How does Voltaire's Candide critique Leibnizian optimism?

Voltaire's 1759 philosophical tale Candide uses satire to attack the optimistic philosophy of Gottfried Leibniz, which claimed that our world is the best of all possible worlds. In the novella, a young man named Candide is indoctrinated by Professor Pangloss to believe that all is for the best, but he experiences and witnesses severe hardships that slowly disillusion him. Rather than outright rejecting all optimism, Voltaire concludes the story by advocating a practical approach of cultivating one's garden instead of maintaining abstract philosophical dogma.

What we know

• Candide features a character named Professor Pangloss who indoctrinates the protagonist with Leibnizian optimism. [2]
• Gottfried Leibniz's philosophy famously concluded that our world is the best possible world that God could have created. [4]
• Voltaire uses the satirical novella to assault Leibniz and his assertion that our world is of necessity the best of all possible worlds. [5]
• Voltaire concludes the novel by replacing Pangloss's mantra that all is for the best with the practical precept that we must cultivate our garden. [2]

Where to go next

• what caused itWhat was Gottfried Leibniz's view of the best possible world?
• what followedWhat impact did the publication of Candide have on European society?
• how it workedHow does satire function as a vehicle for philosophical critique in the novella?
• how we knowWhat historical events influenced the hardships depicted in Candide?
• the bigger pictureWhat were the core ideas of the Age of Enlightenment?
• an unexpected connectionHow did Leibniz contribute to library science?Aside from developing the philosophical optimism satirized by Voltaire, Leibniz created a cataloguing system for the Herzog August Library that served as a model for major European libraries.

Sources

• [1]Candide (Wikidata Q215894) · CC0 1.0
• [2]Candide · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [3]Optimism · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [4]Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [5]Voltaire · CC BY-SA 4.0