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Scepticism in the Eighteenth Century: Enlightenment, Lumières, Aufklärung pp 189–204Cite as

Forms and Aims of Voltairean Scepticism

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Abstract

It seems that the links with the skepticism of Voltaire have not received much attention of researchers so far. Speaking of the skeptical philosophy of Voltaire, it is implicitly recognized him as a philosopher, which doesn’t happen in the eyes of a certain academic tradition.

The skepticism of Voltaire can be considered as part of a story that errors of the human spirit. Our problem is slightly different. We would like to try to understand the principles and springs of a form of “modern” skepticism considering its scope, its degree (skepticism “methodical,” “moderate,” “radical”?), or rather its limitations in the sense that Voltaire himself drew criticism. If it shares with the Enlightenment being able to be understood as an instrument of intellectual liberation, a way to teach men to think for themselves, to dare to use their understanding, Voltaire’s skepticism is also related to a current Christian, we might almost say Pascalian, which seeks to emphasize the limits of reason. Dare to doubt and dare to know may well stop Voltaire to be two contradictory philosophical injunctions, to become different times of the same desire to know the world and understand it.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The only work of which we know is the suggestive article by Rodrigo Brandão, “Voltaire et le scepticisme”, Philosophiques, 35, 1, 2008, pp. 261–274.

  2. 2.

    Nevertheless, Voltaire is beginning to interest philosophers as proved by Eliane Martin-Haag‘s book Voltaire: du cartésianisme aux Lumières, Paris, Vrin, 2002. We would also like to mention Véronique Le Ru’s work which presents Voltaire as a man of science, Voltaire Newtonien. Le combat d’un philosophe pour la science, Paris, Vuibert, 2005.

  3. 3.

    Jean-Paul Dumont, Le scepticisme et le phénomène. Essai sur la signification et les origines du pyrrhonisme, Vrin, 1985.

  4. 4.

    Richard H. Popkin, Histoire du scepticisme d’Erasme à Spinoza, trans. Christine Hivet, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1995, p. 142 (recently brought up to date under the title The History of Scepticism from Savonarola to Bayle, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003). Popkin bases his affirmation on the article “Foi” of Voltaire’s Dictionnaire philosophique.

  5. 5.

    See Stéphane Pujol, “Douteur ou docteur? Langage et connaissance dans les Dialogues philosophiques de Voltaire”, Europe, mai 1994; “Misère du dialogue ou misère de la philosophie. L’impossible mot de la fin”, Revue Voltaire, 5, Presses de l’Université Paris Sorbonne, 2005.

  6. 6.

    Barbara de Negroni, “Doute, scepticisme, pyrrhonisme” in Michel Delon (ed.), Dictionnaire européen des Lumières, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1997. All translations are mine unless otherwise stated.

  7. 7.

    Voltaire, Essai sur les mœurs, chap. CXXI; my stress.

  8. 8.

    Sébastien Charles, “Le scepticisme à l’âge classique: enjeux et perspectives”, Philosophiques, 35, 1, 2008, p. 163.

  9. 9.

    See the article “Foi” du Dictionnaire philosophique; in the pamphlet entitled Dieu. Réponse au système de la nature de 1771, Voltaire affirms that “the reason teaches God and the sophism definites it” (Lettres philosophiques. Derniers écrits sur Dieu, Gerhardt Stenger (ed.), Paris, GF-Flammarion, 2006, p. 320).

  10. 10.

    Diderot, Encyclopédie, “Eclectique [Philosophie]”; my stress.

  11. 11.

    Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique, “Déluge universel”.

  12. 12.

    Voltaire, Questions sur l’Encyclopédie par des amateurs, “Anneau de Saturne”.

  13. 13.

    Quatre dialogues faits à l’imitation des anciens, par Orasius Tubero (1630). Voltaire wrote Idées de La Mothe Le Vayer (text dated by Kehl of 1751, but the dating is uncertain) : this is not a compendium of the ideas of La Mothe Le Vayer himself, but rather those of Voltaire who writes his own Idées under a pseudonym.

  14. 14.

    Sainte Beuve speaks of Voltaire as “a proselytiser of common sense”; Victor Cousin, despite the little respect which he has for the author of Candide, makes the connection between Voltaire’s common sense and his scepticism more clearly: “What is Voltaire really? A bit of superficial common sense; but, at this level, common sense always leads to doubt. That is why Voltaire’s habitual philosophy consists of embracing no system, but of making fun of everything; that is scepticism in its most brilliant and lightest finery”, Victor Cousin, Histoire générale de la philosophie depuis les temps les plus anciens jusqu’à la fin du XVIII e siècle, Paris, 1863, p. 515.

  15. 15.

    The expression often returns in Voltaire. One thinks of Lettres philosophiques (Lettre XIV, “sur Descartes et Newton”), or the later pamphlet Tout en Dieu. Commentaire sur Malebranche (p. 319).

  16. 16.

    Voltaire, Traité de Métaphysique, chap. IV.

  17. 17.

    Voltaire, Le Philosophe ignorant. Chap. IX (itself entitled: “Bornes étroites”).

  18. 18.

    Ibid., Chap. XVIII (“Infini”).

  19. 19.

    Voltaire, Questions sur l’Encyclopédie, “Bornes de l’esprit humain”.

  20. 20.

    Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique, p. 14. This piece is an addition which did not appear in the 1764 edition. It was included in 1765 edition.

  21. 21.

    Descartes, Méditations métaphysiques, First Meditation.

  22. 22.

    Frédéric Brahimi “Dubito ergo sum : Descartes et le Cogito des cartésiens”, La lettre clandestine, 10, 2002, p. 43.

  23. 23.

    Thus the manuscript entitled Doutes des Pyrrhoniens (See Gianni Paganini, “Du bon usage du scepticisme : les Doutes des pyrrhoniens”, in Antony McKenna and Alain Mothu (eds.), La philosophie clandestine à l’âge classique, Oxford/Paris, The Voltaire Foundation and Universitas, 1997, pp. 291–306.)

  24. 24.

    See the critical edition of César Chesneau Dumarsais, Examen de la religion, ou doutes sur la religion dont on cherche l’éclaircissement de bonne foi, Gianluca Mori (ed.), Oxford, Voltaire Foundation, 1996; and the article by Olivier Ferret, “Voltaire éditeur de l’Examen de la religion”, Revue Voltaire, 4, 2004, pp. 143–160.

  25. 25.

    Voltaire, Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne. “J’abandonne Platon, je rejette Épicure/Bayle en sait plus qu’eux tous, je vais le consulter/La balance à la main, Bayle enseigne à douter”.

  26. 26.

    Voltaire, Questions sur l’Encyclopédie, “Âme”, section VIII; my stress.

  27. 27.

    Ibid, section XI.

  28. 28.

    Inversely, fanaticism or the abuse of authority can be seen as a pathological denial of doubt. That is how Freud analyses it. See also Carl Jung, Les Types psychologiques, Paris, éditions Georg, 1950, p. 360: “fanaticism is only an overcompensation for doubt”.

  29. 29.

    Voltaire, Dialogues de l’ABC, Seventeenth meeting.

  30. 30.

    DHC, “Pyrrhon”, rem. A, p. 731a; my stress. “They called them sceptics, zetetics, ephectics, aporetics, i.e. those who investigate, inquisite, suspend, doubt”, The following abbreviation have been used for Bayle’s work. DHC  =  Pierre Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique, Amsterdam, Leiden, The Hague and Utrecht, 1740, 4 vols. References are to article, remark, page, and column.

  31. 31.

    See the article “Certain, Certitude” in Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique.

  32. 32.

    David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part IV, Section VII.

  33. 33.

    The expression is from Frédérique Ildefonse, in “Analyse du scepticisme selon La Mothe Le Vayer à l’occasion de la parution des Neuf dialogues faits à l’imitation des anciens”, 1632, Paris, Fayard, 1989, p. 35.

  34. 34.

    Voltaire, Traité de métaphysique, chapitre II, fourth paragraph.

  35. 35.

    Ibid.

  36. 36.

    Voltaire, Lettres philosophiques, op. cit., Thirteenth letter, “Sur Locke”, p. 132.

  37. 37.

    Voltaire, Dieu. Réponse au système de la nature, op. cit., p. 320.

  38. 38.

    Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique, 1765, “Idée”; my stress.

  39. 39.

    Ibid.

  40. 40.

    DHC, “Pyrrhon”, C, 733.

  41. 41.

    Voltaire, Traité de métaphysique, chap. II.

  42. 42.

    Voltaire, Romans et contes, E. Guitton (ed.), Paris, Librairie Générale Française, 1994, p. 127.

  43. 43.

    Sivia Giocanti, Penser L’irrésolution. Montaigne, Pascal, La Mothe Le Vayer: Trois Itinéraires Sceptiques, Paris, Honoré Champion, 2001, p. 31.

  44. 44.

    Voltaire, Eléments de la philosophie de Newton, I, IX.

  45. 45.

    Ibid., I, VI.

  46. 46.

    Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique, “Corps”, Paris, Garnier, p. 98.

  47. 47.

    Voltaire, Lettre de Memnius à Cicéron, section I, “Qu’il n’y a qu’un Dieu. Contre Epicure, Lucrèce et autres philosophes”, in Voltaire, Lettres philosophiques. Derniers écrits sur Dieu, op. cit., p. 345.

  48. 48.

    Voltaire, Eléments de la philosophie de Newton, Chap. I, “De Dieu…”.

  49. 49.

    Letter from Voltaire to Frederic II, April 1737, discussed by G. Stenger, in Lettres philosophiques, op. cit., p. 459; my stress.

  50. 50.

    Voltaire, Eléments de la philosophie de Newton, chap. VII.

  51. 51.

    DHC, “Carneade”, B, 58.

  52. 52.

    Voltaire, Dieu. Réponse au Système de la nature, op.cit., p. 333.

  53. 53.

    Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique, “Catéchisme chinois”, troisième entretien; my stress.

  54. 54.

    “What is our quarrel about? about consoling our miserable existence. Who is consoling it, you and I?” declares Voltaire to the materialist d’Holbach, in the pamphlet asks Voltaire to the materialist d’Holbach, in the pamphlet Dieu. Réponse au Système de la nature, op.cit., p. 333.

  55. 55.

    Voltaire, Dieu. Réponse au Système de la nature, op.cit., p. 332.

  56. 56.

    Ibid, p. 332.

  57. 57.

    Ibid; my stress.

  58. 58.

    DHC “Zenon d’Elée”, I; my stress.

  59. 59.

    Ibid, “Matière”.

  60. 60.

    Raymond Aron, L’Opium des intellectuels, Paris, Hachette, 1991, p. 130.

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  1. Collège International de Philosophie, Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense (Paris 10), Paris, France

    Stéphane Pujol

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  1. Université de Sherbrooke, boulevard de l'Université 2500, Sherbrooke, J1K 2R1, Québec, Canada

    Sébastien Charles

  2. , Departamento de Filosofia, Universidade Federal de são Paulo, Estrada do Caminho Velho 333, Guarulhos, 07252-312, Brazil

    Plínio J. Smith

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Pujol, S. (2013). Forms and Aims of Voltairean Scepticism. In: Charles, S., J. Smith, P. (eds) Scepticism in the Eighteenth Century: Enlightenment, Lumières, Aufklärung. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 210. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4810-1_13

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