The best of all possible worlds

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The postulate that we live in the best of all possible worlds is part of the larger philosophical argument of the 17th century that God could bring nothing less to the cosmos than the best of all possible worlds. The argument falls into a structure with its connected logical considerations, which in the course of the 17th and 18th centuries successfully (and taking into account paradoxical results) transferred core questions of religion to the field of philosophical debate .

background

According to Leibniz's teaching, God would not be the perfect being if he had created something other than the “best of all possible worlds” for human beings.

“God can think of all possible worlds, but only want the best of them, because with his perfection it would be incompatible to do the less perfect, or if one wants to do the evil. [...] He recognized the best of all worlds through his wisdom, chosen it through his goodness and realized it through his power. That is the basic idea of Leibniz's theodicy , which he wrote at the request of Electress Sophie Charlotte von Brandenburg . "

- Max von Boehn

Voltaire was one of the first to criticize this kind of optimism in his novel Candide, or the optimism in which the protagonist Candide tries to trust the doctrine of the good and of "the best of all possible worlds" on his journey around the world. The philosopher and incorrigible optimist Pangloss is at his side. But Candide experiences this world with all its horrors and he has more and more doubts about the theory of "the best of all possible worlds". In his work Voltaire particularly criticizes the belief in authority and the naive optimism of those who trust in the good in people and in the world.

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Moses Mendelssohn criticize in their treatise " Pope as Metaphysician!" The thesis already advocated by ancient philosophers that "everything is good" as the "world wisdom of the lazy;" for what is more lazy than to appeal to the will of God for every natural occurrence ... ”.

Fonts (selection)

Relevant writings on the theorem of the best of all possible worlds:

  • Anthony Ashley-Cooper : Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit , 1699 (Reprinted as Treatise IV of the Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times , London 1711, and An inquiry concerning virtue or merit . Volume 1 , 1897, OCLC 70191562 . )
    • Anthony Ashley Cooper Shaftesbury: Inquiry into Virtue (=  Philosophical Library . Volume 110 ). Leipzig 1905, OCLC 63906645 (translated into German and provided with an introduction by P. Ziertmann).
  • Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Essais de theodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme, et l'origine du mal. David Mortier, Amsterdam 1710.
    • Artur Buchenau: The theodicy . F. Meiner, Hamburg 1968, OCLC 3484792 (translation).
  • Alexander Pope : Essay on Man. 1734.
    • From people. Essay on man . Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg 1993, ISBN 3-7873-2648-0 (with an introduction edited by Wolfgang Breidert).
  • Voltaire: Candide ou l'optimisme . sn, Minden 1759, OCLC 642422998 .

Leibniz's shorthand The Best of All Possible Worlds was satirically satirized by Wilhelm Ludwig Wekhrlin as a monologue of a mite on the seventh floor of an Edam cheese .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Max von Boehn: Germany in the 18th century . tape 2 : The Enlightenment. . Askanischer Verlag, Berlin 1922, OCLC 310526031 , p. 23 .
  2. ^ Voltaire Candide 250 years. correspondance-voltaire.de, accessed on August 25, 2015 .
  3. ^ GE Lessing, M. Mendelssohn: Pope as a metaphysician! In: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Works III. Early Critical Writings. Munich 1972, p. 634.
  4. ↑ Monologue of a mite on the seventh floor of an Edam cheese. philosophischer-nacht-und-sonntagsdienst.de, accessed on August 25, 2015 .