Voltaire and Pope
Use of Reason to Support Polarized Viewpoints
During the Enlightenment great thinkers began to question all things. Rather than just believe in something because an authority (church, political authority, society) claimed it to be true, these men and women set out to find the truth through reason, to provide explanations for all actions and events. Both Alexander Pope and Voltaire discuss some of the more common questions posed during the Enlightenment: What is the nature of humanity and what is our role in the greater picture of the universe? Pope argues that everything in the universe, whether it is good or evil, is essentially perfect because is a part of God’s grand plan. In essence, Pope believed in pre-determined fate, where no matter our actions, our fate remains the same as it was decided upon before you were born. Voltaire will critique this viewpoint by exploring the negative results of the belief that blind faith will lead to the best possible result and that man does exercise free will. While Pope’s “Essay on Man” and Voltaire’s Candide are derived from polarized viewpoints and speak about a very different set of beliefs, they both use the same fundamental concept of reason to provide the basis of their argument. Alexander Pope set out to write his “Essay on Man” to use reason to justify his viewpoints of optimism, predetermined fate, and God’s use of both good and evil for balance in the universe. Pope begins the essay by claiming that man can only reason about things in which he has experience with and goes on to illustrate that our limited knowledge is not capable of understanding God’s systems by questioning, “What can we reason, but from what we know?” (17) He uses the reason that since man can only understand what is within the scope of his knowledge that he cannot expect to comprehend the greater systems that God knows intimately. Pope also believes deeply of in the Great Chain of Being and it is the foundation on which his arguments rest.
During the Enlightenment great thinkers began to question all things. Rather than just believe in something because an authority (church, political authority, society) claimed it to be true, these men and women set out to find the truth through reason, to provide explanations for all actions and events. Both Alexander Pope and Voltaire discuss some of the more common questions posed during the Enlightenment: What is the nature of humanity and what is our role in the greater picture of the universe? Pope argues that everything in the universe, whether it is good or evil, is essentially perfect because is a part of God’s grand plan. In essence, Pope believed in pre-determined fate, where no matter our actions, our fate remains the same as it was decided upon before you were born. Voltaire will critique this viewpoint by exploring the negative results of the belief that blind faith will lead to the best possible result and that man does exercise free will. While Pope’s “Essay on Man” and Voltaire’s Candide are derived from polarized viewpoints and speak about a very different set of beliefs, they both use the same fundamental concept of reason to provide the basis of their argument. Alexander Pope set out to write his “Essay on Man” to use reason to justify his viewpoints of optimism, predetermined fate, and God’s use of both good and evil for balance in the universe. Pope begins the essay by claiming that man can only reason about things in which he has experience with and goes on to illustrate that our limited knowledge is not capable of understanding God’s systems by questioning, “What can we reason, but from what we know?” (17) He uses the reason that since man can only understand what is within the scope of his knowledge that he cannot expect to comprehend the greater systems that God knows intimately. Pope also believes deeply of in the Great Chain of Being and it is the foundation on which his arguments rest.
Cited: Pope, Alexander. “Essay on Man.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 3rd Edition. Vol D. Martin Puchner ed. New York: Norton, 2012. 344-351. Print. "Renaissance." Academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu. Brooklyn College, 30 Mar. 2009. Web. 20 Oct. 2012. . Voltaire, Francois de Arouet. Candide. The Norton Antology of World Literature. 3rd Edition. Vol D. Martin Puchner ed. New York: Norton, 20