Voltaire vs Descartes

As both a philosopher and an autor, Voltaire critized Descartes in terms of writing a novel instead of searching the truth through a logical method. By saying "Descartes was born with a lively and strong imagination, which made of him a singular man in his private life, as well as in his manner of reasoning", Voltaire emphasized how insufficient was Descartes in the use of his methods.

First of all, Voltaire claims that Descartes do not represent emprical evidences in favor of abstarct system. In the manner of ignoring these scientific and mathemathical evidences, it can be said that seeking the objective knowledge is a challenge. Related with that issue, we see in Medidation two that he questions about the concept of "I" with saying "But what then am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses and that also imagines and senses." (p.66, 28) For a person who had a basic education in life, what Descartes suggested might be strongly reliable since he spend too much time on the books and book of the world, referring to real life experiences in connection with other people. On the other hand, for a philosopher like Voltaire, what he searches and how he searches needed to be more dependent on scientific knowledge. "In the end he abandoned this guide, and gave himself over to the system-making spirit; then his philosophy
became nothing more than an ingenious romance", that passage again supports the argument that Descartes experienced a high level of confusion and crisis of doubt that he eventually lost his own reasoning and made unreliable connections in terms of a scientific approach.

Secondly, the idea of the difference between appearance and reality is also a critic for Voltaire. At the middle of the text we can understand that he was wrong about almost everything that he questioned: "He admitted innate ideas, he invented new elements, he created a world, he made man according to his manner, and they say with reason that Descartes’ man is indeed his alone, very far away from true man.". At the end of the meditations, Descartes concluded that anything that has certainty as his own existance and God's existance, can be considered as certain and true. Voltaire suggests that Descartes generated an understanding in which appearances to his own reasoning can be considered as reality. "I need to realize that the perception of the wax is neither a seeing, nor a touching, nor an imagining. Nor has it ever been, even though it previously seemed so; rather it is an inspection on the part of the mind alone" (p. 68, 31) Even though Voltaire criticizes him of doing it, he also accepts that even this method improved the teach of reasoning for men. In the end, all ideas and perceptions are some parts of the philosophy and improvement of human mind.