113. Voltaire’s Philosophical World

Today, I am celebrating the birth anniversary of French author and philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778), who was born in Paris. 

First, because he was a strong advocate for civil liberties, and second, because he was one of the earliest authors to achieve international recognition and commercial success. 

I admire him for his continuous effort to engage himself in intellectual activities.

Considered to be the most prolific writer, he wrote over 20,000 letters and authored more than 2,000 books and pamphlets. An unachievable feat!

Voltaire is known for his sharp wit and criticism of Christianity—especially the Catholic Church—and slavery. He advocated for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the separation of church and state. 

A versatile and prolific writer who produced works across almost every literary genre, including plays, poems, novels, essays, histories, and scientific papers. 

Letters on the English (Lettres philosophiques), a collection of essays by Voltaire from his time in Great Britain between 1726 and 1729, is a very wonderful history book in my view.

When published, the book was viewed as an attack on the French government system and was quickly banned. 

In some ways, the book can be compared to Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, which flatteringly presents a nation to itself from the perspective of an outsider.

Voltaire was an advocate of human rights who published the landmark Philosophical Letters in 1734. 

His outspoken views often put him at risk due to the strict censorship laws of the Catholic French monarchy. 

His most famous work and magnum opus, Candide, is a novella that critiques and satirizes many events, thinkers, and philosophies of his era, especially Gottfried Leibniz and his idea that our world is necessarily the "best of all possible worlds." 

Due to his notorious criticism of the Church, which he refused to retract before he died, Voltaire was denied a Christian burial in Paris. Nevertheless, friends and relatives secretly buried his body at the Abbey of Scellières in Champagne.

In 1791, the French National Assembly, recognizing Voltaire as a forerunner of the French Revolution, brought his remains back to Paris and laid them in the Panthéon. The procession was attended by approximately a million people and stretched across Paris. 

Voltaire generally viewed Islam negatively and considered its holy book, the Quran, to be ignorant of the laws of physics.

In a 1740 letter to Frederick the Great, Voltaire describes Muhammad with a brutality that "is assuredly nothing any man can excuse" and suggests that his followers were driven by superstition.