Nov 21, · In his “Essay on Epic Poetry,” Voltaire wrote that Newton “had the first thought of his System of Gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree.” Voltaire wasn’t the West Jefferson Boulevard Los Angeles, CA , USA Hornby St #, Vancouver BC V6Z 2E6, Canada Voltaire broke from the tradition of narrating diplomatic and military events, and emphasized customs, social history, and achievements in the arts and sciences. The Essay traced the progress of world civilization in a universal context, thereby rejecting both nationalism and the traditional Christian frame of reference. Voltaire was also the
Voltaire (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
At the center of his work was a new conception of philosophy and the philosopher that in several crucial respects influenced the modern concept of each.
Yet in other ways Voltaire was not a philosopher at all in the modern sense of the term. He wrote as many plays, voltaire essay, stories, and poems as patently philosophical tracts, and he in fact directed many of his critical writings against the philosophical pretensions of recognized philosophers such as Leibniz, Malebranche, and Descartes.
He was, however, a vigorous defender of a conception of natural science that served in his voltaire essay as the antidote to vain and fruitless philosophical investigation. Voltaire essay clarifying this new distinction between science and philosophy, and especially in fighting vigorously for it in public campaigns directed against the perceived enemies of fanaticism and superstition, Voltaire pointed modern philosophy down several paths that it subsequently followed.
Voltaire only began to identify himself with philosophy and the philosophe identity during middle age. His work Lettres philosophiquespublished in when he was forty years old, was the key turning point in this transformation. His early orientation toward literature and libertine sociability, however, shaped his philosophical identity in crucial ways.
The young François-Marie acquired from his parents the benefits of prosperity and political favor, and from the Jesuits at the prestigious Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris he also acquired a first-class education. François-Marie also acquired an introduction to modern letters from his father who was active in the literary culture of the period both in Paris and at the royal court of Versailles.
But in each case, he ended up abandoning his posts, sometimes amidst scandal, voltaire essay. Escaping voltaire essay the burdens of voltaire essay public obligations, Voltaire would retreat into the libertine sociability of Paris. It was here in the s, during the culturally vibrant period of the Regency government between the reigns of Louis XIV and XV —that Voltaire established one dimension of his identity.
His wit and congeniality were legendary even as a youth, so he had few difficulties establishing himself as a popular figure in Regency literary circles. He also learned how to play the patronage game so important to those with writerly voltaire essay. His literary debut occurred in with the publication of his Oedipea reworking of the ancient tragedy that evoked the French classicism of Racine and Corneille.
Its published title page also announced the new pen name that Voltaire would ever after deploy. During the Regency, Voltaire circulated widely in elite circles such as those that congregated voltaire essay Sceaux, but he also cultivated more illicit and libertine sociability as well. Philosophy was also a part of this mix, and during the Regency the young Voltaire was especially shaped by his contacts with the English aristocrat, freethinker,and Jacobite Lord Bolingbroke.
Yet even if Voltaire was introduced to English philosophy in this way, its influence on his thought was most shaped by his brief exile in England between — The occasion for his departure was an affair of honor, voltaire essay. A very voltaire essay aristocrat, the Duc de Rohan, voltaire essay, accused Voltaire of defamation, and in the face of this charge the untitled writer chose to save face and avoid more serious prosecution by leaving the country indefinitely.
In voltaire essay spring oftherefore, voltaire essay, Voltaire left Paris for England, voltaire essay. Bolingbroke, whose address Voltaire left in Paris as his own forwarding address, was one conduit of influence, voltaire essay.
In particular, Voltaire met through Bolingbroke Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, voltaire essay, and John Gay, writers who were at that moment beginning to experiment with the use of voltaire essay forms such as the novel and theater in the creation of a new kind of critical public politics.
After Bolingbroke, his primary contact in England was a merchant by the name of Everard Fawkener. It also included figures such as Samuel Clarke and other self-proclaimed Newtonians.
Given his other activities, it is also likely that Voltaire frequented the coffeehouses of London even if no firm evidence survives confirming that he did. It would not be surprising, therefore, to learn that Voltaire attended the Newtonian public lectures of John Voltaire essay Desaguliers or those of one of his rivals.
Whatever the precise conduits, all of his encounters voltaire essay England made Voltaire into a very knowledgeable student of English natural philosophy. When French officials granted Voltaire permission to re-enter Voltaire essay involtaire essay, he was devoid of pensions and banned from the royal court at Versailles. But he was also a different kind of writer and thinker. But the English years did trigger a transformation in him.
After his return to France, voltaire essay, Voltaire worked hard to restore his sources of financial and political support, voltaire essay. The financial problems were the easiest to solve. Inthe French government voltaire essay a sort of lottery to help amortize some of the royal debt.
Voltaire essay participated, voltaire essay, and in the fall of that year when the returns were posted he had made a fortune. In particular, voltaire essay, while other writers were required to appeal to powerful financial patrons in order to secure the livelihood that made possible their intellectual careers, Voltaire was never again beholden to these imperatives.
The patronage structures of Old Regime France provided more than economic support to writers, however, and restoring the crédit upon which his reputation as a writer and thinker depended was far less simple. Gradually, however, through a combination of artfully written plays, voltaire essay, poems, and essays and careful self-presentation in Parisian society, voltaire essay, Voltaire began to regain his public stature.
In the fall ofwhen the next stage in his career began to unfold, Voltaire was residing at the royal court of Versailles, a sign that voltaire essay re-establishment in French society was all but complete. During this rehabilitation, Voltaire also formed a new relationship that was to prove profoundly influential in the subsequent decades, voltaire essay.
He became reacquainted with Emilie Le Tonnier de Breteuil,the daughter of one of his earliest patrons, who married in to become the Marquise du Châtelet.
Emilie du Châtelet was twenty-nine years old in the spring of when Voltaire began his relationship with her. She was also a uniquely accomplished woman. Her father also ensured that Emilie received an education that was exceptional for girls at the time. This arrangement proved especially beneficial to Voltaire when scandal forced him to flee Paris and to establish himself permanently at the Du Châtelet family estate at Cirey. Fromwhen this arrangement began, towhen Du Châtelet died during childbirth, Cirey was the home to each along with the site of an intense intellectual collaboration.
For Voltaire, the events that sent him fleeing to Cirey were also the impetus for much of his work while there. While in England, Voltaire had begun to compose a set of letters framed according to the well-established genre of a traveler reporting to friends back home about foreign lands.
But unlike the authors of these overtly fictionalized accounts, Voltaire innovated by adopting a journalistic stance instead, one that offered readers an empirically recognizable account of several aspects of English society. Originally titled Letters on EnglandVoltaire left a draft of the text with a London publisher before returning home in Once in France, voltaire essay, he began to expand the work, adding to the letters drafted while in England, voltaire essay, which focused largely on the different religious sects of England and the English Parliament, several new letters including some on English philosophy.
The new text, which included letters on Bacon, Locke, voltaire essay, Newton and the details of Newtonian natural philosophy along with an account of the English practice of inoculation for smallpox, also acquired a new title when it was first published in France in Lettres philosophiques.
Before it appeared, voltaire essay, Voltaire attempted to get official permission for the book from the royal censors, a requirement in France at the time. This made the first edition of the Lettres philosophiques illicit, a fact that contributed to the scandal that it triggered, but one that in no way explains the furor the book caused, voltaire essay.
The only thing that is clear is that the work did cause a sensation that subsequently triggered a rapid and voltaire essay response on the part of the French authorities.
The book was publicly burned by the royal hangman several months after its release, and this act turned Voltaire into a widely known intellectual outlaw, voltaire essay. Had Voltaire been able to avoid the scandal triggered by the Lettres philosophiquesvoltaire essay, it is highly likely that he would have chosen to do so. Yet once it was thrust voltaire essay him, voltaire essay, he adopted the identity of the philosophical exile and outlaw writer with conviction, using it to create a new identity for himself, one that was to have far reaching consequences for the history of Western philosophy.
At first, Newtonian science served as the vehicle for this transformation. In the decades beforea series of controversies had erupted, voltaire essay, especially in France, about the character and legitimacy of Newtonian science, especially the theory of universal gravitation and the physics of gravitational attraction through voltaire essay space. Voltaire positioned his Lettres philosophiques as an intervention into these controversies, drafting a famous and widely cited letter that used an opposition between Newton and Descartes to frame a set of fundamental differences between English and French philosophy at the time.
He also included other letters about Voltaire essay science in the work while linking or so he claimed the philosophies of Bacon, Locke, voltaire essay, and Newton into an English philosophical complex that he championed as a remedy for the perceived errors and illusions perpetuated on the French by René Descartes and Nicolas Malebranche, voltaire essay.
Voltaire did not invent this framework, but he did use it to enflame a set of debates that were then raging, debates that placed him and a small group of young members of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris into apparent opposition to the older and more established members of this bastion of official French science, voltaire essay.
Once voltaire essay at Cirey, both Voltaire and Du Châtelet further voltaire essay this apparent division by engaging in a campaign on behalf of Newtonianism, one that continually targeted an imagined monolith called French Academic Cartesianism as the enemy against which they in the name of Newtonianism were fighting, voltaire essay.
But he also conceived voltaire essay it as a machine de guerre directed against the Cartesian establishment, which he believed was holding France back from the modern light of scientific truth. Vociferous criticism of Voltaire and his work quickly erupted, with some critics emphasizing his rebellious and immoral proclivities while others focused on his precise scientific views.
As he fought fiercely to defend his positions, an unprecedented culture war erupted in France centered on the character and value of Newtonian natural philosophy. The couple also added to their scientific credibility by receiving separate honorable mentions in the Paris Academy prize contest on the nature of fire. Voltaire likewise worked tirelessly rebutting critics and advancing his positions in pamphlets and contributions to learned periodicals. Since Voltaire also coupled his explicitly philosophical writings and polemics during the s and s with an equally extensive stream of plays, poems, stories, and narrative histories, many voltaire essay which were orthogonal in both tone and content to the explicit campaigns of the Newton Wars, voltaire essay, Voltaire was further able to reestablish his old identity as an Old Regime man of letters despite the scandals of these years.
Involtaire essay, Voltaire was named the Royal Historiographer of France, voltaire essay, a title bestowed upon him as a result of his histories of Louis XIV and the Swedish King Charles II.
The position also legitimated him as an officially sanctioned savant. Inafter the death of du Châtelet, Voltaire reinforced this impression by accepting an invitation to join the court of the young Frederick the Great in Prussia, a move that further assimilated him into the power structures of Old Regime society. Yet during the s, voltaire essay, a set of new developments pulled Voltaire back toward his more radical and controversial identity and allowed him to rekindle the critical philosophe persona that he had innovated during the Newton Wars.
The first step in this direction involved a dispute with his onetime colleague and ally, Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis. Maupertuis had preceded Voltaire as the first aggressive advocate for Newtonian science in France. Voltaire essay Voltaire was preparing voltaire essay own Newtonian intervention in the Lettres philosophiques inhe consulted with Maupertuis, who was by this date a pensioner in the French Royal Academy of Sciences, voltaire essay.
It was largely around Maupertuis that the young cohort of French academic Newtonians gathered during the Newton wars of s and 40s, and with Voltaire fighting his own public campaigns on behalf of this same cause during the same period, the two men became the most visible faces of French Newtonianism even if they never really worked as a team in voltaire essay effort. Maupertuis was also an occasional guest at Cirey, voltaire essay, and a correspondent with both du Châtelet and Voltaire throughout these years.
Du Châtelet also shared this tendency, voltaire essay, producing in her Institutions de physiquesvoltaire essay, a systematic attempt to wed Newtonian mechanics with Leibnizian rationalism and metaphysics. Voltaire found this Voltaire essay turn dyspeptic, and he began to craft an anti-Leibnizian discourse voltaire essay the s that became a bulwark of his brand of Newtonianism.
This placed him in opposition to Du Châtelet, even if this intellectual rift in no way soured their relationship. He sided with Maupertuis, ordering Voltaire to either retract his libelous text or leave Berlin.
Voltaire chose the latter, voltaire essay, falling once again into the role of scandalous rebel and exile as a result of his writings. Rather than returning home to Paris and restoring his reputation, Voltaire instead settled in Geneva. When this austere Calvinist enclave proved completely unwelcoming, he took further steps toward independence by using his personal fortune to buy a chateau of his own in the hinterlands between France and Switzerland.
Voltaire installed himself permanently at Ferney in earlyand from this date until his death in he made the chateau his permanent home and capital, at least in the minds of his intellectual allies, of the emerging French Enlightenment.
The first volume of this compendium of definitions appeared inand almost instantly the work became buried in the kind of scandal to which Voltaire had grown accustomed.
Voltaire saw in the controversy a new call to action, and he joined forces with the project soon after its appearance, penning numerous articles that began to appear with volume 5 in This framing was recapitulated by the opponents of the Encyclopédievoltaire essay, who began to speak of the loose assemblage of authors who contributed articles to the work as a subversive coterie of philosophes devoted to undermining legitimate social and moral order.
As this polemic crystallized and grew in both energy and influence, Voltaire embraced its terms and made them his cause. In this program, the philosophes were not unified by any shared philosophy but through a commitment to the program of defending philosophie itself voltaire essay its perceived enemies. They were also imagined as activists fighting to eradicate error and superstition from the world.
The ongoing defense of the Encyclopédie was one rallying point, and soon the removal of the Jesuits—the great voltaire essay of Enlightenment, the philosophes proclaimed—became a second unifying cause. This effort achieved victory involtaire essay soon the philosophes were attempting to infiltrate the academies and voltaire essay institutions of knowledge in France, voltaire essay.
One climax in this effort was reached in when the Encyclopédiste and friend of Voltaire and the philosophesAnne-Robert Jacques Turgot, was named Controller-General of France, the most powerful ministerial position in the kingdom, by the newly crowned King Louis XVI, voltaire essay. Voltaire and his allies had paved the way for this victory through a barrage of writings throughout the s and voltaire essay that presented philosophie like that espoused by Turgot as an agent of enlightened reform and its critics as prejudicial defenders of an ossified tradition.
Will Durant---The Philosophy of Voltaire
, time: 1:56:00Voltaire - Quotes, Books & Life - Biography
West Jefferson Boulevard Los Angeles, CA , USA Hornby St #, Vancouver BC V6Z 2E6, Canada Voltaire broke from the tradition of narrating diplomatic and military events, and emphasized customs, social history, and achievements in the arts and sciences. The Essay traced the progress of world civilization in a universal context, thereby rejecting both nationalism and the traditional Christian frame of reference. Voltaire was also the May 26, · Voltaire's body of writing also includes the notable historical works The Age of Louis XIV () and Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of the Nations (). In the latter, Voltaire took a
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