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Voltaire's best-known histories are History of Charles XII (1731), The Age of Louis XIV (1751), and his Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of the Nations (1756). He broke from the tradition of narrating diplomatic and military events, and emphasized customs, social history and achievements in the arts and sciences.
The author, Voltaire. The Dictionnaire philosophique (Philosophical Dictionary) is an encyclopedic dictionary published by the Enlightenment thinker Voltaire in 1764. The alphabetically arranged articles often criticize the Roman Catholic Church, Judaism, Islam, and other institutions.
In Letter 6, Voltaire attacks the Presbyterians, whom he sees as intolerant ("[The Presbyterian] affects a serious gait, puts on a sour look, wears a vastly broad-brimmed hat and a long cloak over a very short coat, preaches through the nose, and gives the name of the whore of Babylon to all churches where the ministers are so fortunate as to ...
Voltaire attacked faith in a Christian God and the superstitions in the teachings of the Catholic Church, raising an element of doubt over many old practices of the Judeo-Christian tradition. He attempted to convince his readers that there were certain beliefs and teachings in Christianity which simply did not stand up to the test of reason.
In this view, the clergy, and religion more broadly, reaffirms ignorance of social realities by passing off religious teachings as objective truths. [5] However, in "Plato's Dream," Voltaire chose to focus more so on the philosophical foundations of religious beliefs, rather than religion as a social institution.
Voltaire finished the work by January 2, 1763, and it was printed by the Cramer brothers in Geneva in April 1763. After copies had been distributed to selected recipients, including Madame de Pompadour, ministers of the French privy council, Frederick the Great, and some German princes, it began to be distributed in October 1763 and was quickly banned.
The Lumières movement was, for all its existence, pulled in two directions by opposing social forces: on one side, a strong spiritualism accompanied by a traditional faith in the religion of the Church; on the other, the rise of an anticlerical movement, critical of the differences between religious theory and practice, which was most manifest ...
The princes of Saxony, for example, carried out an impressive series of fundamental fiscal, administrative, judicial, educational, cultural, and general economic reforms. The reforms were aided by the country's strong urban structure and influential commercial groups and modernized pre-1789 Saxony along the lines of classic Enlightenment ...