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In some ways, the book can be compared with Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, in how it flatteringly explains a nation to itself from the perspective of an outsider, as Voltaire's depictions of aspects of English culture, society and government are often given favourable treatment in comparison to their French equivalents.
Voltaire did have a Jewish friend, Daniel de Fonseca, whom he esteemed highly, and proclaimed him as "the only philosopher, perhaps, among the Jews of his time". [166] Voltaire condemned the persecution of Jews on several occasions, including in Henriade, and he never advocated violence or attacks against them.
Voltaire based his book on his experiences living in Great Britain as his compatriot Tocqueville did a century later in America, and according to the National Constitution Center, "Voltaire's passages on the spirit of commerce, religious diversity, religious freedom, and the English form of government also greatly influenced American thinking ...
In his 1767 An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Ferguson uses the four stages of progress, a theory that was popular in Scotland at the time, to explain how humans advance from a hunting and gathering society to a commercial and civil society without agreeing to a social contract.
Essai sur les mœurs et l'esprit des nations (translated to English as "An Essay on Universal History, the Manners, and Spirit of Nations") [1] [2] is a work by the French writer, historian, and philosopher Voltaire, published for the first time in 1756. [3]
Candide, ou l'Optimisme (/ k ɒ n ˈ d iː d / kon-DEED, [5] French: ⓘ) is a French satire written by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment, [6] first published in 1759. . The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best (1759); Candide: or, The Optimist (1762); and Candide: Optimism (1947)
American philosophy is the activity, corpus, and tradition of philosophers affiliated with the United States. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that while it lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevertheless be seen as both reflecting and shaping collective American identity over the history of the nation". [1]
The Enlightenment in America (1978) Oxford University Press, US, ISBN 0-19-502367-6; the standard survey; May, Henry F. The Divided Heart: Essays on Protestantism and the Enlightenment in America (Oxford UP 1991) online; McDonald, Forrest Novus Ordo Seclorum: Intellectual Origins of the Constitution (1986) University Press of Kansas, ISBN 0 ...