![]() Perhaps the ending of Candide summarizes Voltaire’s personal complacency. Because Voltaire never directly elucidated his own philosophy, O’Flaherty claims, “It is moreover full of contradictions because the philosophe often leaps from one point of view to another, perpetually governed by the impulse of the moment.” But while Voltaire was quick to find the holes in Leibniz’s philosophy, he never came close to developing a similarly semi-coherent system of thought. Rather he leaves the reader to infer his philosophy from his satire. While Voltaire derisively criticized Leibniz’s optimistic understanding of creation, God, and free will, he never proposed an alternative. ![]() The greater part of Voltaire’s thought is embedded within his works of satire, known as his Contes philosophiques, or ‘Fables of Reason.’ Specifically in Zadig and Candide, Voltaire used this fictional framework to satirize and poke fun at Leibniz’s theodicy. Except for his Dictionnaire philosophique, Voltaire’s hidden philosophy must be deduced from his polemical novellas, letters, and essays. He never theorized or presented a system to define human existence. Voltaire never wrote a philosophical critique. Spin, spotlight, & suicide | lenin’s legacy | voltaire’s rationale of reason | comparative linguistic study of john stewart & steven colbert ![]()
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