Pangloss's Criticism Of Optimism In Candide

Candide’s mentor and philosopher of the barons castle, Pangloss is Voltaire way of satirizing Leibniz’s idea that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. The main point in Leibniz philosophy is that God created the world so it had to be perfect, and if we perceive something bad happening its because we don’t fully understand God’s plan. Pangloss like most characters in the story is not believable, but rather he is a distorted and exaggerated representation of Leibniz designed to make fun of the German philosopher. Pangloss is shown to be flawed in his philosophy in many ways by Voltaire throughout Candide in order to emphasize his criticism of optimism. First his philosophy goes completely against what happens to him and the people around him in the real world. This shows the difference between action and theory, while Pangloss may believe in the best of all possible worlds, the actions that occur in the world say otherwise. Pangloss is infected with syphilis, is almost executed, and imprisoned; yet he stays optimistic through the end of the novel …show more content…
Through the adventures of Candide, we see his transformation from having a completely optimistic view on life, to a very pessimistic and skeptical view. Through his journeys, he encountered many difficulties, and was shown the harshness of the world, changing him from an optimist to a skeptic. This went against what his professor Pangloss indoctrinated in him, the idea of Leibniz, which Voltaire ridicules, that we live in the best of possible worlds. Through the intense ridicule of optimisms, and the more relatable pessimist we see how Voltaire preferred the pessimist view to the optimistic. In any case, Voltaire preferred an ideology that was flexible and was supported by real evidence like the philosophe of his time, instead of ideas with no room for