Voltaire’s modernity: thinking the present

Abstract

The present article intends to show that Voltaire is responsible for the concept of "modern times", or one of its privileged inventors. That implies a new philosophical attitude towards the present, now understood as the event which breaks "the rust of centuries" which continues to  weigh upon mankind. In that, one finds a paradox: the event of modernity is at the same time an effective present and a simple "twilight" for the rise of the Lumières.