Voltaire's most important CONTRIBUTIONS

Today's class is dedicated to the French philosopher Francois Marie Arouet, Voltaire (1694-1778), one of the greatest representatives of the Enlightenment (S. XVIII) and a prolific writer, since throughout his life he published a large number of works (essays, poems, odes, plays ...). Among those that stand out: Oedipus (1718), Philosophical letters (1734), Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of Nations (1756), Treatise on tolerance (1763) and Philosophical Dictionary (1764). In all of them, Voltaire, exposes his main ideas and contributions on politics, religion, history or philosophy.

If you want to know more about the most important contributions of Voltaire, he keeps reading this lesson from a TEACHER.

Voltaire was born in 1694 (Paris) into a wealthy family, which allowed him to obtain a very complete and careful education from a very young age. In 1711, he began to study law, but soon left to pursue his passion, writing. Activity that he developed throughout his life and that would lead him to jail in 1726 for writing several highly critical poems with the Duke of Orleans.

Shortly after, after a run-in with the noble Guy Auguste de Rohan-Chabot, he was exiled to england. After his tour of England, in 1729 he returned to France, he continued to publish all kinds of critical works, He was the historiographer of the kings Louis XV of France (1739) and Frederick II of Prussia (1750) and finally died in 1778.

What were the most important ideas of Voltaire?

Likewise, to understand his thinking, we must take into account the cultural context in which his work takes place, which is the Illustration. An intellectual current that was characterized by promulgating a whole series of groundbreaking ideas, among which stand:

• The need for the existence of a social contract between the rulers and the ruled.
• The royal power was not of divine origin.
• The secularization of society, religious freedom and the spread of deism.
• Greater education of the population as a key to social progress.
• Rationalism or blind trust in the unlimited reason of the human being.
• Universalism and natural law, by which all human beings are free and equal.
• Criticism of absolute monarchies and the defense of the philosopher king.
• Defense of freedom and tolerance.

In their playsOedipus (1718), Philosophical letters (1734), Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of Nations (1756), Treatise on tolerance (1763) and Philosophical Dictionary (1764), Voltaire exposes the main contributions of him. Here we summarize them.

1. A new political system

As a great follower and follower of John Locke, Voltaire will defend the idea that the State has the obligation to respect the diversity of opinions yproveer all citizens the rights of liberty, life and property. Likewise, he defends a separation of legislative-executive power and establishes that the government should not be based on an absolutist system, but on popular sovereignty.

This conception does not imply that it was contrary to the monarchical system, rather what he defended was that the monarchs respect the freedoms of individuals, that the monarch did not hold his power in an absolute-personalist way and that there was an institution with enlightened ministers to avoid the despotism and the selfish practices of the monarch. Likewise, it should be noted that his political theory greatly influenced the development of the French Revolution.

2. State and Church Separation

Voltaire was one of the enlightened most critical of religion: defend the religious tolerance and freedom of worship, condemns religious fanaticism (defined as cruel religious insanity), criticizes large religious institutions, rejects divine revelation as a source of power for the monarch and condemns the idea of ​​theocratic state, since it mixes religion and politics.

Also, when it comes to religion, Voltaire, will defend deism as a way of moving away from the great dogmatic religions and towards the belief of a supreme deity, developed through reason and experience, creator of the laws of nature.

3. A new concept of history

Voltaire also stood out as a historian and, as such, proposed a new way of conceiving history, what he defined as philosophy of history. A story that is analyzed independently of religion. Similarly, in his Philosophical Dictionary he proposes a classification of history that is divided into four types of history:

1. History of opinions.
2. History of the arts: For Voltaire the most important and the one developed by his contemporaries, the encyclopedists.
3. Natural History: The story that is based on research, just as Herodotus did.
4. History of the eventss: Which is divided into sacred (where the Bible and the Iliad stand out) and profane (orally transmitted).

4. The defense of freedom and tolerance

For our protagonist, tolerance and freedom are key to his own society development, since both ideas imply respect towards the rest of the people. As he said: "Don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you."

In this way, he will defend the freedom of expression, the rights of individuals and animals and will condemn violence/tortura. However, he will consider that slavery it is possible to humanize it, that is, not to eradicate it but to change its violent forms.

León Sanz, V. (1989). Illustrated Europe. Madrid, Akal.

Vovelle, M. (1995). The man in the illustration. Madrid. alliance.