Key Terms
causality, mind/body, satire, mystification
The Age of Enlightenment (17th-18th century in Europe & America)
- beginning of the scientific age
- moved away from religion
- started admiring their surroundings
- reaction to the superstition of earlier generation
Think of your journey vs. Candide’s journey
“Cogito Ergo Sum” – I think, therefore I am
Why is this a radical statement?
- emphasizing you have a mind of your own
- you can go about things in your own way
- there is nobody above you dictating how you should think
Thinking means…..
- imagining
- point of view
- questioning
- what makes us human
- REASONING (we are equipped with mental capacity that allows us to figure thins out
“On life’s vast ocean diversity we sail, Reason the card, but Passion is the gale” Alexander Pope Essay on Man 1733
gale– wind, storm card– the cloth on the sail of a ship
How is this quote connected to Candide?
- everyone takes their own journey through life ( there are multiple way through this path )
- your social, economic, cultural, and personal ways help you choose this path
- Reason is the physical structure of how to get through life, but passion is the face behind it
- you need both reason and passion on your journey through life
Vestiges
- Deism-accept a universal creator who created the world like a watch, where he could walk away and it would still function. Agnosticism, atheism, and secular humanism (thinking that we as humans are most important and that religion was created to fill our desire for explanation) were emerged from deism.
- Universal Human Rights- inalienable rights of all humans.
- Nature as Pattern- thinking as the world fitting in, interconnected, cause and effect.
- Scientific Method- understanding through experimentation, procedure, and evidence.
Critical thinking is an Enlightenment belief still used today
What did you think about Candide?
- dramatic
- soap opera like
- satirical
- he seems innocent and naive
- challenges our expectations of reality
Pangloss’ theory is dedicated to optimism
- Page 1- “It is demonstratable……..for the best” Pangloss’ logic if faulty our reason for having a nose is to breathe not to wear glasses. This shows him convoluting casualty by putting the effect before the cause.
- Page 8- Pangloss got syphilis and his response is “it was a thing unavoidable a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds” Syphilis is just a part of human process according to Pangloss (this shows his optimism)
“It is what it is” is a mystified quote it causes us to not question things and just accept what things concretely are.
Mystification– dominant power convinces us that something is a truth because it benefits them.
- we dont’t learn what not to believe
- sugar coating
“sufficient reasoning” – Voltaire’s way of making fun of philosophers by making this a euphemism for sex. (deep down the reason humans do everything is because of sex)
This sufficient reasoning for Cunegonde drove Candide all around the world.
Page 40- “They rowed a few leagues…….the rubies and the emeralds”
- Where is Candide? El Dorado
- What is it like there? paradise with plentiful jewels, people are happy with no fights, there is no poor and there is enough to eat.
- Utopia is the Greek word for nowhere, El Dorado seems like a utopia. The people of El Dorado have to give up their opinions to live in this paradise.
- Utopia isnt for everyone, because of this they don’t exist. El Dorada wasn’t a utopia for Candide, because Cunegonde wasn’t there.
What happened to Candide after he experienced El Dorado?
Now Candide sees all the problems in the world and becomes skeptical of Pangloss’ optimism.
Where does this journey take Candide?
The journey ends in Turkey with Candide and all the characters in the book (even the ones who died) in a garden. They are almost in utopia living. When Pangloss tries to philosophize, Candide says “lets cultivate our own garden”. Which is the theme of trying to get at making your own path by thinking on your own.
Garden is a metaphor for our mind, soul, and reason because like a garden our mind has to be tended to constantly it is an ongoing process. Gardening gives power over his circumstance, because throughout the book Candide was a victim of circumstance.
For next class (Tuesday 9/29) Read the 1st half of Frankenstein (preface, introduction, volume 1, and as much as you can into volume 2)