Philosophical Optimism and Candide
Andy Tsai
Mr. de Groof
Grade 12 Literature
01/11/16
IEP 28 Andy
Candide, one of the masterpieces of Voltaire during the age of enlightenment,
was written to satirize the religious, philosophy and society. The universal themeoptimism was the most significant of all themes. Based on Pangloss and Candide’s
interaction and context, philosophical optimism appears to be the belief that
everything is managed to happen and was necessary in order to lead people to form
the perfect world, or frankly “all is for the possible best”. At the beginning of the
story, Voltaire portrayed Candide and his tutor, Pangloss, as faithful believers of
optimism. But as the journey comes to an end, Candide lost faith to his theory and
abandoned it. This transition marked his change of mind from naïve to mature.
The optimism philosophy Pangloss and Candide promoted throughout the
story parallels to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s idea. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, one of
the greatest German philosopher and also known as the universal genius during the
seventeenth century, proclaimed that all is best for the possible world because he
believed the god is omniscience, powerful, and always acts for the best. Since god
was such powerful and divine why would he create a society with chaos? Therefor,
Leibniz concluded that everything happened must be reasonable and planned
beforehand to approach the ideal goal of forming the perfect society. (Brandon C.The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2014 Edition) In the story, Candide’s
responses to the mournful stories about the characters, like the dethroned kings or the
old woman, served as examples to bolster his optimism belief. Even though lots of
incidents and people constantly challenged Candide’s theory, especially Martin,
Candide wasn’t affected at all and still holds tightly to his belief because believing his
own theory will work the way he expect is somehow part of the optimism philosophy.
One of the major problems of optimism is that most ideas are over unrealistic
and irrational. They believed that god had planned everything for the best and caused
them unwilling to improve or change the current circumstances. Pangloss advocate
the idea that the result will turn to a happy ending after all the sufferings. For
example, at the last chapter Pangloss assumed if Candide didn’t love Cunegonde, he
wouldn’t be kicked out of the castle, visited El Dorado and traveled around the world,
and eventually be living in the garden to work whether than reasoning. Pangloss’
assertion comment of the value of the journey seems unreasonable. They could have
live happily at the castle and didn’t suffer terrible around the world.
Pangloss was portrayed as an excessive believer in philosophical optimism
and embodied the philosophy perfectly. He clearly stated in chapter one that “things
cannot be otherwise: for, since everything was made for a purpose, everything is
necessarily for the best purpose” (ch.1 p.16), which is obviously unpractical. Base on
his theory, everything was already managed and undoubtedly to happen. Throughout
the story, he kept emphasizing, “All is for the best” regardless of the situation he’s in.
His response to the earthquake at Lisbon thoroughly demonstrates his drastic
optimism philosophy. “All is for the best, for if there’s a volcano at Lisbon, it couldn’t
be anywhere else. For it’s impossible for things not to be where they are. For all is
well”. (Ch.5 p.27) Likewise, when he stopped Candide from saving the Anabaptist,
who was nearly being drowned by the waves, was unreasonable because they could
have saved him without risking their lives. “The Lisbon harbor [is] formed
expressively for the Anabaptist to drown in. (Ch.5 p.26)”. Clearly Pangloss’ was
seriously affected by his optimism belief and can’t really differentiate reality.
Candide is also a promoter of optimism in the story. From the beginning of
his life being exiled from the baron’s castle, he encountered obstacles but were
fortunately resolved by others help, which strengthened Pangloss’ teaching. For
example, the Anabaptist, Jacques, saved him after he fled from the Bulgar army, the
old women saved him from the auto-da-fe and his reunion with the beloved
Cunegonde. However, Candide started to show signs of doubt to his optimism theory
from the middle of the journey. The old woman’s assertion and Pangloss’ death were
just the beginning. When he met Paqeette, who also suffered terribly after she was
kicked out of the castle and ended up becoming a prostitute and the six dethroned
kings, who once enjoyed their prosperous life as a prominent leader but suddenly lost
their unlimited wealth and status. These characters shared common flaw of their life
and served as evidence against Pangloss’ optimism theory. In addition, Candide’s
interactions with Martin, the pessimism, helped Candide recognize the true prospect
of the world and caused him to abandon his optimism theory.
Candide and Pangloss’ belief of free will is also an interesting topic to discuss.
Lot’s of their arguments securing free will and all is for the possible best were selfcontradicting. In chapter twenty-one when Martin and Candide discussing human
nature, Martin made a legitimate point of why human couldn’t change the inherent
nature of evil. Even though Voltaire cut the conversation right after Candide is going
to reply to Martin’s, it is predictable that Candide will inform Martin that god had
planned the perfect world, and in the perfect world people are granted free will.
Nonetheless, Candide didn’t notice that if god had planned everything already, people
having free will is just an illusion.
The major principle of optimism is firmly attached to the idea that all is for the
best because god managed to build the perfect world. Basically, both Candide and
Pangloss reflected the problems of optimism. Throughout the journey, Candide and
Pangloss were isolated from the reality most of the time. But Candide eventually
realized that his way of examining the world was unrealistic and abandoned
optimism. Voltaire successfully constructed the best model of satire novel and brought
impactful influences to later generation philosophers and writers.
Bibliography
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Voltaire, Candide, Trans. Lowell Bair, Classic Reissue ed., New York City:
Bantam Dell, 2003, Print
Look, Brandon C., "Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz", The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/leibniz/