In this blog, I compare and contrast three of history’s most trenchant and profound provocateurs: Socrates the Greek, Bertrand Russell the Englishman, and Voltaire the French philosophe. In addition to a bit of historical information, you will find Socrates quotes, quotations by Bertrand Russell, and an array of unvarnished insights by Voltaire.
Being the nerd I am, I was sitting around on a Saturday thinking of which philosophers I should compare and contrast. I saw an obvious affinity between Socrates, Russell, and Voltaire. However, I also had to exclude a huge number of contenders for the category of “person in history who was ingenious, provocative, enlightening, tireless, and self-confident. Though Denis Diderot and the Marquis de Condorcet – or Rousseau or Descartes for that matter – could have easily made the list, I didn’t go that route. Certainly, Plato, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus are remarkable thinkers comparable in certain ways to Socrates, known as the father of philosophy. Francis Bacon, Charles Darwin, George Santayana, and Jacob Bronowski are remarkable individuals who could be considered on par with Russell.
You’ve got Nietzsche, Will Durant, Aldous Huxley, Jonathan Swift, and on and on. Honestly, 200 others fit the bill to some degree, as well. I do note how few women come to mind, and that obviously speaks to not only my ignorance but also the ability of women to command due attention throughout the ages. I can proudly note this though: the first piece of writing about which the authorship is clear was a Mesopotamian princess, Enheduanna.
Bertrand Russell was a towering intellect. His Principia Mathematica (with Alfred North Whitehead) is legendary. He wrote over 70 books, sometimes more than one a year. Born an aristocrat in about 1900, he virtually invented the respected (but arcane and impractical) analytic philosophy. He taught, he opined, he thought.
It is recognized quite freely by Socrates that the sum total of what a man knows is vanishingly small. What seems, in the end, more important is that one should pursue knowledge. It is disinterested inquiry that is the good.
Philosopher Daniel Dennett notes that there are two stereotypes of the philosopher: the “ivory tower theoretician” and “the thoughtful counselor whose wise advice is sought on the most pressing of human issues.” Though he notes that Socrates was the quintessential combination of the two, I think that Russell qualifies. Dennett writes: “The first kind of philosopher resides in a philosophy department at a university and only talks to other philosophers. The second can be found in a public park, engaging a throng of laypeople in a discussion that will change their lives.” I like that distinction.
Russell indeed got out there in the world and mucked around, not unlike Albert Einstein. Cambridge University dismissed him for not toeing the line in regard to Victorian morality and anti-war (WWI) sentiment and activity. He went to jail for protesting World War I, and was stridently against the Vietnam War. He actually joined philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre in a mock trial of the United States for engaging in the Vietnam War, which was a real barn-burner of course. Three of his most remarkable works include Why I Am Not a Christian, The Conquest of Happiness, and Unpopular Essays (which were indeed irritating). He marched to the beat of his own drummer, that is for sure.
Constantly opining, this aristocrat didn’t think much of Harvard, which tried to recruit him, or America in general. Professor Kirk Willis characterized the haughtiness as: “To the end of his life, Russell clung to the image he developed of America in 1914: The image of a country that – for all its energy and talent and wealth – was pervaded by cultural philistinism, political corruption, economic inequality, and moral bankruptcy.” Well, gosh. He didn’t exactly win a cigar with that characterization, but it ain’t exactly a lie, either!
A Free Man’s Worship is a wonderful essay of Russell’s, and one of the most-read in a panoply of scores of publications throughout a long life. He was not into religion at all, and wrote this in the context of thinking of Nietzsche’s “death of God.” However, he also decried what science has wrought, and didn’t find scientism reassuring or meaning-providing. He puts forth in this short piece and Why I am Not a Christian a full-throated paean to humanism, secular morality, ethics, and values. Really visionary and aspirational stuff. Here is an example:
Yet, by death, by illness, by poverty, or by the voice of duty, we must learn, each one of us, that the world was not made for us and that however beautiful may be the things we crave, Fate may nevertheless forbid them. It is the part of courage, when misfortune comes, to bear without repining the ruin of our hopes, to turn away our thoughts from vain regreets. This degree of submission to power is not only just and right, it is the very gate of wisdom.
“Bertie”, as he was known to friends, was remarkable, but no less interesting and iconoclastic was François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), who took the pen name Voltaire. The Voltaire Foundation describes the inimitable man in the powdered wig as a “writer, philosopher, poet, dramatist, historian and polemicist of the French Enlightenment. The diversity of his literary output is rivaled only by its abundance: the edition of his complete works currently nearing completion will comprise nearly 200 volumes.” Most of his works were banned, and he spent time in the Bastille.
Here is a neat video about the man by philosopher Alain de Botton.
He was a philosophe, a provocateur, prodigious with a pen, and a principled patriot. Below is from The Voltaire Foundation, noting that he wasn’t original in the sense of an Immanuel Kant or an Augustine, but he still was a towering and eminent figure in Enlightenment France:
Voltaire’s failure to produce an original philosophy was, in a sense, counterbalanced by his deliberate cultivation of a philosophy of action; his ‘common sense’ crusade against superstition and prejudice and in favour of religious toleration was his single greatest contribution to the progress of Enlightenment. ‘Rousseau writes for writing’s sake’, he declared in a letter of 1767, ‘I write to act.’
Scholar Jacques Barzun contributes the following to the discussion: “If the new-minted citizen turns critic of his adopted country – attacking policies and politicians with impunity – he enjoys this privileged pastime because of the likes of Voltaire, who also had to skip across frontiers to escape persecution and keep dissenting.” Doubt scholar (as in, a person who studies doubt), Jennifer Michael Hecht adds: “Voltaire thought the existence of the world was proof of a creator, but of no more,” He really had an enormous impact.
Evan Andrews has this to say about him: “Voltaire died in Paris in 1778, just a few months after returning to the city for the first time in 28 years to oversee the production of one of his plays. Over the last few days of his life, Catholic Church officials repeatedly visited Voltaire—a lifelong deist who was often critical of organized religion—in the hope of persuading him to retract his opinions and make a deathbed confession. The great writer was unmoved, and supposedly brushed off the priests by saying, ‘let me die in peace.’ That’s fantastic!
You can’t make this kind of stuff up: “Late in 1725, he had a run in with a powerful young nobleman, the Chevalier de Rohan, who insulted Voltaire and of course consequently found himself at the sharp end of the poet’s tongue. Soon after, Voltaire was called out while dining with the Duke of Sully and was soundly beaten by Rohan’s hirelings. Voltaire found himself isolated with regard to this affair and eventually, some three months later, challenged Rohan to a duel. However, Rohan’s family obtained a lettre de cachet and Voltaire was arrested on the morning of the duel and was thrown into the Bastille for the second time” (Caspar Hewett).
Caspar Hewett again sheds light: “Five years after the publication of Candide, Voltaire published his greatest work of philosophy the Dictionnaire Philosophique (“Philosophical Dictionary”). The Dictionnaire consists of a series of articles on a range of subjects, many of which were written for the [French masterpiece of editor Denis Diderot,] Encyclopedie. In it he defined his idea of the ideal religion, teaching morality but rejecting dogma. These were of course dangerous views to hold and Voltaire denied his own authorship once more, especially as the book was condemned in Paris, Amsterdam, and Geneva. Like Candide this is a great work to read if you want get a feel for Voltaire’s character – his wit, his passion, his strengths and weaknesses are all here.” I personally can’t think of a better way to spend time than to check out his Philosophical Dictionary.
I like what Ida Postman says about Voltaire and his famous quill: “With all due admiration for the lucidity of his writings and his unmatched erudition in a wide range of fields, few have inquired what was behind the mocking mask of this ‘infidel,’ whose pen thrusts made many a crowned head of his era tremble. A grin and an air of mockery often serve to cover the sensitive nerve and pain-racked heart, and the condition of man in the eighteenth century must have caused torture of soul to one with a social conscience and compassion, such as Voltaire.”
Socrates needs little introduction. I believe that after Jesus, Socrates is the number two or four most recognized name in history. His influence was enormous, considering that we still talk of him today and yet he never wrote anything down. What we know of him has been passed down mostly by his able student, Plato. He walked around the Athenian marketplace in about 400 B.C.E., asking the citizens of the polis to consider deep questions.
Figures like Socrates and Jesus and the prophets are safely entombed in antiquity. But what if they are not simply to be revered as exceptional figures from the past, but to be followed in the present?
This was in the time shortly after the Peloponnesian War, and it was not a good time for Athens, the loser. They were willing to question much, having their clock cleaned after thirty years of fighting Sparta and her allies. However, they put Socrates on trial, tired of his pestering and uncouth questions. Heroically, and smartly, the aging philosopher decided to drink the poison he was commanded to, not wanting to break the law of the state. Neither Voltaire or Russell would have been quite as brave and self-sacrificing.
One thing all three of the philosophers have in common is, as Daniel Dennett put it, “where status depended upon birth, behavior was allowed to be erratic.” Though Socrates was, famously, the son of a midwife and I believe stonemason, he was idiosyncratic and free-thinking in the extreme. He simply bothered everyone, from the potter to the noblemen. Russell was obviously quite outspoken and probably never self-censored. I don’t imagine that, short of being threatened with beheading, Voltaire was very quick to take back what he considered truth.
Indeed, all three men were freethinkers. In fact, they were about as iconoclastic, ingenious, and independent of spirit as any three individuals in history (depending on whether you think Jesus was a zealot because of his choosing, or because he was deluded). Voltaire absolutely crushed mindless adherence to orthodoxy and was not very kind to monarchs, either. Socrates – like I mentioned, they killed him for asking too many questions, not observing the gods, and corrupting the youth with his impiety (though Socrates believed in a god). Russell? As they say in Little Italy, faggetaboutit. He took Christians to task for believing in superstition and failing to live up to the remarkably high standards set by Christ. None of these men believed anything that they didn’t thoroughly think on, mull over, and consider, and none gave automatic respect to any Pope or any oligarch. They really were true philosophers in that way.
Oh, mercy me, I just came across this quote in The Wisdom Archive (which you can search, too, for free), and realize I have yet to mention Michel de Montaigne. My bad, as they say. Here is what scholar Daniel Robinson thinks on this topic:
Voltaire had a splendid model for … criticism – Michel de Montaigne, whose famous Essais (1575) celebrates secular knowledge, common sense, common decency, the right way to work through problems, the philosophies worth having, and the gentle ridicule of the pomposity of self-appointed authority.
This triumvirate of thinkers were self-confident in the extreme, and attempted to be truly rational. They sought to find out reasons, answers, and values. They took absolutely nothing on faith. Though Socrates predated the New Testament and probably didn’t know of the Old Testament, the other two were passionately against belief for the sake of belief. To wit Bertrand Russell’s statement which if it were a thing would no doubt be made of titanium and polished to a high gloss: “I am prepared to admit any well-established result of science, not as certainly true, but as sufficiently probable to afford a basis for rational action.” Indeed, being a doubter, skeptic, or atheist would be easier in the presence of this trio.
They all three wanted desperately to elicit wisdom in the reader (or in Socrates’ case, his interlocutor). Daniel Robinson again:
Socrates is a gadfly in the sense of unseating the confident rider who believes he is on the flight path to truth. Socrates was well trained in the art of rhetoric and the great Sophist teachings of his time, but he goes beyond Sophism. His objective was not just to expose the ignorance of an interlocutor but to find the truth and, ultimately, defeat skepticism itself.
Indeed, they all wanted human beings to be better; to develop beyond their present state (be it -400, 1720, or 1925). Behold this thing called wisdom, and how long it has been that people such as Socrates or Voltaire or Helen Keller or Lucretia Mott and their progenitors have been thinking and writing and speaking and agitating remarkably about it, and yet we still don’t seem to have the type of system which elevates the folks who care most about wisdom and who have achieved the deepest learning to positions of power.
Performing such heroic acts wasn’t (isn’t) easy, and they all made enemies and faced some danger (Socrates was killed; Russell was imprisoned; Voltaire was afraid to go back to France, lest King Louie XIV send him to the guillotine!). Socrates “spoke truth to power” big-time when he uttered, “If you think that by killing men you can prevent someone from censuring your evil lives, you are mistaken.” Wow. That makes us all seem cowardly!
The trio are heroes, but what they had would not be considered super-powers. Psychologist Rollo May agrees: “Freedom is most dramatically illustrated in the ‘heroic’ actions, like Socrates’ decision to drink the hemlock rather than compromise; but even more significant is the undramatic, steady day-to-day exercise of freedom on the part of any person developing toward psychological and spiritual integration in a distraught society like our own.”
And now, some quotes by Voltaire:
“If we believe absurdities we shall commit atrocities.”
“Politics is not in my line: I have always confined myself to doing my little best to make men less foolish and more honorable.”
“Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?”
“May God defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies.”
“When the masses get involved in reasoning, everything is lost.”
Bertrand Russell quotations:
“Cruel men believe in a cruel God and use their belief to excuse their cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly God, and they would be kindly in any case.”
“What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out – which is its exact opposite.”
“I believe that the control of our acts by our intelligence is ultimately what is of most importance, and what alone will make social life remain possible as science increases the means at our disposal for injuring each other.”
“It is the preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.”
“The savage, like ourselves, feels the oppression of his impotence before the powers of nature; but having in himself nothing that he respects more than power, he is willing to prostrate himself before his gods without inquiring whether they are worthy of his worship.”
“So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.”
Some pithy Socrates quotes:
“Let him who would move the world first move himself.”
“Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence brings about wealth…”
“Nothing is to be preferred before justice.”
(and three about Socrates) “We may know many things and still not ‘know thyself’ in the Socratic sense. But to know thyself is, minimally, to know. And so Socrates begins with that core question, that core problem: the problem of knowledge — how do we know anything? And if the skeptics are right in being skeptical about any and every knowledge claim, then they’re going to be right in spades about a claim of knowing oneself.”
“When Socrates asked: What is Justice? What is courage?, and so on, he did not think of himself as asking for definitions of the words, he thought he was probing into the true nature of phenomena that existed independently of language.”
“The acknowledgment of fallibility is a key element in the pursuit of wisdom. Never doubt that you can be wrong about how you choose to live, or about your self-knowledge, or whether you have successfully followed an argument to a successful end. It is doubt that keeps us examining our lives and beliefs. ‘The unexamined life is not worth living,’ Socrates said.”
There must be 4-500 quotes by Socrates, Voltaire, and Russell in The Wisdom Archive. Go look around, stay a while! I leave you with a Russell quote:
