Leon asked:

Having read Voltaire's Candide, it seems that Voltaire is suggesting that all philosophies (in particular
Leibniz's Optimism and Pascal's pessimism) are futile because they only lead to inaction. Common
sense appears to be the only thing we can rely on in this world full of moral and natural evil. But is it
not ironic that Voltaire's opinions are very so often classified as a branch of philosophy in itself? And
is it strange that Voltaire is sometimes classified as a deist, even though he probably finds that most
insulting?

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I have to disagree with some of what you say in your question. I don't think that Pascal was a
pessimist. Schopenhauer was, but not, in my opinion, Pascal. I think that the message in Candideis
that a certain kind of philosophy is futile, namely the kind of view of Pangloss in Candidewhich is a
parody of Leibniz' theodicy.

Pangloss' philosophy was to explain away evil by his mantra "all is for the best in this best of all
possible worlds." But Leibniz did not attempt to explain away evil, but to explain how the existence of
evil could be reconciled with the existence of an all-good and all-powerful God. "Explaining away" evil
and "explaining" evil are quite different. Pangloss's attitude toward evil is that it doesn't matter:
Leibniz' attitude was that it mattered a great deal.

Furthermore, the point of Candideseems to be the sardonic one that it is absurd to say that this is the
best of all possible worlds when an all-powerful and all-good God could have created a world with no
evil in it at all. But this is quite unfair when Leibniz' argument was to show that although God could,
indeed, have created a world with no evil in it, that world would not have been as good as this actual
world with the amount of evil it has in it, because of the evil in this world is logically necessary for a
greater good that morally compensates for the evil. And, when Candide and Cunegonde go to tend
their garden at the end, the message is not the rejection of all philosophy for common sense and
action, but rather the rejection of Panglossian philosophy.

I also disagree with your remark that Voltaire would have found being characterized as a Deist
insulting. Voltaire despised religion, the French version of Roman Catholicism in particular: he did not
despise belief in God. Deists just believe in God as the creator of the Universe. They reject religion
and the accompanying doctrines of revelation, prayer, and so on. In fact they do not hold that God
and Man have any contact with each other.

Kenneth Stern