Analysis of Pangloss' Philosophical Optimism in "Candide" by Voltaire

Your Name
Subject and Section
Professor’s Name
Date
Analysis of Pangloss' Philosophical Optimism in "Candide" by Voltaire
In the novel Candide, Voltaire presents the theme about the disillusion of optimism. Optimism as a philosophy is not sufficient to rationalize the misfortunes that are happening to the people, since bad things happen and will always happen to anyone without being part of the greater good. In the novel, Voltaire dismissed the idea where each person is perceived to have an inherent purpose in life that needs to be fulfilled in order to be happy instead a person needs to actively work hard to achieve success. Voltaire used the character Pangloss to represent the everything that is wrong with philosophical optimism such as the philosophers that supports the aesthetics of positivity like Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (Phemister & Strickland, 1214) on where continuous positivity about every situation can solve problems by accepting that there is a reason for experiencing any action like catastrophes, diseases, and deaths since there is no such effect that exist without a cause. Pangloss’ optimism was focused on this world as the "best of all possible worlds (Voltaire, 2)." Although having a philosophy that makes a person view life at a positive outlook to continue moving forward is good in theory, it is not always applicable in certain situations where it cannot prevent bad things to happen. In the novel, Voltaire satirically represented all the problems that are involved in philosophical optimism, including: the ignorance of Pangloss’ philosophy in the evils of the real world, the illogical reasoning of his philosophy, and his teachings about having a passive attitude when confronted with problems of reality; since the world is perfect just wait for something positive to happen.
The first problem is the ignorance of philosophical optimism to real world problems. Pangloss is a metaphysico-theologico-cosmo-nigology philosopher teacher that is mentoring Candide, the protagonist of the story (2). Pangloss, according to the story, is the greatest philosopher in the world that adheres to the philosophy of optimism where the world is the best possible version of reality (2-3). This part is in direct relationship between the doctrine of positivity by Leibniz where the nature of the world is beautiful (Phemister & Strickland, 1214) and Voltaire used Pangloss to criticize Leibniz’s view. The first few pages of the novel used an overly exaggerated the teachings of Pangloss like the metaphysico-theologico-cosmo-nigology, which is a combination of multiple branch of knowledge that are focused on learning abstract and hypothetical that are irrelevant in solving the social issues and problems of reality. Voltaire critiqued the ignorance of philosophical optimism in the affairs of the real world since its teachings are mainly focused on the metaphysical discussions about the ideal or best possible world that cannot actually be achieved and non-existent in reality. Voltaire even used the Burglar King, when Pangloss student was pardoned because he was a student of philosophy, to represent the criticisms about the view of optimistic philosophy not as a love for knowledge, but its absence instead...