by Voltaire
Short alphabetical essays turn questions about belief, authority and everyday judgment into arguments a reader can test.
Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique began as an anonymous portable collection in Geneva in 1764. Its alphabetical entries use anecdotes, questions, satire and dialogue to challenge accepted claims about religion, history and human conduct. Voltaire enlarged the book, and later collections bearing the same English title often incorporate other writings, making the edition an important part of the reading experience.
The alphabetical arrangement lets a reader enter through a single question rather than follow a continuous philosophical system. An animal's behavior, a fashionable judgment or a dispute about freedom can become an occasion to examine how a belief was acquired and what evidence would support it.
Voltaire often puts an argument into a conversation. A confident definition meets an awkward example, and the speaker must explain what the words would mean in practice. The comedy can make a distinction memorable without making every historical or scientific assertion reliable.
The 1764 book should be distinguished from Questions sur l'Encyclopédie, issued in the 1770s. Later editors combined alphabetical writings from several sources. The six readings below follow H. I. Woolf's 1924 English selection, whose versions and extent should not be assumed identical to the first portable dictionary or to Theodore Besterman's selected translation.
An entry begins with a word that may seem familiar, then tests how confidently it can be used. A short dialogue or an awkward example can unsettle a definition without requiring the reader to accept a complete philosophical scheme first. The book makes repeated examination of particular claims into a reading practice.
Its publication history complicates that practice. Later English volumes under this title may assemble writings from different stages of Voltaire's career. The six entry readings here use the identified H. I. Woolf selection; their sequence is not presented as a complete reconstruction of the first portable dictionary of 1764.
In Animals, observable adaptation and attachment challenge an account of creatures as unfeeling mechanisms. The dog's behavior matters because a theory should answer to the capacities it attempts to describe. In Liberty, a conversation moves the problem of freedom toward ordinary actions rather than leaving the term comfortably undefined.
The method asks the reader to notice when an impressive claim fails under a simple question. Its force depends on the examples, however, and a memorable example is not automatically a sufficient demonstration. Voltaire's confidence can be examined by the same habit of testing that his entries encourage.
Prejudices distinguishes beliefs received before examination from judgments reached after it. Some inherited beliefs may survive scrutiny; others persist because the people teaching them discourage questions. The entry connects that discouragement to the position and livelihood of those who benefit from assent.
Tolerance develops a related suspicion through rulers whose treatment of religion changes with political convenience. What looks like unwavering conviction may accommodate expediency abroad while demanding conformity at home. The argument therefore concerns the institutional uses of belief as well as whether a particular proposition is true.
Virtue measures conduct by the benefit it brings another person. Private severity or an admired creed cannot replace that benefit. The entry even allows a person with a cruel reputation to perform a particular virtuous action, resisting the convenience of assigning every deed the moral value of its actor's name.
Beauty complicates confident judgment in a different way by making taste vary between observers and places. Read together, the entries require distinctions between a person and an act, a response and a rule, or an inherited label and an examined claim. Their brevity invites returning to those distinctions in each new case.
Publication history and the distinction between the portable dictionary and later alphabetical compilations.
The complete Animals entry in H. I. Woolf's 1924 selection.
The dialogue in Liberty.
Inherited beliefs, examination and institutional interests.
Fallibility and the political treatment of religious difference.
The distinction between beneficial acts, private discipline and reputation.
Examples testing claims about taste and common judgment.
an opinion without judgment
Virtue among men is an interchange of kindness;
The essays frequently start with something observable, such as a trained animal or a response to a play. Following the example helps clarify the larger claim without requiring a survey of philosophy first.
Liberty is presented as a dialogue in which a speaker must distinguish the ability to act from the causes of wanting. The exchange makes the disagreement easier to follow.
Each article supplies a limited question that can be considered on its own. Comparing entries afterward reveals recurring concerns about authority, evidence and useful conduct.
The questioner who defines freedom through what a person has the power to do.
The interlocutor whose objections test A’s account of freedom.
A bird adapts its nest and a trained dog learns, challenging the claim that animals behave as unfeeling machines. The essay moves from observable behavior to a searching dog's distress and joy. Its attack on cruelty then becomes a criticism of explanations that ignore the capacities they are supposed to explain.
A conversation about a tragedy separates success at a task from beauty. The same play then receives a different response in England, unsettling a universal rule of taste. The essay finally distinguishes these variable responses from the admiration it claims people share for generous actions.
Two speakers consider whether freedom lies in choosing a desire or in being able to act on it. Moving away from a firing gun gives the argument a practical example. Questions about marriage and trivial choices then press the claim that wanting something still has a cause.
Beliefs acquired before examination may later be confirmed or rejected by judgment. The essay separates that process from spontaneous feeling, then considers errors of perception, inherited stories and religious instruction. Its final example connects resistance to questioning with the power and income that unquestioned beliefs protect.
Human fallibility provides the opening reason to pardon disagreement. Examples of rulers supporting a religion abroad while persecuting it at home expose political calculation beneath professed conviction. The argument returns to the interests that make authorities resist tolerance even when they privately recognize its value.
Dialogue and examples measure virtue by the help one person gives another. Private discipline, correct belief or isolation do not automatically benefit a neighbor. The essay also separates a useful act from a person's whole reputation, allowing an otherwise cruel ruler to act well on a particular occasion.
June–July 1764
The anonymous Dictionnaire philosophique portatif is issued in Geneva by Grasset.
March 1765
The Parlement of Paris condemns the Dictionnaire philosophique.
1770–1772
Voltaire publishes the separate Questions sur l'Encyclopédie in nine volumes; later alphabetical collections combine material from these writings.
1924
Knopf publishes H. I. Woolf's English selection, the source of the six readings and short quotations below.
1984
Penguin Classics issues the selected US Theodore Besterman translation on March 6.
Voltaire's tale turns arguments about suffering and practical conduct into a sequence of comic disasters.
Read our take
The earlier tale dramatizes the risks of judging from partial evidence and the interests behind public authority.
Read our take
James Baldwin's essays offer a later, historically different examination of religious experience, power and obligations to other people.
Read our takeIt is a collection of short alphabetical arguments about belief, conduct, history and authority, first published in 1764. It uses dialogue and satire as well as direct exposition.
No. The entries pursue arguments and challenge opponents. Alphabetical order makes them accessible individually, but the voice is openly polemical rather than a neutral summary of a subject.
Voltaire expanded the original book, and later editors combined it with other alphabetical writings, including Questions sur l'Encyclopédie. Translators also make different selections. The English title alone does not establish identical contents.
There is no continuous plot or protagonist. Some articles use speakers and small fictional situations to test an argument; these belong to individual essays.
Animals, Beauty, Liberty, Prejudices, Tolerance and Virtue. The readings use their complete versions in H. I. Woolf's 1924 selection, available through Hanover College.
ISBN 9780140442571 and 400 pages refer to the Penguin Classics US paperback dated March 6, 1984, translated and introduced by Theodore Besterman. The quotations use Woolf's earlier translation, so their wording is separately identified.
Explore authors with a similar voice, perspective, and influence.
The doctor of the Paris slums who wrote the century's blackest, funniest novel — and changed the sound of French prose.
View author
The Brooklyn dropout who arrived in Paris broke at thirty-eight and wrote the exuberant, banned books that ended American censorship.
View author
The Geneva-born writer who arrived in Paris in 1742 with a new system for writing down music, earned his living copying other people's scores by the page, and then wrote the books — The Social Contract, Émile, the Confessions — that got him chased out of France and, sixteen years after his death, carried into the Panthéon by the Revolution.
View authorThe sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Philosophical Dictionary, its publication, and its place in literary history.
The primary text represented by this page, used for descriptions of the work’s contents and for any quoted passages shown here.
First-edition catalogue identifies Gabriel Grasset and distinguishes the London imprint from publication in Geneva.
Critical-edition account of the anonymous 1764 book and its contents, including the French entries corresponding to the six selected topics.
Distinguishes the original dictionary, later additions and Questions sur l'Encyclopédie from posthumous combinations.
June–July 1764 Geneva Grasset publication and March 1765 condemnation.
Selected US edition's date, ISBN, extent and Theodore Besterman's translation and introduction.
Complete article read in H. I. Woolf's 1924 English selection for the corresponding reading; version and translation distinguished from the selected Penguin edition.
Complete article read in H. I. Woolf's 1924 English selection for the corresponding reading; version and translation distinguished from the selected Penguin edition.
Complete article read in H. I. Woolf's 1924 English selection for the corresponding reading; version and translation distinguished from the selected Penguin edition.
Complete article read in H. I. Woolf's 1924 English selection for the corresponding reading; version and translation distinguished from the selected Penguin edition.
Complete article read in H. I. Woolf's 1924 English selection for the corresponding reading; version and translation distinguished from the selected Penguin edition.
Complete article read in H. I. Woolf's 1924 English selection for the corresponding reading; version and translation distinguished from the selected Penguin edition.
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
Explore more resources