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Francois-Marie d'Arouet lived from 1694 to 1778. In philosophy, he is better known as Voltaire. The French philosopher was a writer, activist and political idealist who used the written word to help push vast scientific, political and social change. He broke no new ground in the whirlwind of ideas sweeping Europe in the Enlightenment, but his writing served to introduce and popularize the original thinking of philosophers like Newton and Locke -- and to make him a celebrated public figure.

Religious Beliefs

Voltaire was very outspoken when it came to organized religion. He lived in a historical period called the Enlightenment, when church and state began to separate. While he never openly declared himself to be a non-believer, he advocated religious perspective known as deism. Deism proposes that there is some kind of supernatural creator, but it is not associated with any mainstream religion. Open opposition to religion was a serious offense that landed Voltaire in jail and ultimately, exile.

Political Beliefs

According to the "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy," Voltaire was a strong advocate of political reform. He declared his own independent stance, saying he belonged to the "party of humanity." Aside from religion, his other main target was extremism in any form, be it political or religious. Voltaire directed much of his social and political criticism at the monarchy and aristocracy, also challenging the judicial system as "irrational and brutal."

Scientific Beliefs

Although Voltaire was a deist, he still had a very naturalistic worldview. He had a deep regard for science and its importance in promoting rational thought over superstition. Since he still believed in a supernatural creator, he did not subscribe to the emerging idea that living organisms could spontaneously generate from non-living matter. Still, Voltaire felt that basing your beliefs on "empirical evidence" was the antidote to religiosity and the dangerous authority it can create.

Personal Freedom

Voltaire was a proponent of personal liberty and freedom of speech, making the famous statement, "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." For Voltaire, rational human beings -- for the most part -- were capable of thinking for themselves and therefore did not need institutions thinking for them. At the same time, he pointed out that many people are incapable of such rational thought and must therefore turn to religion for personal guidance. Despite his apparent disdain for religion, Voltaire was a strong advocate for religious tolerance, stating that diverse, open religious beliefs are fine, "as long as they are not murderous."

About the Author

Alex Saez is a writer who draws much of his information from his professional and academic experience. Saez holds a Bachelor of Arts in English literature from Queen's University and an advanced diploma in business administration, with a focus on human resources, from St. Lawrence College in Kingston, Ontario.

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What Were Some of Voltaire's Beliefs? | Synonym

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Francois-Marie d'Arouet lived from 1694 to 1778. In philosophy, he is better known as Voltaire. The French philosopher was a writer, activist and political idealist who used the written word to help push vast scientific, political and social change.

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Philosophers began the Enlightenment when the divine right of kings was challenged and freedoms were seen as natural or God-given.-- Created using PowToon -- Free sign up at http://www.powtoon.com/ . Make your own animated videos and animated presentations for free.

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The Enlightenment was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century.

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Quick Facts
"A witty saying proves nothing.""All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."

Name

Voltaire

Occupation

Historian

Birth Date

November 21, 1694

Death Date

May 30, 1778

Education

Collége Louis-le-Grand

Place of Birth

Paris, France

Place of Death

Paris, France

Who Was Voltaire?

Born in 1694, in Paris, France, Voltaire established himself as one of the leading writers of the Enlightenment. His famed works include the tragic play Zaïre, the historical study The Age of Louis XIV and the satirical novella Candide. Often at odds with French authorities over his politically and religiously charged works, he was twice imprisoned and spent many years in exile. He died shortly after returning to Paris in 1778.

Voltaire's Beliefs / Philosophy

Embracing Enlightenment philosophers such as Isaac Newton, John Locke and Francis Bacon, Voltaire found inspiration in their ideals of a free and liberal society, along with freedom of religion and free commerce.

Voltaire, in keeping with other Enlightenment thinkers of the era, was a deist - not by faith, according to him, but rather by reason. He looked favorably on religious tolerance, even though he could be severely critical towards Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

As a vegetarian and an advocate of animal rights, however, Voltaire praised Hinduism, stating Hindus were "[a] peaceful and innocent people, equally incapable of hurting others or of defending themselves."

Major Works

Voltaire wrote poetry and plays, as well as historical and philosophical works. His most well-known poetry includes The Henriade (1723) and The Maid of Orleans, which he started writing in 1730 but never fully completed.

Among the earliest of Voltaire's best-known plays is his adaptation of Sophocles' tragedy Oedipus, which was first performed in 1718. Voltaire followed with a string of dramatic tragedies, including Mariamne (1724). His Zaïre (1732), written in verse, was something of a departure from previous works: Until that point, Voltaire's tragedies had centered on a fatal flaw in the protagonist's character; however, the tragedy in Zaïre was the result of circumstance. Following Zaïre, Voltaire continued to write tragic plays, including Mahomet (1736) and Nanine (1749).

Voltaire's body of writing also includes the notable historical works The Age of Louis XIV (1751) and Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of the Nations (1756). In the latter, Voltaire took a unique approach to tracing the progression of world civilization by focusing on social history and the arts.

'Candide'

Voltaire's popular philosophic works took the form of the short stories Micromégas (1752) and Plato's Dream (1756), as well as the famed satirical novella Candide (1759), which is considered Voltaire's greatest work. Candide is filled with philosophical and religious parody, and in the end the characters reject optimism. There is great debate on whether Voltaire was making an actual statement about embracing a pessimistic philosophy or if he was trying to encourage people to be actively involved to improve society.

In 1764, he published another of his acclaimed philosophical works, Dictionnaire philosophique, an encyclopedic dictionary that embraced the concepts of Enlightenment and rejected the ideas of the Roman Catholic Church.

Arrests and Exiles

In 1716, Voltaire was exiled to Tulle for mocking the duc d'Orleans. In 1717, he returned to Paris, only to be arrested and exiled to the Bastille for a year on charges of writing libelous poetry. Voltaire was sent to the Bastille again in 1726, for arguing with the Chevalier de Rohan. This time he was only detained briefly before being exiled to England, where he remained for nearly three years.

"Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer" ("If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him") - Epître à l'auteur du livre des Trois imposteurs, Voltaire, 1768

The publication of Voltaire's Letters on the English (1733) angered the French church and government, forcing the writer to flee to safer pastures. He spent the next 15 years with his mistress, Émilie du Châtelet, at her husband's home in Cirey-sur-Blaise.

Voltaire moved to Prussia in 1750 as a member of Frederick the Great's court, and spent later years in Geneva and Ferney. By 1778, he was recognized as an icon of the Enlightenment's progressive ideals, and he was given a hero's welcome upon his return to Paris. He died there shortly afterward, on May 30, 1778.

Early Life

Voltaire was born François-Marie Arouet to a prosperous family on November 21, 1694, in Paris, France. He was the youngest of five children born to François Arouet and Marie Marguerite d'Aumart. When Voltaire was just seven years old, his mother passed away. Following her death, he grew closer to his free-thinking godfather.

In 1704, Voltaire was enrolled at the Collége Louis-le-Grand, a Jesuit secondary school in Paris, where he received a classical education and began showing promise as a writer.

Legacy and Later Relevance

In 1952, researcher and writer Theodore Besterman established a museum devoted to Voltaire in Geneva. He later set about writing a biography of his favorite subject, and following his death in 1976, the Voltaire Foundation was vested permanently at the University of Oxford.

The foundation continued to work toward making the Enlightenment writer's prolific output available to the public. It was later announced that The Oxford Complete Works of Voltaire, the first exhaustive annotated edition of Voltaire's novels, plays and letters, would expand to 220 volumes by 2020.

In November 2017, during an event to celebrate what would have been Voltaire's 323rd birthday, foundation director Nicholas Cronk explained how the famed writer used "fake news" to generate attention. Among his fabrications, Voltaire offered up differing dates for his birthday, and lied about the identity of his biological father.

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"A witty saying proves nothing." "All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets." Name Voltaire Occupation Historian Birth Date November 21, 1694 Death Date May 30, 1778 Education Collége Louis-le-Grand Place of Birth Paris, France Place of Death Paris, France Born in 1694, in Paris, France, Voltaire established himself as one of the leading writers of the Enlightenment.

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European politics, philosophy, science and communications were radically reoriented during the course of the "long 18th century" (1685-1815) as part of a movement referred to by its participants as the Age of Reason, or simply the Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinkers in Britain, in France and throughout Europe questioned traditional authority and embraced the notion that humanity could be improved through rational change. The Enlightenment produced numerous books, essays, inventions, scientific discoveries, laws, wars and revolutions. The American and French Revolutions were directly inspired by Enlightenment ideals and respectively marked the peak of its influence and the beginning of its decline. The Enlightenment ultimately gave way to 19th-century Romanticism.

The Early Enlightenment: 1685-1730

The Enlightenment's important 17th-century precursors included the Englishmen Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes, the Frenchman René Descartes and the key natural philosophers of the Scientific Revolution, including Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Its roots are usually traced to 1680s England, where in the span of three years Isaac Newton published his "Principia Mathematica" (1686) and John Locke his "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" (1689)-two works that provided the scientific, mathematical and philosophical toolkit for the Enlightenment's major advances.

Did you know? In his essay 'What Is Enlightenment?' (1784), the German philosopher Immanuel Kant summed up the era's motto in the following terms: 'Dare to know! Have courage to use your own reason!'

Locke argued that human nature was mutable and that knowledge was gained through accumulated experience rather than by accessing some sort of outside truth. Newton's calculus and optical theories provided the powerful Enlightenment metaphors for precisely measured change and illumination.

There was no single, unified Enlightenment. Instead, it is possible to speak of the French Enlightenment, the Scottish Enlightenment and the English, German, Swiss or American Enlightenment. Individual Enlightenment thinkers often had very different approaches. Locke differed from David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau from Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson from Frederick the Great. Their differences and disagreements, though, emerged out of the common Enlightenment themes of rational questioning and belief in progress through dialogue.

The High Enlightenment: 1730-1780

Centered on the dialogues and publications of the French "philosophes" (Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Buffon and Denis Diderot), the High Enlightenment might best be summed up by one historian's summary of Voltaire's "Philosophical Dictionary": "a chaos of clear ideas." Foremost among these was the notion that everything in the universe could be rationally demystified and cataloged. The signature publication of the period was Diderot's "Encyclopédie" (1751-77), which brought together leading authors to produce an ambitious compilation of human knowledge.

It was an age of enlightened despots like Frederick the Great, who unified, rationalized and modernized Prussia in between brutal multi-year wars with Austria, and of enlightened would-be revolutionaries like Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, whose "Declaration of Independence" (1776) framed the American Revolution in terms taken from of Locke's essays.

It was also a time of religious (and anti-religious) innovation, as Christians sought to reposition their faith along rational lines and deists and materialists argued that the universe seemed to determine its own course without God's intervention. Locke, along with French philosopher Pierre Bayle, began to champion the idea of the separation of Church and State. Secret societies-like the Freemasons, the Bavarian Illuminati and the Rosicrucians-flourished, offering European men (and a few women) new modes of fellowship, esoteric ritual and mutual assistance. Coffeehouses, newspapers and literary salons emerged as new venues for ideas to circulate.

The Late Enlightenment and Beyond: 1780-1815

The French Revolution of 1789 was the culmination of the High Enlightenment vision of throwing out the old authorities to remake society along rational lines, but it devolved into bloody terror that showed the limits of its own ideas and led, a decade later, to the rise of Napoleon. Still, its goal of egalitarianism attracted the admiration of the early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft (mother of "Frankenstein" author Mary Shelley) and inspired both the Haitian war of independence and the radical racial inclusivism of Paraguay's first post-independence government.

Enlightened rationality gave way to the wildness of Romanticism, but 19th-century Liberalism and Classicism-not to mention 20th-century Modernism -all owe a heavy debt to the thinkers of the Enlightenment.

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European politics, philosophy, science and communications were radically reoriented during the course of the "long 18th century" (1685-1815) as part of a movement referred to by its participants as the Age of Reason, or simply the Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinkers in Britain, in France and throughout Europe questioned traditional authority and embraced the notion that humanity could be improved through rational change.

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This is an image of Voltaire, he was a philosopher who believed in religious freedom and freedom of speech.