Voltaire (1694 – 1778)

VOLTAIRE (1694 – 1778) Francois-Marie d'Arouet (who would then leave under the name Voltaire). Born on November 21, 1694, in Paris, France. Voltaire was the converse of being one of the most important philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment. The work that Voltaire produced during his lifetime varied so much that it is difficult to classify him as a philosopher in the traditional sense. In addition to philosophy, Voltaire also wrote plays, novels, historical pieces, poems, essays, and scientific texts. Voltaire was born into a middle-class family: his mother came from a noble family, his father was a petty treasury official and notary. At the age of seven, Voltaire's mother died, and Voltaire became close to his godfather, Chateauneuf, a freethinker who would have a profound influence on his life and teach young Voltaire about literature, deism, and to renounce superstition. From 1704 to 1711, Voltaire attended the Louis-le Grand college in Paris, where he received a classical education and was proficient in learning languages (while he aiready learned Greek and Latin when he was young, he later also became fluent in English, Spanish, and Italian). When he finished his studies, he had already decided about his desire to become a writer. However, his father wanted his son to become a lawyer, so a believing writer did not provide anything valuable to society, so Voltaire lied to his father about being an assistant lawyer while he wrote satirical poems. Eventually, Voltaire's father found and sent his son to law school, but Voitaire continued to pursue his passion, and he began to spin in intellectual circles. Voltaire's problem with French authority Throughout his life, Voltaire had a history of opoosing French authority and, as a result, suffered several imprisonments and exiles. In 1717, when he was still in his twenties. Voitairg was imprisoned for eleven months in the notorious Bastile prison for being accompanied by poems that damaged the reputation of the ruler for King Lous XV. Curing his stay in the Bastile, he wrote his first play, Oedipe, which became a success, and in 1718. He has taken the name "Voltaire" (which is a pun on words), and this is often considered a pcint in which he formally separates himself from his past. From 1726 to 1729, after offending a nobleman, Voltaire was forced to live in exile in England. While in England, Voltaire was introduced to the ideas of John Locke, Sir Isaac Newton, and the British constitutional monarchy, which en: to strengthen freedom of religion and freedom of speech. On his return to Paris, Voltaire wrote about himself. The experience and views of England and published philosophical letters on the English language in 1733. This ensued great debate from the French government and church, and Voltaire was once again forced to leave Paris. Voltaire lived in exile in the Northeastern of France for fifteen years with Emilie du Chatelet, her lover and partner. He continued to write works in science, history, fiction, and philosophy (especially in metaphysics, which focused on the validity of the Bible and the existence of God). Voltaire not only demanded freedom of religion and the separation of church and state; He had abandoned the religion altogether. When du Chatelet died. In 1749, Voltaire moved to Potsdam to work under the reign of Frederick the Great. Yet in 1753, Voltaire once again found himself in a major controversy when he attacked the inhabitants of the Berlin academy of sciences. Voltaire then spent a period of time traveling city to city; now, due to numerous prohibitions, he finally ended up near the Swiss border (here that he wrote the famous candidacy). At the age of 83, Vcltaire finally returned to Paris in 1778, where he received a heroic welcome. He died on May 30 of the same year. VOLTAIRE'S PHILOSOPHY Voltaire became heavily influenced by John Locke and the empirical skeptics who were taking place in England at the time. Voltaire was not only an outspoken critic of religion: he was also responsible for being kept away from Descartes' work and ridiculing forms of religious and humanitarian optimism. RELIGION Voltaire was a man who believed in religious freedom. Although he was not an atheist (in fact, he considered himself a devout believer), he opposed organized religion and Catholicism, and viewed the Bible as a metaphorical and man-created moral reference. Instead, he believed that the existence of God was not a matter of faith (and therefore, not based on a particular faith), but common sense. Voltaire famously once said, "if God does not exist, it is necessary to create him." POLITICS Voltaire viewed the French Monarchy, and its unfair balance, in a very negative light. According to Voltaire, the bourgeoisie was too small and ineffective; The aristocracy was too corrupt and parasitic; The common people are too ignorant and believe in superstition; And the church's only use is to use its religious taxes to create a strong enough basis against the monarchy. Voltaire believed that he saw a constitutional monarchy in England as the ideal form of government. He did not believe in democracy (claiming to be the "folly of society") and believed that with the help of philosophers, an enlightened king could increase the wealth and power of France (which, he said, was in the best interest of the king). HEDONISM Voltaire's view of freedom, and indeed all of his philosophies, was based on hedonistic morality. This is often expressed in Voltaire's poems, which feature the moral freedom gained through sexual freedom. Voltaire's writings present morality as rooted in a positive assessment of personal pleasure. His idea of ethics is based on maximizing pleasure while reducing pain. His hedonistic point of view was even translated into religious criticism; He often attacked Catholic teachings in terms of moral rules of sexual urging, celibacy of priests, and form abnegation. SKEPTICISM Unlike the words of other philosophers such as Descartes (whose work Voltaire hated), Voltaire's entire philosophy was based on skepticism. According to Voltaire, other philosophers who lix Descartes were "philosophical romanciers", and he saw no point in creating systematic stories to explain things in a kind of coherent: the kind of philosophy, according to Voltaire, is skepticism not philosophy at all, but fiction. Voltaire stated that the role of a philosopher is to understand that sometimes no explanation is the most philosophical explanation. Philosophers must free people from their irrational dogmatic and legal principles. Voltaire used doubt as a way to defend his ideology. freedom, and declaring that there is no such thing as authority that is holy enough to be immune from criticism. There was constant hostility in Voltaire's work, whether in his views on the monarchy, religion or society. He used wit and sarcasm to weaken his philosophical position throughout his career. For example, his most famous work. Candide. When he became a follower of the religion of Gottfried Leibniz. METAPHYSICS Voltaire stated that science, largely due to the significant advances of Sir Isaac Newton (of whom Voltaire was a fanatical supporter), was moving away from metaphysics. Voltaire argued that metaphysics should be eliminated from science entirely, and indeed it is. He was the one who supported this opinion the most.