Voltaire

Wherein lies the difference between two islands? What is the difference between the English and French philosophy, or more precisely the philosophy of Paris, sometimes compared to an island: the island of Paris? If I may stereotype, the Englishman, English philosopher, is somewhat closed: he ignores, does not pay attention to a statement, beyond a preliminary scan, on the grounds of its being patently false, blatantly false, obviously false, or else being unclear, or nonsense: unintelligible, a string of words with (...) no meaning. The French, or an exported strand, attempts to increase one’s receptivity by clever folk saying things which the English are disposed to dismiss, when to go beyond some sensible objections proves to be valuable. French philosophy thereby increases one’s receptivity, brings one closer to that sensitive character, the artist. This paper can be taken as a kind of anthropology, contrasting philosophy in two societies, but given its conclusion it brings us to anthropology of art and is not anthropology of art the most difficult? Why do some societies leave behind an art easy to enjoy or marvel at and others do not? In the latter case, is the artist, with his capacity to give happiness, frightened to do so? One must be careful, for there are other hypotheses. (Scrape into Voltaire level?!). (shrink)

This is a document summarizing my contributions to understand how Internet technology has affected our culture, with material on academic culture and on comedy and more. It is useful for anyone interested in whether there has been improvement since Voltaire as a philosophical cultural commentator. I suspect Voltaire is considerably better!

In this philosophical satire, Candide wanders through the landscapes of contemporary technology—cloud infrastructures, Silicon Valley, Davos, and quantum laboratories—asking naïve yet penetrating questions about artificial intelligence, optimization, and the meaning of human existence. Blending Voltairean irony with reflections on AGI, data religion, and algorithmic servitude, the tale explores whether machines can think for us, whether optimization can replace purpose, and whether humanity’s last dignity lies in its imperfect creativity. A mirror held to the age of AI, it celebrates the insolent (...) joy of error and the useless beauty that no algorithm can predict. (shrink)

This chapter explores the emergence of anthropology as a field of inquiry in the eighteenth century, with attention paid to the creation of cultural anthropology alongside the development of a natural history of mankind. This latter set of investigations gradually became more specialized as a physical investigation into human variation such that by the end of the century, physical anthropology had created the scaffolding for racial pseudoscience. The discussion traces how key German thinkers—such as Leibniz, Schlözer, Herder, and Kant—contributed to (...) the evolution of these two investigatory programmes. Enlightenment thought influenced emerging ideas on human classification, with figures like Linnaeus and Buffon shaping German approaches to biological taxonomies, and Scottish historians impacting German notions of human historical development and progress. The study contrasts the centrality of language for Leibniz and Herder’s work to understand national character and identity with the approach taken by theorists focused instead on the natural history of the species. Kant is positioned as a figure with interests in both fields of investigation, given his many decades devoted to teaching and writing about humans as both a natural and moral species. (shrink)

One of the classical and central problems in philosophy is why choose a life dedicated to knowledge over a life of ignorance that can bring happiness? While there is no central and widely accepted answer to this question, a fine one comes from Voltaire’s story of The Good Brahmin. It is this paper’s objective to provide and introduce the story to many, what I believe its meaning is, and how this can tie into Lessing’s famous polemic about the search for (...) truth and not the truth itself. (shrink)

Artikkeli tarkastelee Émilie du Châtelet’n vuonna 1737 kirjoittamaa ja pitkään unohduksissa ollutta käsikirjoitusta Vapaudesta (Sur/De la liberté), jonka Voltaire lähetti Preussin kruununprinssi Fredrikille omissa nimissään. Artikkeli rekonstruoi tekstin syntyhistorian, sen filosofiset ja poliittiset kontekstit sekä analysoivat sen tahdonvapauskäsitystä suhteessa aikakauden keskeisiin ajattelijoihin, kuten Christian Wolffiin, Leibniziin, Locke’en ja Samuel Clarkeen. Teksti puolustaa tahdon ja tekojen vapautta viittä argumenttia vastaan, mutta ei sitoudu yksiselitteisesti kompatibilistiseen tai libertarianistiseen kantaan. Kirjoittajat osoittavat, että du Châtelet’n ajattelu heijastelee erityisesti Wolffin intellektualistista tahdonvapausoppia, mutta myös hänen (...) pyrkimystään välttää pietistien kritisoimaa ennalta säädetyn harmonian oppia. Vapaudesta näyttäytyy näin filosofisesti rikkaana ja historiallisesti merkittävänä tekstinä, jonka unohtuminen liittyy sekä sen monimutkaiseen syntyprosessiin että du Châtelet’n näkymättömyyteen Voltairen varjossa. Artikkeli tuo esiin tekstin uudelleenlöytämisen merkityksen sekä sen potentiaalin rikastuttaa käsitystämme 1700-luvun valistusfilosofiasta ja naisten roolista sen muovaajina. (shrink)

This essay argues that the concept of ‘racial capitalism’ can help us understand the connections between seemingly disparate parts of Voltaire’s extensive corpus of work. It contends that even though the Enlightenment’s racial politics abounded with contradictions and ambivalences, Voltaire stood out from his contemporaries. While the connections between his polygenism – the theory that humans of different races were created separately – and material investments in colonial commerce have long been debated by radical historians, this essay suggests that Voltaire’s (...) views about race’s relationship to labour were transformed by France’s colonial losses during the Seven Years’ War. (shrink)

There is a growing consensus that Emilie Du Châtelet’s challenging essay “On Freedom” defends compatibilism. I offer an alternative, libertarian reading of the essay. I lay out the prima facie textual evidence for such a reading. I also explain how apparently compatibilist remarks in “On Freedom” can be read as aspects of a sophisticated type of libertarianism that rejects blind or arbitrary choice. To this end, I consider the historical context of Du Châtelet’s essay, and especially the dialectic between various (...) strands of eighteenth-century libertarianism and compatibilism. (shrink)

This article sets forth Voltaire’s philosophy of liberty. Contrary to generally accepted readings, which take Voltaire at face value rather than considering the environment in which he wrote, Voltaire had a clear normative political thought. He was an early proponent of rule of law, ordered liberty, freedom of conscience and expression, and the right to prudent rebellion against tyranny. At the root of his political theory lay a rejection of slavery, and hence of all forms of subjugation.

The history of Christianity was a prevalent subject among 18th century philosophers. This article presents a historical perspective of the relationship between Christianity and power based on a comparative analysis of the ideas of Voltaire and Rousseau. Bibliographic research was undertaken using a philosophical approach to their works. This study examines Voltaire’s inquiry into Jesus Christ as a historical figure and a“genealogy” of Christianity in three of his works: Tumbeau du fanatisme(1736), Traité sur la tolérance(1763), and Catéchisme de l'honnête homme (...) (1763). Regarding Rousseau, this study interprets his historical approach to the connections between Christianity and politics based on the following works: Sur la Réponse qui a été faite à son Discours(1751), the chapter entitled “Civil Religion” in Du Contract social(1762), and Lettres écrites de la montagne(1764). Not only do the findings of this inquiry reveal the similarities and differences between the thoughts of Voltaire and Rousseau and the historical tensions between Christianity and power, the findings also point toward a fundamental defense of a secular state. (shrink)

Voltaire has presented in his Letters on the English different themes, from religious ethics, literacy, politics, to dramas and science. The letters present us a comparison between England and France. In this parallel we shall present how Voltaire was concerned in evaluate a high standard of taste and refinements. This paper will review some of the last letters of those, which testify about this criterion of taste as a modern point of view. We shall present in Voltaire the eminence of (...) modernity in taste, refinements and on liberty of enjoying the ecstasies of a cosmopolitan life fulfilled with entertainments and luxury. We shall present how Voltaire fought against barbarism in benefit of civilization and some how against religiosity in benefit of an ethic hedonism. (shrink)

The article starts from the Lisbon earthquake as a paradigm of the mo­dern meaning of catastrophe and it analyzes the philosophical writings on the Portuguese disaster by Voltaire, Rousseau and Kant. The earthquake that destroyed the city of Lisbon, and several thousand of its inhabitants, shook the Age of enlightenment and affected the best minds in Europe. Sin­ce then, modern conceptions of evil were developed in the attempt to stop bla­ming God for the state of the world, and to take (...) responsibility for it on our own, as testifies the meditation on the ruins of Volney . Hegel, in his lessons on the philosophy of history, will develop the thought on the con­sequences of the catastrophe in dialectic key: the advancement of his­to­ry consists in building from the ruins. (shrink)

At present the basic intellectual aim of academic inquiry is to improve knowledge. Much of the structure, the whole character, of academic inquiry, in universities all over the world, is shaped by the adoption of this as the basic intellectual aim. But, judged from the standpoint of making a contribution to human welfare, academic inquiry of this type is damagingly irrational. Three of four of the most elementary rules of rational problem-solving are violated. A revolution in the aims and methods (...) of academic in-quiry is needed so that the basic aim becomes to promote wisdom, conceived of as the capacity to realize what is of value, for oneself and others, thus including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. This urgently needed revolution would affect every branch and aspect of the academic enterprise. (shrink)

Scholars have associated the character of Pangloss in Voltaire’s Candide variously with the ideas of Gottfried Leibniz, Alexander Pope, and Christian Wolff. With them he is associated, but on whom is he modeled? Pangloss is the image of a French popularizer of science celebrated in his day but little noticed in ours: Noël Antoine Pluche (1688-1761), the author of a highly popular work, Le Spectacle de la Nature.

This volume discusses the ideas of six leading thinkers of the French Enlightenment: Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Holbach, and Condorcet. A general introduction surveys the political theories of the Enlightenment, setting them in the context of the political realities of 18th-century France. The first book of its kind on the subject, Philosophers and Pamphleteers brings a welcome, new perspective to the study of French political thought during a fascinating historical era.