisfaction, fear, comfort, loss, love and so on.

If you want to know whether you should treat a stranger as a brother or sister, ask if they miss anyone, if they love anyone.

If they ever cried at night; if joy makes them laugh.

Then, in sympathy with all the feelings we have in common, understand that we are not so very different after all.

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Arts, Culture, History, Philosophy

Profile vignette: Voltaire

THE LIFE OF VOLTAIRE

FRANCOIS MARIE AROUET was born in Paris, the son of a civil servant, Francois Arouet. Voltaire was educated at the principal Jesuit college in France, which he left at the age of 17. He was intended to enter a career as a lawyer, but the idea repelled him. His father became concerned at the dissipated life he was leading and permitted him to enter the service of the French ambassador to Holland. Unfortunately, the young man misbehaved there too, conducting an undiplomatic affair with a French Protestant in The Hague, so he was sent back home again.

His return to the lawyer’s office was short-lived. He wrote a notorious satire on a rival who won the poetry competition for an Academy prize. In 1716 he was suspected of satirising the regent, the Duc d’Orleans, and he was banished from Paris for several months. The following year he wrote a savage attack on the regent accusing him of a range of crimes, and this resulted in his imprisonment in the Bastille for a year.

In the Bastille, he wrote his tragedy Oedipus and assumed the pen name “Voltaire”. The play was performed in 1718 and it was a triumph. Voltaire’s next dramas were less successful. He devoted himself to a poem about Henri IV. Because it championed Protestantism and religious toleration, the authorities refused to allow its publication. Voltaire was not that easily defeated though; he had the poem printed in Rouen and smuggled into Paris.

By now Voltaire was a well-known and popular figure at court. He was denounced by the Chevalier de Rohan-Chabot as an upstart. Voltaire inevitably responded by circulating scathing epigrams about the Chevalier, who had Voltaire physically beaten up. Voltaire challenged the Chevalier and was again imprisoned. He was freed only if he agreed to leave France. He left for England in 1726.

In England, Voltaire encountered many interesting people including Alexander Pope, the Duchess of Marlborough and John Gay. He also immersed himself and soaked up English literature: Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, and the Restoration dramatists. He became interested in the philosophy of Locke and the science of Newton.

Allowed back into France in 1729, Voltaire behaved with more circumspection, trying not to offend courtiers and wisely investing in the government lottery, which led to his increasing wealth. The patronage of Madame de Pompadour procured him the illustrious post of official royal historian. A piece of ill-placed flattery by Pompadour made the queen jealous and Voltaire was once again forced to leave France. This time he travelled to the court of Frederick the Great. By 1750, he was in Berlin as the king’s chamberlain on a huge salary. But, once again, and in customary style, Voltaire caused offence by writing satirical criticisms and was ejected. He was stopped at Frankfurt by a representative of Frederick the Great, who demanded the return of a book. Voltaire characteristically retaliated by writing a malicious character sketch of Frederick, which was not published until Voltaire’s death.

In 1756–59, his pessimistic poem about the Lisbon earthquake appeared, Customs and the Spirit of Nations. The Lisbon earthquake was a great natural disaster in which earthquake, fire and tsunami followed one another in remorseless succession. Was this a demonstration that there was no presiding God looking after human welfare? Was the human race alone in the universe? Whatever the views expressed it was, in a sense, the dawn of humanism – and certainly a landmark in the Enlightenment. He then wrote his masterpiece, Candide, a satirical short story ridiculing the philosophy of Leibniz.

Then, in an almost natural order, the first of Voltaire’s anti-religious writings appeared. In 1762 the Protestant Jean Calas was falsely accused of murdering his son to stop him converting to Catholicism. The judicial killing roused Voltaire to establish the man’s innocence, and he made great efforts to rescue the surviving members of the Calas family from further persecution. This and similar efforts made on behalf of victims of French religious fanaticism won widespread admiration. He even set up a refuge for persecuted Protestants.

Voltaire was a friend of Rousseau – until Rousseau decided to throw his support behind the Swiss government. In 1778, when he was 83, Voltaire was given a “royal” welcome in Paris when he arrived to mount a production of his last tragedy, Irene. The excitement of this reception was too much for him, and he fell ill and died. After the Revolution, Voltaire’s body was buried in the Pantheon, recognised as one of the great figures of European culture.

RECORD: SUMMARY

Born 1694, died 1778

French author

. Propagated the view that saw the Lisbon earthquake as evidence that there was no presiding God looking after human welfare.

. Embodied the 18th century Enlightenment.

. Satirised aristocrats, kings and philosophers.

. Rebelled against religious intolerance and injustice.

. Championed and gave refuge to persecuted Protestants.

1718 – Oedipus

1723 – The League or Henry the Great

1738 – Elements of the Philosophy of Newton

1751 – The Age of Louis XIV

1759 – Candide

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