Concept
Best of all possible worlds
Overview
the doctrine or belief that in the system of things all that happens, the undesirable no less than the desirable, is for the best
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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These metaphysical considerations concern the nature of the _possible_ and of the _necessary_; they go against my fundamental assumption that God has chosen the best of all possible worlds. There are philosophers who have maintained that there is nothing possible except that which actually happens. These are those same people who thought or could have thought that all is necessary unconditionally. Some were of this…
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Theodicy Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil
The author is tied to Best of all possible worlds in the knowledge graph; names Best of all possible worlds.
BACHELOR.—Why, I have told you everything that can be said upon this weighty affair; but, to satisfy you, I will be a little more explicit. Let us go step by step. First, then, do you know that this is the best of all possible worlds?
Voltaire, The Works of Voltaire, Vol. IV of XLIII. Romances, Vol. III of III, and A Treatise on Toleration.
The author is tied to Best of all possible worlds in the knowledge graph; names Best of all possible worlds.
If ever one could accuse nature of despising her work, of contradicting her plans, of acting against her designs, it is in this detestable scourge which has soiled the earth with horror and filth. Is that the best of all possible worlds? What! if Cæsar, Antony, Octavius never had this disease, was it not possible for it not to cause the death of François I.?
Voltaire, Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary
The author is tied to Best of all possible worlds in the knowledge graph; names Best of all possible worlds.
Philosophers who discussed Best of all possible worlds
Related ideas
- Avicenna
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
- Germans
- Idea
- Problem of induction
- Mathematician
- Stoicism
- Pierre Louis Maupertuis
- Mantra
- Monadology
- Augustine of Hippo
- Thomas Aquinas
- Explanatory power
- Omniscience
- Polymath
- Christian theology
- Problem of evil
- Theodicy
- Summa Theologica
- Brill Publishers
- Libertarianism
- Voltaire
- YouTube
- Peter Abelard
Place in the tradition
Part of French philosophy.
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