Voltaire

I recently finished reading Voltaire’s Philosophy of History. I’ve read and admired his writings for years and am struck by the degree to which he is ignored these days.  Part of the reasons for it may be  that his philosophical works were well and clearly written and  focused on how people should live their lives and function in the real world, and are thus fairly far removed from the concerns and practices of many professors of philosophy and likely to be disparaged by them.  Part of it may  be a belief (an erroneous one I think) that the superstition, dogmatism, intolerance, and fanaticism he opposed are things of the past and  that  the battles he fought are long since won. Part of it may be, as Andre Maurois suggested in a preface to one of Voltaire’s other books,  that the opinion makers of our time  have more of taste for mysticism and the irrational than their counterparts of the enlightenment did.  I am afraid that at least some of it is due to the liberal  ideas of toleration of dissent, rational discourse,  and a free marketplace of ideas being out of fashion with many people today. 

Whatever the reasons for it, it is a mistake. He was a fine and enjoyable writer, and the ideas of reason, tolerance, science, and progress need defending today as much as they did in his century, and maybe more.  There is still plenty of infamy out there.