Voltaire's "Candide" is a satire on optimism.
Date Submitted: 11/28/2004 06:23:53
Category: / Social Sciences / Philosophy
Length: 4 pages (997 words)
Category: / Social Sciences / Philosophy
Length: 4 pages (997 words)
CANDIDE--OPTIMISM
Voltaire's Candide is a satire on optimism. The time when Candide was written, the intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment was spreading ideas about the equality and basic rights of man and the importance of reason and scientific objectivity. Through Candide, Voltaire expressed the misleading notion of Gottfried William von Leibniz's theory of optimism. Liebniz developed the idea that the world they were living in at that time was "the best of all possible …
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…s continuous use, and its increased value.
Through Candide, Voltaire expressed his view that this world is not the best of all possible worlds and that all is not well. He further explains his view by portraying that optimism fails, philosophical theories are ineffective, and that excessive wealth leads to degeneration to the individual. Voltaire succeeds in proving the falsehood of Leibniz's philosophy on the perfection of the practical life of man.
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