A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 01
⚠️ Content warning
- Language:
- English
- Translation:
- William F. Fleming
- Status:
- Selection or partial work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~84,600 words · 402 passages
Cite this work
- APAVoltaire. (n.d.). A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 01. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/voltaire/a-philosophical-dictionary-volume-01
- MLAVoltaire. "A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 01." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/voltaire/a-philosophical-dictionary-volume-01.
- ChicagoVoltaire. A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 01. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/voltaire/a-philosophical-dictionary-volume-01.
What it is about
Volume 1 of ten of the Philosophical Dictionary. A – Aristotle. It opens with the articles on the abbé, the soul and love.
Context and history
The form is the argument: a dictionary is consulted rather than read through, which made it impossible to refute as a whole and easy to circulate underground. Voltaire published it anonymously in 1764 and it was burned in Geneva and in Paris. A note on the edition: the catalogue holds TWO editions of the Philosophical Dictionary — this one in ten volumes and a single-volume Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary. They are not a duplicate: they are different selections and translations, and the articles do not correspond one to one. The original is French.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
One hundred and sixty-eight designs, comprising reproductions of rare old engravings, steel plates, photogravures, and curious fac-similes VOLUME V E.R. DuMONT PARIS--LONDON--NEW YORK--CHICAGO _The WORKS of VOLTAIRE_ _"Between two servants of Humanity, who appeared eighteen hundred years apart, there is a mysterious relation. * * * * Let us say it with a sentiment of profound respect: JESUS WEPT: VOLTAIRE SMILED. Of that divine tear and of that human smile is composed the sweetness of the present civilization."_ _VICTOR HUGO._ LIST OF PLATES--VOL. I VOLTAIRE AT THE AGE OF THIRTY _Frontispiece_ MAHOMET LOUIS AND MDLLE. DE LA VALLIÈRE ANCIENT GREECE A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY. _The_ DICTIONNAIRE PHILOSOPHIQUE _is Voltaire's principal essay in philosophy, though not a sustained work. The miscellaneous articles he contributed to Diderot's_ ENCYCLOPÉDIE _which compose this Dictionary embody a mass of scholarly research, criticism, and speculation, lit up with pungent sallies at the formal and tyrannous ecclesiasticism of the period and the bases of belief on which it stood._ _These short studies reflect every phase of Voltaire's sparkling genius. Though some of the views enunciated in them are now universally held, and others have become obsolete through extended knowledge, they were startlingly new when Voltaire, at peril of freedom and reputation, spread them before the people of all civilized nations, who read them still with their first charm of style and substance._