Voltaire e o bom uso da História

Abstract

This article seeks to answer the following question: according to Voltaire, what is the usefulness of History? To this end, the work was divided into three stages, In the first stage, I intend to present the foundations of his Philosophy, examining the influence of British experimental Philosophy on the formation of his thinking and the inheritance of te conception of useful knowledge and universal morality. In the second satge, I seek to examine the concept of “History” in the Pilosophy of Voltairian History, in order to clarify the methodological criteria defended by the author as necessay to the writing of the exemplary History, mamely, the likelihood of the aouces, the lection of content that repctive tasks of teaching of moral values and the narrative style. I will also highlight therespective tasks of the historian and the historian the implications of the practice of the “historian-philosopher” in ther writing of History. Finally, in the Third satge, I inted to present the ideas that compose its Philosophy of History and that are inserted in the analysis of the historical couse as possible directions to be follwed by human beigs, but not as a télos, that is: civilization and barbarism. The objective here is to highlight the role that History has in providing examples that help in the development of human relations by unisg the past as a source of teachings to the presente. Taht is, that exemplary History is an instrument of civilization.