How Did Voltaire Contribute To The Enlightenment

Voltaire: A New Stance to the Enlightenment The Enlightenment was a critical time for political and social reform amongst society in Europe as many notable faces came to question the way of ruling a country. One of these thinkers was Voltaire, a French philosopher who was instrumental in bringing the ideas of the Enlightenment age to France. Baptized on November 21, 1964 in Paris, France, dying May 30, 1778 in Paris he had a big impact on Western European society. At a young age, Voltaire, from a middle class family was one who resented his stepfather who was very strict, making him look to his Godfather who was more of a free thinker. Soon thereafter, he then attended a Jesuit college for 4 years where he learned the ideals of Christianity,

Coming from a middle class family, he knew what it was like to be in a perspective of a commoner, making him more of an elite and more known philosopher of his time, however he did have some troubles with the class system of France. He ultimately denounced the unfair balance of power between the clergy who he heavily disliked, the nobles, and the middle class who were stuck with paying the most taxes as he came from a middle class family. As previously said, in turn, he tried to establish a constitutional monarchy which supported liberalism, however, nothing really came about as a result. On the contrary to this though, in terms of slavery, he believed that it was a practice that did have a place in society as he thought that black people did not have the same entitlements as the white people did at the time. Through his train of thought as a very influential thinker of the time, he thought that the best way to obtain knowledge was through practicing science as evidenced by his admiration for Isaac Newton and the ideas that stemmed from the Scientific Revolution which had a big impact on the Enlightenment. This ultimately led to his stance of acquiring knowledge through empirical thinking and through rational thought in things that could be proven which was contrary to other French philosophers of the time period. This is best shown in one of his encyclopedia of sciences and him performing science experiments with his wife in a laboratory studying over 21,000 books of science. While science was a topic and area he well enjoyed, it also ended up getting him into some amount of trouble with the legal and justice system. After moving to Potsdam to join up with Frederick the Great(1712-1786), a great admirer of his, he ended up arguing with the head of the Berlin Academy of Science which ultimately got Voltaire exiled again. He desired fair trial