Voltaire
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Referenced works
Referenced works (6)
Voltaire: Candide
Author
In our time, Candide is Voltaire's most famous work. It was not always this way. Even for mortals like Voltaire, less condemned to oblivion than the rest of us, we don't really choose our destiny. That’s how it is, we spend our lives making mistakes, we fight against chimeras, we are deceived, flouted, betrayed, we hope, we are disappointed, and we end our lives by returning to the starting point. That way, we proba…
- Philosophy
Voltaire: Philosophical Dictionary
Author
On February 28, 1766, the Chevalier de La Barre, an eighteen-year-old young man accused of having kept his hat on and singing impious songs as a procession passed, was condemned to have his tongue cut out, his hand cut off, and to be burned slowly. On his pyre, as a symbol, a copy of the Philosophical Dictionary is also burned. This shows the role of Voltaire and his “diabolical Dictionary” in the fight of the Enlig…
- Philosophy
Voltaire: The Ignorant Philosopher
Author
Voltaire was 72 years old in 1766 when The Ignorant Philosopher was published, a mischievous invitation to a journey around the world of philosophy. Mocking Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz – the will is no more free than it is blue or square, he opposes the first –, praising the analyzes of Pierre Bayle and John Locke, Voltaire criticizes above all the systematic spirit of philosophers, which lies in wait for the fai…
- Philosophy
Voltaire: Philosophical Letters
Author
Compared to the work of Diderot, Montesquieu and Rousseau, the philosophical work of Voltaire does not seem to carry much weight. We know Voltaire as a storyteller, poet, playwright, historian, politician... what about Voltaire as a philosopher? The texts brought together in this volume, from his first polemical work – the famous Philosophical Letters – to his latest writings on God, less known, invite us to discove…
- Philosophy
Voltaire: Questions on the Encyclopedia
Author
Voltaire "undertook to bring together, in the form of a dictionary, all the ideas, all the views which offered themselves to him on the various objects of his reflections, that is to say on the almost complete universality of human knowledge. In this collection, modestly entitled Questions à des amateurs sur l'Encyclopédie, he speaks in turn about theology and grammar, physics and literature; he discusses sometimes …
- Philosophy
Voltaire: Treatise on Tolerance
Author
A philosophical essay published in 1763 then completed in 1765, the “Treatise on Tolerance” is based on the death sentence in 1762 of the Protestant Jean Calas. Unjustly accused of having killed his son who wanted to convert to Catholicism, he was tried and condemned without evidence by thirteen judges in Toulouse. Denouncing the fanatical religious character which animated this trial, Voltaire first exposes the sit…
- Philosophy
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