The Treatise on Tolerance by Voltaire

The Treatise on Tolerance is a work by French philosopher Voltaire, published in 17631. In this work, Voltaire calls for religious toleration and targets religious fanaticism, especially that of the Jesuits.

 

The treatise was written in response to the trial of Jean Calas, a French Protestant merchant accused of murdering his son Marc-Antoine to prevent his supposed conversion to the Catholic Church. Despite a lack of evidence, Calas was executed largely due to the reaction of an angry mob and the zealousness of some local magistrates.

 

Voltaire was struck by the extreme injustice of the case and undertook a campaign to exonerate Jean Calas, putting Catholic prejudice and fanaticism on display. In 1765, after Louis XV of France fired the chief magistrate and the case was retried by another court, Calas was posthumously exonerated.

 

Voltaire’s argument in the treatise is illustrated in several passages where he questions the logic of condemning those who are not members of the Church of Rome and highlights the absurdity of eternal punishment for virtuous individuals who are not Christian.

 

The book was finished by January 2, 1763, and it was printed by the Cramer brothers in Geneva in April 17631. Despite being quickly banned, it still made its way to the public, becoming extremely popular in Paris and throughout Europe.

 

More on Voltaire and religions

 

Voltaire was a French Enlightenment writer, philosopher, and historian known for his criticism of Christianity, especially the Roman Catholic Church, and his advocacy for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state.

 

Voltaire’s critical views on religion led to his belief in the separation of church and state and religious freedom. He was not a fan of the Bible and was vigorously against the Catholic Church. He believed that the Church was gaining from being involved in politics by pocketing a religious tax, which is why Voltaire thought they had no place in politics.

 

In his work Candide, Voltaire depicts all religions as ‘evil superstitions’, which can be dangerous to society and people. For instance, Voltaire argues that people live in the “best of all possible worlds” by criticizing Leibniz’s ideas.

Enchiridion by Epictetus

The Enchiridion or Handbook of Epictetus is a short manual of Stoic ethical advice compiled by Arrian, a 2nd-century disciple of the Greek philosopher Epictetus. The Enchiridion, or “Manual,” is a collection of Epictetus’ teachings that were compiled by his student Arrian around 108 AD2. Only four of the original eight books have survived. Epictetus’ philosophy is intensely practical. He directs his students to focus on their opinions, anxieties, passions, and desires so that they "never fail to obtain what they desire nor fall into what they avoid". True education consists in learning to distinguish what is ours from what does not belong to us and in learning to correctly assent or dissent from external impressions. The purpose of his teaching was to make people free and happy. The “Discourses” have been influential since they were written. Marcus Aurelius refers to them and quotes them. Since the 16th century, they have been translated into several languages and have been reprinted many times.

Epictetus (c. 50 – c. 135 AD) was a Greek Stoic philosopher. He was born into slavery at Hierapolis, Phrygia (present-day Pamukkale, in western Turkey) and lived in Rome until his banishment, when he went to Nicopolis in northwestern Greece for the rest of his life. His teachings were written down and published by his pupil Arrian in his Discourses and Enchiridion. Epictetus taught that philosophy is a way of life and not simply a theoretical discipline. To Epictetus, all external events are beyond our control; we should accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. However, individuals are responsible for their own actions, which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline.

 

Ecce Homo and Nietzsche’s influence in Western culture

“Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is” is a book by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, originally published in 1888. It is one of Nietzsche’s last works and is considered one of the sharpest and most desperate autobiographical portraits in modern literature. In this book, Nietzsche reviews his entire life and the development of his philosophical thought. The title “Ecce Homo” is Latin for “Behold the man,” which is a phrase from the New Testament, spoken by Pontius Pilate when he presents a scourged Jesus Christ to a hostile crowd shortly before his Crucifixion. Nietzsche uses this title ironically, as he considered himself to be the antichrist.

 

In Nietzsche’s philosophy, the concept of the “Antichrist” refers to a rejection of Christianity and its values. Nietzsche wrote a book called “The Antichrist” (German: Der Antichrist), originally published in 1895, in which he criticizes Christianity as a whole, as well as modern concepts such as egalitarianism and democracy, which he sees as a persistent consequence of Christian ideals.

 

Nietzsche opposes the Christian concept of God because he believes that it degenerates into a contradiction of life. Instead of being its transfiguration and eternal affirmation, God becomes the negation of life. Nietzsche’s view of Jesus in “The Antichrist” follows Tolstoy in separating Jesus from the Church and emphasizing the concept of “non-resistance,” but uses it as a basis for his own development of the “psychology of the Savior.” Nietzsche does not demur of Jesus, conceding that he was the only one true Christian.

 

Nietzsche constructed his own history of Christianity with its roots in Judaism. It is framed not so much by the historical Jesus as by the distortions of him imposed by the early Christians, Paul in particular.

 

Nietzsche’s influence  in Western culture

 

Nietzsche  as a  philosopher, essayist, and cultural critic whose philosophy has exerted an enormous influence on Western philosophy and intellectual history. Nietzsche’s philosophy is complex and multi-layered, but at its core lies a belief in the power of the individual to create their own values and lead a fulfilling life. In his works, he rejected traditional morality and religion, arguing that they limit individual freedom and creativity.

 

Nietzsche’s influence on modern thought is difficult to overestimate. He was, in a sense, the first modern philosopher — the first to break with the Aristotelian tradition and explore new avenues of thought. His ideas on power, knowledge and the human condition have been enormously influential in the 20th and 21st centuries. Some of his most famous ideas include the concept of the “Übermensch” or “Superman”, which has been enormously influential in 20th-century thinking about human potential; the idea of the “Will to Power”, which has been taken up by existentialists and post-modernists; and the doctrine of “eternal recurrence”, which suggests that life is a cycle of constant repetition.

 

Nietzsche’s influence can be seen in many areas of modern society, including culture, politics, and art. His ideas have helped to break down traditional barriers between high and low art, and his ideas about creativity and “the will to power” continue to be explored by artists today.

 

Beyond Good and Evil

Beyond Good and Evil is a book by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, first published in 1886. It draws on and expands the ideas of his previous work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but with a more critical and polemical approach. The work dramatically rejects the tradition of Western thought with its notions of truth and God, good and evil. Nietzsche  tries to demonstrate that the Christian world is steeped in a false piety and infected with a 'slave morality.

 

Slave morality is a term coined by Friedrich Nietzsche to describe a value system that is based on the guilt and fear that comes from the inferior individual’s awareness of their own inferiority. According to Nietzsche, masters create morality; slaves respond to master morality with their slave morality. Unlike master morality, which is sentiment, slave morality is based on ressentiment —devaluing what the master values and what the slave does not have.

 

Nietzsche characterizes slave moralities as being “fundamentally anti-life”. This morality does not promote creativity and striving for excellence by the individual. Instead, it encourages self-sacrifice and putting the interests of others ahead of your own. For Nietzsche, slave morality is life-denying instead of life-affirming, and hence completely unnatural. Slave morality, as portrayed by Islamic, Christian or Judaic moralities, is all about a separation of the mind and body, and hate and contempt for the meek physical body.

 

Master morality is a term coined by Friedrich Nietzsche to describe a value system that is based on the pride, wealth, fame, and power of the individual. Nietzsche defined master morality as the morality of the strong-willed. He criticizes the view that good is everything that is helpful, and bad is everything that is harmful. For strong-willed men, the “good” is the noble, strong, and powerful, while the “bad” is the weak, cowardly, timid, and petty. The essence of master morality is nobility.

 

Other qualities that are often valued in master morality are open-mindedness, courage, truthfulness, trustworthiness, and an accurate sense of one’s self-worth. Master morality begins in the “noble man”, with a spontaneous idea of the good; then the idea of bad develops as what is not good. In master morality, people define the good based on whether it benefits them and their pursuit of self-defined personal excellence.

The philosophy of George Berkeley

George Berkeley (12 March 1685 – 14 January 1753), also known as Bishop Berkeley, was an Anglo-Irish philosopher and Anglican bishop of Cloyne of the Anglican Church of Ireland. He is best known for his empiricist and idealist philosophy, which holds that reality consists only of minds and their ideas; everything save the spiritual exists only insofar as it is perceived by the senses. Berkeley’s primary philosophical achievement is the advancement of a theory he called “immaterialism” (later referred to as “subjective idealism” by others). This theory denies the existence of material substance and instead contends that familiar objects like tables and chairs are ideas perceived by the mind and, as a result, cannot exist without being perceived. Berkeley is also known for his critique of abstraction, an important premise in his argument for immaterialism.

 

In 1709, Berkeley published his first major work, An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision, in which he discussed the limitations of human vision and advanced the theory that the proper objects of sight are not material objects, but light and color. This foreshadowed his chief philosophical work, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, in 1710, which, after its poor reception, he rewrote in dialogue form and published under the title Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous in 1731. In this book, Berkeley’s views were represented by Philonous (Greek: “lover of mind”), while Hylas (“hyle”, Greek: “matter”) embodies the Irish thinker’s opponents, in particular John Locke. Berkeley argued against Isaac Newton’s doctrine of absolute space, time and motion in De Motu (On Motion), published 1721. His arguments were a precursor to the views of Ernst Mach and Albert Einstein.

 

Immaterialism was Berkeley’s name for his theory of the perceived world. This theory consists of two parts: a negative thesis that there are not, and could not be, material substances or substrata, and a positive thesis that the existence of bodies consists in their being perceived (as Berkeley says: their esse is percipi). In other words, Berkeley’s immaterialism denies the existence of material substance and instead contends that familiar objects like tables and chairs are ideas perceived by the mind and, as a result, cannot exist without being perceived.

 

Berkeley’s immaterialism is often described as a form of idealism, which holds that reality consists only of minds and their ideas. This view is in contrast to materialism, which holds that reality consists of material objects independent of perception. Berkeley’s immaterialism is also sometimes referred to as subjective idealism, to distinguish it from other forms of idealism that allow for the existence of objective, mind-independent reality.

 

Berkeley’s ideas were met with a range of responses from other philosophers. Some, like David Hume, were influenced by Berkeley’s empiricism and idealism, and developed their own philosophical systems based on similar principles. Others, like Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, developed their own idealist systems in response to Berkeley’s ideas.

 

Berkeley’s critique of abstraction was also met with a range of responses. Some philosophers agreed with Berkeley that abstract ideas were impossible, while others argued that abstract ideas were necessary for certain kinds of reasoning and knowledge. For example, according to Berkeley, philosophers maintain that a general name must stand for a single general idea that represents all members of a kind. To do that, they say, an idea needs to abstract the qualities that are shared by all members of a kind and exclude all those in which they differ.

 

Overall, Berkeley’s ideas had a significant impact on the development of philosophy, and his critique of abstraction continues to be an important topic of discussion in the field 

The philosophy of Edmund Husserl - Phenomenology

Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) was a German philosopher who is considered the “father” of the philosophical movement known as phenomenology. Phenomenology can be roughly described as the sustained attempt to describe experiences (and the “things themselves”) without metaphysical and theoretical speculations. Husserl suggested that only by suspending or bracketing away the “natural attitude” could philosophy become its own distinctive and rigorous science, and he insisted that phenomenology is a science of consciousness rather than of empirical things. Indeed, in Husserl’s hands, phenomenology began as a critique of both psychologism and naturalism.

 

Husserl argued that transcendental consciousness sets the limits of all possible knowledge, and redefined phenomenology as a transcendental-idealist philosophy. His thought profoundly influenced 20th-century philosophy, and he remains a notable figure in contemporary philosophy and beyond.

 

Phenomenology

 

Phenomenology is a philosophical movement that focuses on the direct investigation and description of phenomena as consciously experienced, without theories about their causal explanation and as free as possible from unexamined preconceptions and presuppositions. In its most basic form, phenomenology attempts to create conditions for the objective study of topics usually regarded as subjective: consciousness and the content of conscious experiences such as judgments, perceptions, and emotions.

 

An example of phenomenology in practice is the study of dreaming. The phenomenological approach to dreaming would involve describing the experience of dreaming as it is consciously experienced, without attempting to explain its causes or make assumptions about its nature. The focus would be on the content of the dream, how it is experienced by the dreamer, and the structures of consciousness that are involved in the experience. This approach differs from other approaches to dreaming, such as those that focus on the neurological or psychological causes of dreaming.

 

There are other forms of phenomenology that have developed since Husserl’s time, and these forms differ from Husserl’s phenomenology in various ways. For example, some phenomenologists have focused more on the study of intersubjectivity, or the ways in which we experience and understand other people, while others have emphasized the importance of embodiment and our physical interactions with the world2. Additionally, some phenomenologists have developed their own methods for studying consciousness and experience that differ from Husserl’s phenomenological reduction2.

 

In summary, while Husserl’s phenomenology is considered the original form of phenomenology, there are other forms of phenomenology that have developed since his time that differ from his approach in various ways

China and Russia

Russia, China Promote "Unprecedented" Cooperation Despite Western "Illegitimate Sanctions"

 

Moscow and Beijing strengthen their ties, despite China's insistence on showing itself as a neutral actor in the conflict ordered by Vladimir Putin.

 

Today, relations between Russia and China are at an unprecedented high level according to the Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin after signing a series of economic pacts on May 24 in Beijing, where he was received with honors and held meetings with his counterpart Li Qiang and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Among the d eals signed is an agreement to deepen investment cooperation in commercial services and the export of agricultural products to China.

 

Beyond maintaining a diplomatic ally in the midst of the international isolation in which it finds itself submerged, Moscow relies on the Asian giant in an attempt to come out of the financial sanctions imposed from the West for the invasion of its neighboring country.

 

In addition, a 40% increase in Russian energy exports to Chinese territory is expected, according to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.

 

China is willing to work with Russia to promote their pragmatic cooperation in various fields and bring it to a "new level."

 

Moscow seeks to challenge the West in the face of the "pressure of illegitimate sanctions"

 

With the war in Ukraine dragging on and Russia increasingly feeling the brunt of Western sanctions, Moscow is leaning on Beijing far more than its ally, feeding off Chinese demand for oil and gas. Chinese influence grows as Moscow's international isolation deepens.

 

After Russian gas exports plummeted under a spate of sanctions from Europe and the United States, China became Russia's biggest energy customer last year. A strong dependence on Moscow towards its new ally, after decades of mistrust between the two governments.

 

Given sanctions against Russia provide new opportunities for China, it is not surprising that China is happy to actively and proactively engage economically with Russia, as long as the relationships they forge do not trigger secondary sanctions against China.

 

And it is that Beijing is Moscow's largest trading partner with bilateral trade that reached a record of 190,000 million dollars in 2022, according to Chinese customs data.