Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Guest Blogger - Chelsee F.
While reading the book Candide written by Voltaire, a variety of philosophy’s are touched on including Pangloss’. Pangloss’ philosophy of ‘all is for the best’ is what Candide bases his life on. Candide thinks that Pangloss is “the greatest philosopher of the whole province, and consequently of the whole world” and believes that every philosopher that says something different is wrong and Pangloss is always right. This statement is mostly false because throughout the book there is nothing good that happens to any of the characters yet everything is for the best. I really don’t understand why anyone would listen to what Pangloss says because it does not make any sense at all. When the Anabaptist John falls into the harbor, Candide was going to help him back onto the boat but Pangloss stopped him and just said “Pangloss the philosopher stopped him by proving to him the Lisbon harbor was formed expressly for the Anabaptist to drown in”. How can someone justify that a harbor is specifically made for a certain somebody to drown in? Just because Pangloss is a philosopher he gets to make these decisions? The idea of all is for the best also doesn’t fit when we hear the old woman’s story about how she was going back and forth between all those different men. She was constantly raped and no one really cared about her. “Cut off one buttock from each of these ladies’ ‘and you’ll have a delicious mean”. How does Pangloss give good reason for everything she was put through? After many bad things that happened to Candide he starts to doubt the things that Pangloss says, and does not believe that everything happening is good. At the end of the book we find out that Pangloss himself does not even believe in what he says so Candide was following everything this philosopher said for nothing.
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It's hard to honestly understand how Candide was able to look at al the things that go wrong in the world and still beleive in Pangloss. I kind of beleive that Candide possibly beleives in him only because he was his mentor. Think about it, if for the whole time when your learning a teacher was teling you false information you would never know. And if someone told you otherwise you may think about it than say that's not what you learned and reject it. Now for the reasoning why Pangloss thinks this and will always beleive that it is always 'for the best' is probably because of the same thing. Pangloss probably learned that it was 'all for the best' even before Candide was ever alive.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the idea is a bit insane. Even when Martin was teaching Candide about his philosophies, Candide seemed withdrawn and still held onto Pangloss’s views. When I was reading also wondered, how can anybody continue to believe in “all is for the best” when everything seems to be happening for the worst? I like Brie’s idea that Candide only held onto his ideas because Pangloss was his mentor. However, I don’t base my philosophies only on what teachers say. Near the end Candide proved that experience also shapes how we think when he said “We must cultivate our garden” after Martin and Pangloss were arguing. Even Candide can learn through experience so everyone that hopefully isn’t as naïve as him could too.
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