The bachelor's thesis is concerned with the critique of
prejudices in Voltaire's philosophical tales. The aim of the
first part of this thesis is to introduce and analyze the genre
of Voltaire's philosophical tales and to put them in a broader
historical context. In the second part, the thesis focuses on
defining the concept of prejudice in its complexity, as
Voltaire understood it and how he used it. It also puts this
concept in the context of Enlightenment thinking as a whole. In
its last part, the thesis illustrates and further analyzes how
and why Voltaire criticizes specific types of prejudices, in
three selected short stories (Micromégas, The History of the
Voyages of Scarmentad, The Princess of Babylon).