Rousseau on Providence
2000; Philosophy Education Society Inc.; Volume: 53; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2154-1302
Autores Tópico(s)Rousseau and Enlightenment Thought
ResumoKANT HELD THAT NEWTON AND ROUSSEAU HAD REVEALED ways of Providence: After Newton and Rousseau, God is justified, and Pope's thesis is henceforth true.(1) Rousseau discussed Providence and Pope's thesis that Whatever is, is right most fully in long letter which he wrote to Voltaire in 1756, about year after publication of Discourse on Inequality (1755), at time when he is likely also to have done work on Essay on Origin of Languages. These three writings, Discourse--to-gether with Rousseau's Replies to criticisms of it by Genevan naturalist Charles Bonnet writing under pseudonym Philopolis, and by Master of King's Hunt Charles-George Le Roy writing in name of Buffon--the Essay, and Letter to Voltaire, form unit: they consider natural order and man's place in it specifically than do airy of his other writings.(2) The Discourse is only one of them publication of which Rousseau himself initiated. The Letter to Voltaire differs from other writings in this group by discussing man's place in natural world in theological terms. Indeed, it is only record we have of theological discussion which Rousseau freely initiated with near-equal, a friend of truth speaking to Philosopher [2]. Still, his relations with Voltaire were already tense, and he clearly did not think even of this Letter as entirely candid and private: he omitted his boldest reflections from copy he sent to Voltaire, and its unauthorized publication, some years later, cannot have taken him by surprise. The fact remains that none of his numerous other discussions of religious issues is addressed to near-equal or to philosopher; most of them are public; some are frankly apologetic; others are carried on by various characters of his invention, some of whom explicitly are, and some of whom explicitly are not, citizens, and number of whom appear in guise of first person. The reader is therefore not free simply to attribute to one of his characters views which he attributes to another one of them; nor is reader free simply to attribute to author views which he attributes to one or another of his characters; in his last writing he goes so far as to embed what little he says about his religious views in discussion of lying, and even in that context he says of these views only that they are more or less same as those which he had Emile's tutor attribute to Savoyard Vicar. In short, Letter to Voltaire is Rousseau's most authoritative discussion of religious issues, discussion in light of which careful readers will assess his numerous other discussions of these issues.(3) The immediate occasion for Letter was small booklet Rousseau received in early 1756, made up of two didactic poems by Voltaire, Poem on Natural Law written in 1751/1752, and Poem about Lisbon Disaster written shortly after terrible earthquake that struck Lisbon on Saturday, November 1, All Saints' Day, 1755. The quake was followed by tidal waves and extensive fires, causing death of thousands of people and destroying much of city. The disaster made deep impression throughout Europe.(4) Voltaire writes about it in impassioned tones, and with none of his usual detachment or irony. His Poem is sustained attack on optimism, the axiom, as its subtitle announces, Tout est bien, Leibniz's thesis that this is world possible, and thesis of Pope's Essay on Man (1733/ 1734) that whatever is, is right.(5) In 1737 French Jesuit Journal de Trevoux coined term optimism to mock Leibniz's best (optimum) world possible. It mocks optimism because, as Voltaire points out in Preface to his Poem, theologians very correctly saw that optimists' claim relegates Fall, redemption, and salvation to strictly subordinate role in men's lives. Initially, then, optimism referred to philosophical position, and not, as it does now, to belief that things get better and better. …
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