Voltaire, the enlightened author of Treatise on toleranceVoltaire, the enemy of dogmatism and ignorance in his time, can still inspire our struggles against the obscurantism of the present in 2024. His tolerance will help us reflect on and debate new forms of fanaticism, combat the erosion of all trust in reason and truth, and denounce the new reactionary manifestations that discredit science, institutions, and republican values.

Program

Monday October 21

Conversation between Juan Manuel Forte y Alicia H. Puleo moderated by Rodrigo Castro Orellana.

Juan Manuel Forte will present 'Tolerance and Intolerance: Modern and Contemporary Disputes'. Although the notion of tolerance has a long history, it is well known that it acquired unprecedented relevance in the modern world. Indeed, the dispute initiated by Castellio's denunciation of Servetus's condemnation (1554) set the course for much of European sensibility in subsequent centuries. Tolerance took on a legal and political status in the famous Edict of Nantes (1598) and began to take philosophical form in Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) and Voltaire's Treatise on Tolerance (1763). Many others continued this legacy, though it should be remembered that tolerance has never been without its detractors, both for its possible theoretical shortcomings and for its potential negative effects in practice. And although the contemporary world has fostered the development of policies of tolerance and thoughtful, historical perspectives on the issue for decades, it has also witnessed a slight resurgence of the old quarrel, as exemplified by journalistic diatribes such as Saramago's (1992) or by Žižek's philosophical and sociological critiques (2008). It is obvious that discussing tolerance today requires situating oneself within the context of global capitalism, multiculturalism, the contemporary state, and the emergence of so many new rights and specific sensibilities of the 20th and 21st centuries. However, it is perhaps worth asking whether Voltaire and the old quarrel still have something to tell us on the matter.

Next, Alicia H. Puleo invites us to “Cultivate Our Garden: Voltaire in the 21st Century.” In our century, some scholars have excluded Voltaire from the “radical Enlightenment,” a laudatory designation applied to philosophers who, with their ideas of liberty and equality, are said to have sparked a revolution of thought that led to modern democracies. To what extent is this exclusion unfair? What does Voltaire offer us for thinking and acting in the contemporary world?

Tuesday October 22 

Conversation between José Luis Egío y Nuria Sánchez Madrid moderated by Rodrigo Castro Orellana.

Nuria Sánchez Madrid invites us to 'Voltaire, Tolerance Towards a Supposedly Civilized Colonialism'. Voltaire has gone down in the history of thought as a champion of religious tolerance and a polemicist against ethical dogmatism. However, despite being an undisputed figure of the French Enlightenment, one of his main sources of funding throughout his career was his investments in the French East India Company and his dealings with the Gilly family, owners of slave ships based in Cádiz. When, in the midst of the global #BlackLivesMatter movement, Voltaire's statue in Saint-Germain-de-Prés appeared covered in blood, those accused of a "woke" excess aimed at erasing his legacy sought to highlight the contradictions between theory and practice in this author. To illustrate these inconsistencies, this paper will analyze the racism stemming from the polygenism championed by Voltaire, as well as his moderate critique of colonialism in novels such as "Candide" (1759) and plays like "Alzira, or The Americans" (1736), which are underpinned by a recognition of the prevalence of European civilization and beliefs over indigenous ways of life. The aim is to qualify the idealization of an intellectual figure like Voltaire as a paradigm of intellectual and religious tolerance, in order to project a broader perspective on the emancipatory elements of his work.

José Luis Egio presents 'Voltaire the Censor, Voltaire the Censored: Deism, Atheism, and Islam'. In addition to essential works in the history of European thought such as the Treatise on Tolerance (1763) and Philosophical Letters (1734), Voltaire authored countless 'minor' works in various genres (philosophical, historical, dramatic) where religion, fanaticism, and tolerance are central themes. Among these writings, the tragedy Fanaticism, or Muhammad the Prophet, written by Voltaire in 1736, and the censored edition that the great Enlightenment 'intellectual' produced of Jean Meslier's Memoirs of the Ideas and Sentiments in 1762—originally (1729), a radical atheist 'manifesto' that Voltaire transformed into a deist text—are fundamental to understanding the precise political boundaries within which the tolerance championed by Voltaire was framed. By relating the censorship and alterations for which Voltaire was responsible, and which he has in turn suffered to this day (in particular, his work Muhammad has been the object of relentless persecution in recent decades), we will examine the relevance of the contradictions between censor and censored, inherited by our democratic societies: Is censorship for religious reasons appropriate or necessary? Should the protection afforded to traditionally discriminated groups by the punishment of hate crimes be extended to religious sentiments? Should special protection be granted to minority or oppressed religions? Do certain political contexts justify censorship?