Voltaire's skeptical jurisprudence

contra Leibnizian optimism in candide

Patrick Riley

pp. 521-531

in: Enrico Pattaro, Damiano Canale, Hasso Hofmann, Patrick Riley (eds), A treatise of legal philosophy and general jurisprudence 9-10, Berlin, Springer, 2009

Abstract

While Malebranche's Recherche de la généralité ("general" law and "general" will) is the dominant strain in French jurisprudence, finally shaping the legalpolitical thought of Montesquieu and of Rousseau, there is a recessive (but not negligible) strain which is 'skeptical" (descended from Montaigne and Charron) and which emerges in its strongest form in the legal-political-moral thought of Voltaire. Since généralité and French Pyrrhonisme (between them) dominate French practical thought in early modernity, a chapter on Voltaire is fully warranted.

Cited authors

Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm

De Montaigne Michel

Rousseau Jean-Jacques

Voltaire