pantophile, according to Voltaire: the type of thinker who falls desperately in love with every subject he studies, be it mathematics, sciences, medicine, philosophy, politics, classical antiquity, drama, literature, musicology, or the fine arts. This passion for learning made him seem like an ancient truth-seeker, a simple and “honest soul” who was “born without ambition.”12 But his friends also dubbed him le philosophe because he had become the greatest advocate for the emancipatory power
