Table of Contents
How did Voltaire spread his ideas?
Voltaire promoted his ideas through his position as a playwright and member of the elite literati in his native France as well as through his service in the Prussian court.
What was Voltaire most drawn to?
While in England Voltaire was attracted to the philosophy of John Locke and ideas of Sir Isaac Newton. He studied England’s constitutional monarchy, its religious tolerance, its philosophical rationalism and the natural sciences.
What was Rousseau’s idea?
Rousseau argued that the general will of the people could not be decided by elected representatives. He believed in a direct democracy in which everyone voted to express the general will and to make the laws of the land. Rousseau had in mind a democracy on a small scale, a city-state like his native Geneva.
Who was Voltaire and what did he do?
Voltaire was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, his attacks on the established Catholic Church, and his advocacy of freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and separation of church and state. Voltaire’s political and philosophical views can be found in nearly all of his prose writings.
Why did Voltaire leave Paris in the spring of 1726?
A very powerful aristocrat, the Duc de Rohan, accused Voltaire of defamation, and in the face of this charge the untitled writer chose to save face and avoid more serious prosecution by leaving the country indefinitely. In the spring of 1726, therefore, Voltaire left Paris for England.
How did Voltaire get the name Le petit volontaire?
It is an anagram of AROVET LI, the Latinized spelling of his surname, Arouet, and the initial letters of le jeune (“the young”). According to a family tradition among the descendants of his sister, he was known as le petit volontaire (“determined little thing”) as a child, and he resurrected a variant of the name in his adult life.
What was Voltaire’s stance on the concept of free will?
Voltaire adopted a stance in this text somewhere between the strict determinism of rationalist materialists and the transcendent spiritualism and voluntarism of contemporary Christian natural theologians. For Voltaire, humans are not deterministic machines of matter and motion, and free will thus exists.