The Philosophy Club: Voltaire

Voltaire's life was so extraordinary that one biographer, Derek Parker, noted that even today in France, his plays are regarded as "unperformable and almost unreadable." Yet Voltaire was revered by almost every contemporary critic. As one of the podcast hosts put it, this raises a troubling question: "What if influencing is the truest art?" Voltaire's greatest contribution may not be his literary works but the way he lived, the ideas he popularized, and the persona he crafted.

The Man Behind the Name

Voltaire was born François-Marie Arouet in 18th-century France, the son of a lawyer. He created the name "Voltaire" himself, and nobody knows exactly why. Theories abound: it might be an anagram of his Latinized birth name, derived from the phrase "je veux mater" (I want to steal), taken from the Italian town Volterra, or evolved from a childhood nickname "Le Volontaire" (the stubborn one). This ambiguity is fitting for a man who spent his life constructing a carefully managed public image.