Perhaps the greatest and most influential popularizer of philosophy to have ever lived was Voltaire. After having been banished from France to England, Voltaire came to idealize British religious, political, commercial and intellectual liberty, seeing it as superior to French life in almost every way, the latter being seen by Voltaire to be intolerant, anti-commercial, aristocratic and despotic. What Voltaire is most well known for today would be his biting criticisms on religion, especially Catholic life as he saw it in France. In this post we will also consider Voltaire’s strong attacks on philosophical optimism, the view that this is the best of all possible worlds.
In order to understand the controversial nature of Voltaire’s writings it is important that we understand the audience he addresses. France, at that time, had not been very influenced by the numerous British intellectuals whom we have considered thus far. In France, Cartesian physics and Rationalistic philosophy was still preferred over its Newtonian and Empirical counterparts which came from across the channel. More importantly, however, was the enormous influence of the Catholic Church in France which had led, as we have seen, to the banishment of Pierre Bayle as well as Montesquieu’s criticisms of ethnocentrism by way of his Calvinist wife’s influence. Indeed, while Voltaire had not fled to England due to his heterodox ideas, these ideas had indirectly led to the personal conflict which arose between him, an extraordinarily gifted “commoner”, and an aristocrat.
What distinguished Voltaire from his predecessors, however, was that contrary to Bayle, he wrote from his place of banishment to the French people and contrary to Montesquieu’s portrayal of Catholic traditions as being “odd”, with Voltaire these traditions and doctrines came under direct fire, and intensely so. Nevertheless, while Voltaire’s criticisms of religion was what he is now most famous for, we will see that his views concerning politics and philosophy were no less controversial to the French. Let’s turn now to these criticisms, beginning with those aimed at religion.
Voltaire’s criticism of the French religionist, at least the one found in his Philosophical Letters, takes a form similar to that of Montesquieu’s approach to French culture. Whereas Montesquieu attempts to present French culture from a Persian point of view in order to emphasis the idiosyncrasies which he sees in it, Voltaire criticizes the Catholic tradition by defending the least enticing sect of Christianity from the French perspective: the Quakers.
In every difference which Voltaire can find between the two Christian traditions, he defends the Quakers over the Catholics. He defends doctrinal differences by an appeal to the scriptures in an effort to show how the scriptures can be used to support mutually contradictory ideas. He portrays the Quakers as being rightfully shocked by the ceremonial pomp of the French Catholics. He praises the simplicity, ethics equality and tolerance among the Quakers, all the while condemning the Catholics wherever they differ from them in any of these aspects. What is curious about his account of how the Quakers are turning to the Anglican religion is that he treats religion as a thoroughly natural phenomenon, explainable in terms of sociology and other secular schools of thought.
On this note, he turns his attention to the Church of England which is bitterly criticized inasmuch as it resembles the Catholic Church and gently praised in its differences. He condemns the hierarchy of the Church of England in general, but with particular attention focused on the intolerance, zeal and Puritanism which he saw as having caused more than a small amount of bloodshed by way of wars and civil strife. What Voltaire sees as most inspiring in the Church of England, however, is in the clear recognition of the pre-eminence of the state over the church. He also saw the churchmen of England as have, for the most part, better morals than the Catholics of France.
This, of course, serves as a perfect transition to the topic of why, according to Voltaire, the political environment of England is so much better than that of France. He gives a number of reasons for why this is so: First of all, while France is subject to the arbitrary rule of individual persons, England is instead governed by laws and institutions. Second, the gubernatorial power in England is limited by civil liberties and legal equality, rather than the other way around. Third, the religious pluralism in England created an environment of tolerance which limited fanaticism, civil strife and persecution. Fourth, the commercial freedom in England allowed the individual to pursue and serve his own interests to the benefit of society at large. Finally fifth, in England the arts and sciences were not only respected, but were free and flourishing. On the other hand, Voltaire paints France as being intolerant, anti-commercial, aristocratic and despotic in comparison.
The real gem which Voltaire found in British society was certainly that of the new natural philosophy, or science as we would now call it. He sees the empiricism of Bacon, Newton and especially Locke as being superior to Descartes in almost every aspect. He defends the idea that the proper source of information about the world is the world its self by way of observation, rather than by way of any appeal to clear and distinct ideas which may or may not be innate. Whereas Descartes is seen as a speculative theorizer as to the substance or nature of mind, Locke endeavors to discover how the mind actually works. Voltaire sees Locke’s skepticism to Descartes’ rejection of materialism as being the only responsible conclusion to reach; the mind may or may not be composed of matter, what matters is that we don’t claim to know that which we do not.
In a similar vein, Voltaire argues that we should avoid metaphysical hypothesizing and the wasting of time with irresolvable questions such as “how do we know there is a world outside of me?” He advocates the use of our limited and natural faculties in searching for knowledge about the world and our relation to it, for it is such knowledge that moves us from helplessness to natural understanding to happiness. He strongly disagrees with the teachings of the theologians that philosophers such as Locke were dangerous and detrimental to society, and turns the tables on the theologians themselves for having bred contention, discord and war. After all, when has anybody ever heard of a theologian or priest being burned at the stake by a bunch of philosophers?
No better illustration of Voltaire’s preference for empiricism over rationalism can be found than in his rejection of Leibniz’s rationalist theodicy. According to Leibniz, since God was omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent, it follows logically that this is the best of all possible worlds. Voltaire thought that Leibniz’s conclusion is not only disheartening, but transparently false. While he considered human evils to be horrible enough, he found natural evils, such as the earthquake which destroyed Lisbon during his lifetime, to be conclusive evidence that God’s providence had not wrought the best of all possible creations. While he felt that design in the world proved God’s existence, he concluded that we had no reason to suspect that He cared for us at all.
