/lit/ - Literature

Autistic Kraut who believe that the world was perfect vs chad rich coffee addict novelist Voltaire

>>15269713
the world was perfect because we had the option to make it so. It's the perfect sandbox game

>>15269696
If Voltaire could see the left wing cuckery his philosophy created in the modern world he'd pray to God for forgiveness.

>>15269696
Both. This is the best of all possible worlds and it's still shit.

>>15269727
Naw. He’d write a funny book about it.

>>15269933
This is why you fail.

>>15269696
Voltaire

>>15269696
Leibniz, definitely. Voltaire is a fucking degenerate.

>>15271734
>we DO live in the best possible world!

>>15269696
me

>>15269696
Aquinas

>>15271529
>This is why you fail.
Kek, like you in art collage. Also I heard the anon that make this picture. Is planning to make a deep fake of you? What are your thoughts?

>>15269696
both. the underlying theory in leibniz's argument is that any existing world is better by default than any other non-existing one. in order to stick to this intuition, he even renounces to god's omnipotence, which makes me like leibniz's doctrine even more and makes his teodicy very weak. instead, it is very closed to a democritean atomistic determinism.
voltaire on the other hand deals with ethics and moral aesthetics. he BTFOs the inherent optimism of the christians and their juvenile ideas of "providence" and "good father-god"

>>15272086
>argument is that any existing world is better by default than any other non-existing one
What the hell?

>>15272105
Yes. By definition an existing world is better than a non-existing one. How can you compare something that does not exist buttertard?

>>15272105
Yes. By definition an existing world is better than a non-existing one. How can you compare something that does not exist buttertard?

I can't still fathom how a total imbecile like Leibniz isn't regarded as dumber than Hegel on this board.

>>15269696
Leibniz by far, though Voltaire gave a decent critique from a more practical immediate level. The problem really arises from the two talking in completely different spheres of understanding. They really aren't mutually exclusive. Leibniz was a genius and was highly conceptual, he argued that on a cosmological and fundamental level we live in the best POSSIBLE world. Key word there, possible. For Leibniz, Good is reduced as far as it can go to what is logical. and what is logical is what is in this universe. the sequence of events that lead to the here and now. Its the kind of good explored in The Republic. A very philosophical Platonic good of perfect forms.

While Voltaire critiques this from a more down to earth, Aristotelian sense. when he classifies good as that which is immediately pleasing rather that conceptually, universally good. How can a rock falling on a person be good? for practical purposes most people would say it wasnt. it could have lead to a more serene immediate good, but that is only optimistic baseless, but possible ascertain (a negative one would be the same). However, this form of low good is only one of appearance and induction, a likeliness of good instead of good incarnate. A good which aplies to the immediate, but not universal.

So the real problem here is applying universal optimism to circumstantial pessimism, and circumstantial pessimism to universal optimism. The two are talking in compleely different spheres.

>>15271529
>>15271741
>>15272105
Retard. Dont let your notorious anti-christian bias blind you to a more complex discussion. Plato believed in pretty much the same thing.

>>15269696
Voltaire is on the right

>>15272251
>total imbecile like Leibniz
>invent calculus
>invent the binary system
>create the first digital device
>make important contributions to several fields of science and philosophy
Tripfags must burn

>>15269696
rousseau (excluding the social contract)

>>15272306
I agree. Specially this one>>15272105

>>15269713
you are retarded if you think that of lebnitz its more nuanced than that

>>15271932
masively based and redpiled pls spam it so i can krank my shaft

>>15272306
He was an imbecile when it came to elaborating a philosophical thought, it was more of a copy-paste of his predecessors' philosophy mixed with bland religious superstitions that didn't add absolutely anything to the rationalist thought besides patching the holes in Descartes' system. Spinoza could've eaten this autistic religious fanatic for breakfast.

>>15272233
>By definition an existing world is better than a non-existing one.
By definition an existing world cannot be better than an non-existing one because the non-existing one does not exist, neither words like better or worse applies.

>>15272391
to add to that, you can say that any existing world is worse that any non-existing world, it's nonsensical.

>>15272405
To be honest I agree with you. There is no way to measure if a world is good or bad is does not exist.

>>15272233
>>15272391
>>15272405
to add add to that that
>How can you compare something that does not exist buttertard?
yes how indeed, and yet your existing one is somehow better

>>15272430
If does*

>>15272405
>>15272391
>>15272385
The crux is definining what "better" and "Good" means. Leibniz was not talking in terms of relative daily morality, but in terms somewhat akin to platonic forms. There was a reason why voltaire's Candide was so volatile and why people accepted leibniz in the first place..

>>15272445
if it does*

>>15272462
Thanks for correcting me fellow /lit/zen.

>>15272456
Leibniz's system falls apart the moment someone questions how is he so sure that there aren't any better worlds than this one or how he is able to tell if there are other possible worlds or not. As far as I know Leibniz couldn't even walk on the moon, so I doubt he even knew something about the existence of alternative universes.

>>15272501
But that is not the point. What is fundamentally good to leibniz is what is fundamentally logical. and what is fundamentally logical in the universe, the everything. WHen he talks about other possible universes, he doesnt mean some sci-fi stuff where you could hypothetically go through a portal and end up in kumbaya land, for him, that would be a part of the universe. He is basicly saying that exsistance is fundamentally good insofar as what is good is what is logical. The idea of another world in your head would still be within this universe.

Have you read the Republic? He is basicly talking in the same terms of Socratese to what is Justice and what is good.

>>15272265
>Plato believed in pretty much the same thing.

>>15272538
How the fuck does he know if the same laws of logic apply to all the universes in the whole "universe"? How does he know if there's isn't an alternative condition that is neither existence nor non-existence? His system makes only insofar as it is relegated to our limited minds.

>>15269696
Leibniz.

>>15272592
But thats the point hes making. As far as we can make any claim at all, this is the universe inwhich we can. even to edify the subjectivity of our universe is to do as such from the logic of this universe.

The qualifier "best" is in relation to our own universe by definition, as any other potential universe is an unknown and unknowable. as if it does come into our perception it is part of our universe.

>>15272591
Elaborate. Retard

>>15269696
Leibniz invented calculus while Voltaire invented snark.

You figure it out.

>>15272385
Why go on the internet and bullshit if you actually care about philosophy? Have you even read Leibniz?

>>15269696
Leibniz over Voltaire for two reasons. One, Voltaire just criticized Leibniz, he didn't offer a metaphysics to replace it and two there are no possible worlds, there's only one and it is 'good' by definition

Voltaire wrote Candide and Leibniz just copied Descartes and Spinoza.

>>15274377
based and checked

>>15272265
>>15269696
I never understood why people get so hung up on Theodicy. It really seems like an emotional objection. "How can this be the best world when I can't make my anime waifu into a real girl?"
It's the best possible world because it's what is, if an alternative were better then that is what would have happened, because for one thing to be the case as opposed to an alternative, there is a reason for that to be the case as opposed to the alternative. It's called the principle of sufficient reason and it's true.

As for the cosmos being composed of a massless infinity of conscious perspectives in predetermined concert, there's more debate to be had, but it's a beautiful theory and no amount of pseudointellectual hot takes by people who have bothered to know nothing more about Leibniz than the "best of all possible words" tagline can do anything to change that. The capacity of people on this board to have so much to say on things they haven't investigated at all never ceases to astonish me

Voltaire

Sources: Voltaire

>>15274599
my nigga still alive?

>>15269696
Leibniz, he was the smarter one. He invented calculus(along with Newton) afterall.

>>15274470
Because it takes midwit levels of cope to believe something so stupid, clearly. Leibniz's argument amounts to nothing more than "God exists, is good, so everything in this physical world is for the best"
He was hopelessly enthralled to the demiurge, whereas with Voltaire:
>Candide drew near and saw his benefactor, who rose above the water one moment and was then swallowed up for ever. He was just going to jump after him, but was prevented by the philosopher Pangloss, who demonstrated to him that the Bay of Lisbon had been made on purpose for the Anabaptist to be drowned. While he was proving this a priori, the ship foundered; all perished except Pangloss, Candide, and that brutal sailor who had drowned the good Anabaptist. The villain swam safely to the shore, while Pangloss and Candide were borne thither upon a plank.

He clearly was not a hylic, and grasped the evil nature of our lower reality

>>15274678
>everything in this physical world is for the best
Why isn't this the other way around?

>>15274678
>Because it takes midwit levels of cope to believe something so stupid, clearly
There's no cope about it. Theodicy acknowledges evil, in a sense it is the opposite of coping - it finds the existence of evil philosophically insignificant.
And don't mistake any of this for me defending a position of my own. I don't have much common ground with Leibniz, I'm just fucking aware of the material. Frankly, that very attitude of "the world is as it should be / the world is what it is because it's what it should be" is, I think, absolutely the most rational attitude one can have and everything short of that sounds to me like the cries of an infant who can't handle the terrors of life. Just consider the negation of the statement. The world ISN'T how it should be? How the fuck would that work?
As a final note... The philosophy isn't asking you to have a positive attitude about life. How it feels doesn't matter at all. It means that this cosmos we live in is a self consistent system without logical flaws. Science relies on the same assumption. What's the fucking issue lmao

>"God exists, is good, so everything in this physical world is for the best"
No, it's the principle of sufficient reason you ape. Again, I'm confused at people like you. You haven't read any Leibniz. Why are you talking about Leibniz? What is going on there psychologically?

>>15274678
>physical world
Leibniz's world is literally nonphysical, that is one of the earliest and most fundamental premises in the system. Quit your bullshit and actually read about something for a change

>>15269696
Voltaire, cause i've only read Candide

One was a mathematician. The other was a charlatan.

>>15269696
Voltaire with this, Leibniz with everything else

>>15269696
Isn't Leibniz a mathematician and Voltaire the Milo Yannipolous of his era?