Candide ou l

1
Candide ou lOptimiste

• Francois-Marie Arouet
• Dit
• VOLTAIRE

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Introduction

• What does Candide mean? Why the subtitle?
• John Ralston Saul and Voltaires Bastards The
  Dictatorship of Reason in the WestWhy such a
  book? Why such a title?
• Has the era of globalization betrayed the
  spirit of Voltaire and of the Age of
  enlightenment?
• Has the control of knowledge become the business
  of an elite betraying the very spirit of the
  Enlightenment while claiming to be its
  inheritors?

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Outline of the presentation (part 1)

• Origins of the Enlightenment
• 15th century bifurcation and the knowledge
  explosion of the Renaissance (16th century)
• Discoveries, science, religion and humanism
• 17th century and logical reasoning
• Utopia and the notion of progress

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Outline of the presentation (part 2)

• The Age of Enlightenment
• The spirit of the Enlightenment a time of
  synthesis and debate
• Human autonomy, finality of human actions,
  universality
• Knowledge acquisition, spirit of inquiry,
  Aufklärung, liberation from existing systems
• Progress or utopia?

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Outline of the presentation (part 3)

• Voltaire and Candide
• Voltaire
• What is Candide?
• Aspects of Candide (criticism of optimism,
  Leibniz, religion, education, militarism, and the
  political and judicial systems) and tools used by
  Voltaire (Irony, satire, parody, pathos)
• The philosophy of optimism and happiness an
  ultimate utopia

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Outline of the presentation (part 1)

• Origins of the Enlightenment
• 15th century bifurcation and the knowledge
  explosion of the Renaissance (16th century)
• Discoveries, science, religion and humanism
• 17th century and logical reasoning
• Utopia and the notion of progress

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(1) Origins of the Enlightenment

• Julia Kristeva, Desire in Language A semiotic
  Approach to Literature and Art, 1980, Columbia
  University Press
• The second half of the middle ages .. was a
  period of transition for European culture
  thought based on the sign replaced that based on
  the symbol.

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(1) Origins of the Enlightenment

• Practically, what does that mean?
• 15th-16th centuries Explosion of knowledge and
  new vision of the world
• End of a theological understanding of the world
• Progressive doubts toward religious
  interpretation of reality
• Beginning of a scientific interpretation of
  reality

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(1) Origins of the Enlightenment

• An Age of discoveries
• Geographic
• Scientific and medical
• Philosophical
• Religious
• Humanism a focus on man
• Rabelais
• Montaigne

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(1) Origins of the Enlightenment

• Utopia and the notion of progress
• Thomas More ou-topos (nowhere) and eu-topos
  (place of happiness)
• Myth of the Golden Age
• Political space
• Illusive progress

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Outline of the presentation (part 2)

• The Age of Enlightenment
• The spirit of the Enlightenment a time of
  synthesis and debate
• Human autonomy, finality of human actions,
  universality
• Knowledge acquisition, spirit of inquiry,
  Aufklärung, liberation from existing systems
• Progress or utopia?

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(2) The Age of Enlightenment

• The Enlightenment (Tzvetan Todorov)
• A European spirit
• A time of synthesis, recapitulation, summing up
• A time of debate and philosophical differences
• Three majors traits
• Human autonomy
• Finality of human actions
• Universality

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(2) The Age of Enlightenment

• Human autonomy
• Emphasis on individual choice rather than on what
  is imposed by an external power
• Need to have entire freedom to critique, to
  examine, to doubt, to make up ones own mind
• No longer any sacredness of authority --
  Authority must be integrated with humanity,
  natural rather than supernatural
• Rejection of magic and religious revelation
  Separation of church (private sphere) and state
  (public sphere)
• Greatest autonomy that brought by knowledge and
  science (Newton)

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(2) The Age of Enlightenment

• Finality of human actions
• Individuals responsible for their own actions
• Quest for happiness replaces quest for salvation
  and love of fellow human beings replaces love for
  God
• State there to serve the common good rather than
  a divine plan
• Concept of inalienable rights
• Right to life (capital punishment illegitimate
  the Calas affair)
• Integrity of the human body (torture
  illegitimate)
• Integrity of the human race

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(2) The Age of Enlightenment

• Universality
• Belonging to the human race more important than
  belonging to a specific society or nation
• Practice of liberty contained in the principle of
  universality, but individual freedom limited by
  the rights inherent to all human beings
• Sacredness no longer linked to religious dogma
  but to human rights
• If all human beings have identical rights ? equal
  in rights (principle of equality)

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(2) The Age of Enlightenment

• Three more aspects of the Enlightenment (Yann
  Fauchois)
• Education, knowledge acquisition, inquiry,
  pedagogy, independent thinking, central to the
  spirit of enlightenment
• Increase in intellectual autonomy rupture with
  traditions concept of Aufklärung developed by
  Kant (closer to the English term enlightenment
  than the French term lumieres)
• Enlightenment goes well beyond intellectual
  exchanges ? pan-European consciousness of the
  need for liberation from existing systems (will
  lead ultimately to the French Revolution)

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(2) The Age of Enlightenment

• Progress and utopia
• The myth of happiness as a condition of progress
• Human law and natural law Primitivism and the
  myth of the Noble Savage (Montesquieu,Diderot)
• The myth of the return to nature (Rousseau)
• Perfectibility as a promise of happiness
  (Rousseau)
• Uchronia as utopia (belief in a better future)
• Architecture and urbanism in utopian thinking

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Outline of the presentation (part 3)

• Voltaire and Candide
• Voltaire
• What is Candide?
• Aspects of Candide (criticism of optimism,
  Leibniz, religion, education, militarism, and the
  political and judicial systems) and tools used by
  Voltaire (Irony, satire, parody, pathos)
• The philosophy of optimism and happiness an
  ultimate utopia

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(3) Voltaire and Candide

• Voltaire Important biographical milestones
• 1694 born in Paris (november 21)
• 1704-1711 studies in rhetoric and philosophy
• 1713 diplomatic posting at the Hague
• 1716 imprisoned in the Bastille for eleven months
  after having published satirical writings on the
  mores of the Regent
• 1718 Takes the pseudonym Voltaire when freed from
  geole
• 1723 Publishes La Henriade, an epic about Henri
  IV
• 1726-1729 self-exile in England after a two-week
  incarceration at the Bastille

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(3) Voltaire and Candide

• 1734 publishes Les Lettres philosophiques
  Enormous scandal Letters sentenced to be burned
• 1734-1744 Voltaire hides at Cirey at the castle
  of of Emilie du Châtelet
• 1735 Traité de métaphysique
• 1738 Éléments de la philosophie de Newton
• 1741 Mahomet ou le fanatisme
• 1744 Becomes Louis XVs historiographer
• 1746 Elected to the Académie française
• 1748 Zadig, first philosophical tale

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(3) Voltaire and Candide

• 1750-1753 Berlin at the court of King Friedrich
  II of Prussia
• 1753 Settles in Ferney near Geneva
• 1756 Essai sur lHistoire générale des mœurs
• 1757 Contributes to the 7th volume of the
  Encyclopaedia
• 1759 Candide
• 1762 The Calas affair
• 1764 Dictionnaire philosophique portatif
• 1765 La Philosophie de lHistoire
• 1770 Questions sur lEncyclopédie (nine volumes)
• 1778 Comes back to Paris and dies in May
• 1791 Remains transferred to the Pantheon

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(3) Voltaire and Candide

• Some characteristics of Voltaire
• Terms that describe Voltaire satirist, witty,
  insolent, polemical, pamphleteer, all manners
  that put him at odds with authorities and will
  lead to imprisonments and exiles
• Advocate for social and judicial reforms Calls
  for reforms of the French judicial system
• Admirer of the British system of government
• Critical of French monarchy and of the Church
  Combats the divine right of French kings and
  the power of the church
• Combats censorship
• Shrewd business man becomes very wealthy

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(3) Voltaire and Candide

• What is Candide?
• A philosophical tale
• Candide, the eponymous hero, is a simple and
  credulous young man to whom his tutor, Pangloss,
  teaches a simplistic theory about optimism
• The character of Cunégonde shows Voltaires
  misogyny
• Candide goes from misadventure to misadventure
• This gives Voltaire an opportunity to question
  the theory as well as all metaphysical theories
  that cannot be scientifically demonstrated
• Attack against fanaticism, intolerance,
  superstitions, and defense of pragmatism as a
  form of wisdom and lucidity

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(3) Voltaire and Candide

• Some aspects of Candide and the tools used by
  Voltaire
• A tale Adventures, misadventures, travels,
  battles, love story, jealousy, etc.
• Violent criticism of aristocracy (chapter 1) and
  of the feudal system (chapters 15 to 18) using
  satire
• Germany as an illusion of paradise (Westphalia
  the poorest of German provinces Germany reduced
  to clichés) Satire of Friedrich II of Prussia and
  of the philosopher king

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(3) Voltaire and Candide

1. Criticism of Leibniz philosophy Behind
   Pangloss, one can see Leibniz Philosophy of
   Pangloss (which means all languages in Greek,
   or does not stop speaking) is dogmatic and
   grotesque (chapter 1)
2. All countries visited by Candide are reduced to
   clichés (France, chapter 22, Spain and Portugal,
   Chapters 6 and 13), Turkey (chapter 20)
3. Imitation of and inspiration from certain
   literary genres (Rabelais) Parody of others
   (the roman précieux)

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(3) Voltaire and Candide

1. Criticism of war and battles (chapter 3) using
   parody and ridicule Chapter 3 ridicules wars,
   depicts suffering mixing satire and horror,
   condemns war and the kings use of them
2. Condemnation of fanaticisms Chapter 6 central
   to Voltaires argument against fanaticism,
   criticism of universities (Coimbra) and
   condemnation of superstitions
3. Condemnation of slavery (chapter 19)

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(3) Voltaire and Candide

• The philosophy of optimism and happiness
  ultimate utopia criticized by Voltaire (chapters
  17-18)
• Characteristics of utopia wealth and luxury,
  pleasure, happiness and generosity, politeness
  and good manners
• In fact nothing but a dream, ideal world becomes
  a caricature
• Voltaires morale that such a world is too
  perfect to exist and therefore cannot exist

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Conclusion I

• Voltaire is not considered a philosopher, but his
  influence on Western thought is one of the most
  important
• His faith in humanity takes into account mans
  weaknesses, but has nothing to do with naïve
  optimism
• Voltaires rationalism is geared toward social
  action rather than toward dealing with the
  mysteries of the universe
• However, the question of evil comes back
  constantly throughout his works, aggravated by
  his political pessimism and his metaphysical angst

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Conclusion I

• Voltaire has profound doubts about the order of
  things He is profoundly affected by the Lisbon
  earthquake
• Beyond his scientific relativism, his rejection
  of Leibniz providentialism, he becomes obsessed
  by religious fanaticism, which he calls
  linfâme
• Unable to influence the realm of politics, his
  propensity toward action leads him to fight the
  judicial system. Being
• From the champion of reason, he becomes in the
  latter part of his life a passionate engaged
  intellectual fighting for justice, the first one
  in the history of France
• To what extent is Voltaire himself a Candide,
  the one who asks perfectly unanswerable but
  crucial questions

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Conclusion II

• Modernity as envisaged by the Enlightenment
  consisted simultaneously in developing knowledge,
  arts and sciences, and in using them for moral
  progress, greater justice and human happiness.
  The modern era has seen an institutionalization
  (professionalization) of cultural and scientific
  production that has increased the gap between the
  culture of experts and popular culture
• Jürgen Habermas

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Conclusion II

• Our reality is dominated by elites who have
  spent much of the last two centuries, indeed of
  the last four, organizing society around answers
  and around structures designed to produce
  answers.. These structures have fed upon
  expertise and that expertise upon complexity.
  The effect has been to render universal
  understanding as difficult as possible Never
  before in history have there been such enormous
  elites carrying such burdens of knowledge

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Conclusion II

• The possession, use and control of knowledge
  have become their central theme However, their
  power depends not on the effect with which they
  use that knowledge but on the effectiveness with
  which they control its use.
• John Ralston Saul,
• Voltaires Bastards

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Conclusion II

• Were Voltaire to reappear today, he would be
  outraged by the new structures, which somehow
  deform the changes for which he struggled. As
  for his descendants our ruling elites he
  would deny all legal responsibility and set about
  fighting them, as he once fought the courtiers
  and priests of eighteenth-century Europe.
• John Ralston Saul,
• Voltaires Bastards