Voltaire
Enlightenment · Europe · 1694 to 1778
French writer who used wit and argument to defend tolerance and reason and to attack cruelty and dogma.
What it is
Voltaire (1694 to 1778) was a French writer, born François-Marie Arouet, and one of the leading figures of the French Enlightenment. He worked mostly through plays, stories, poems and pamphlets rather than treatises, and used wit against fanaticism, superstition and the power of the clergy.
He is remembered less for a system than for a stance. He argued for tolerance, for reason and for judging ideas by the facts, and he treated public criticism as part of a philosopher's work.
The main ideas
- Tolerance. He campaigned against religious persecution. His best-known case was the Calas affair, in which he tried to save a man from an unjust execution.
- Against church authority. He was unwavering in his hostility to church authority and the power of the clergy, and he attacked fanaticism and superstition.
- England as a model. After about three years of exile in England in the late 1720s he came back an admirer of Locke and Newton, and of English constitutional government and religious tolerance.
- Facts before systems. He defended the Newtonian way of working from observed facts against grand rationalist systems, and he was more a man of ideas than a builder of systems.
- Against easy optimism. In his story Candide (1759) he attacked the view of Leibniz that we live in the best of all possible worlds.
What it looks like in practice
Picture someone who is told that a disaster must have been for the best. Voltaire's answer, in Candide, was to put that claim in the mouth of a character and let events make it look foolish, then to point towards ordinary, useful work. This is an illustration of the approach, not a saying of Voltaire.
Books and moments
- Lettres philosophiques, the book he wrote after his time in England, praising English ways. It caused him trouble with the authorities.
- Candide (1759) is his best-known work, a comic story that attacks Leibnizian optimism.
- The Calas affair is his most famous campaign against injustice.
Questions and criticism
- Is a satirist a philosopher? He wrote few systematic works and often aimed at recognised philosophers instead of building a theory. Whether that makes him a thinker or a critic is still asked.
- Is mockery an argument? Candide is a story, not a proof. It is fair to ask whether Leibniz's view is answered or only laughed at.
- Where does tolerance stop? He pressed for tolerance but was hostile to church power. How a tolerant critic treats those he opposes is an open question.
Close neighbours
He mocked Leibniz, and the page on Leibniz sets out the view he attacked. He admired Locke and Newton, and he spent years with Émilie du Châtelet and later went to the court of Frederick of Prussia. The page on Locke shows the English side of his thought.
Written by epchē in our own words, and checked against independent sources on 9 October 2026. The sources are listed below.
Where to start reading
Books by Voltaire or about them, from the easiest way in to the harder ones.
- Candide Voltaire
Covers belong to their publishers and are shown so you can recognise the book.
Philosophies they belong to or are close to
Who they connect to
Influenced
- Marquis de Condorcet · He was a friend and admirer of the Enlightenment writers, and wrote a life of Voltaire.
Influenced by
- Confucius · Voltaire praised Confucian ethics as a model of morals without revelation.
- Francis Bacon · Voltaire held up Bacon, Newton and Locke as models of sound method.
- John Locke · Voltaire's Letters on the English praised Locke and brought his ideas to French readers.
- Pierre Bayle · Voltaire and the other writers of the Enlightenment drew arguments and examples from his dictionary.
Reacted against
- Gottfried Leibniz · Candide mocks the idea that this is the best of all possible worlds.
Reacted against by
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau · Rousseau answered Voltaire's poem on the Lisbon earthquake with a defence of providence and simple living.
Runs parallel to
- Zera Yacob · Both criticise rival religious authorities from the standpoint of reason. (scholars disagree about this link)
Other Enlightenment thinkers
- Pierre Bayle · 1647 to 1706
- Montesquieu · 1689 to 1755
- Julien Offray de La Mettrie · 1709 to 1751
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 1712 to 1778
- Denis Diderot · 1713 to 1784
- Baron d'Holbach · 1723 to 1789
- Thomas Paine · 1737 to 1809
- Marquis de Condorcet · 1743 to 1794
- Mary Wollstonecraft · 1759 to 1797