I believe that Meslier should be added to the syllabus next year because he is a philosopher truly ahead of his time. He provides compelling arguments, not only for religion being false but also against the existence of God. I think he contains a school of thought that other philosophers of the time truly lacked. Most philosophy before his time focused intensely on God existing and how that makes the world, and our understanding of it, better, but Meslier flips the script and shows that the world, and our understanding of it, is actually made better from rejecting God exists. In this way, he provides a fresh perspective to theology (i.e. atheism) and is a historical powerhouse in philosophy because he is the first to dedicate full writing to this end. Beyond his objections to God, he devels into political philosophy and argues vehemently against monarchy and other oppressive forms of rule and instead urges people to rise against tyranny and bring about communalism. 

 

I think the arguments Meslier presents are very well thought-out and the fact they come from a priest makes them even more salient. His arguments against religion speak for themselves, but when one considers his metaphysical objection to God, they rise even higher in their soundness and make one truly question the truth of religion. Meslier seamlessly integrates a multi-pronged attack against religion and in doing so develops one of the most compelling atheist works (at least for the time period of our class). 

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The philosopher that Meslier should replace is Voltaire. Voltaire heavily altered Meslier's work to skew his actual stance in favor of Voltaire's deism. I think that Meslier's atheism is far more meaningful and powerful than Voltaire's deism because Meslier's work can essentially understand all of Voltaire's ideas, but takes them even further and provide a novel argument against the existence of God. In this way, I believe that to replace Voltaire with Meslier would not only provide next years students a unique argument and perspective, but it would still allow for understanding fo Voltaire's deism.

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Overall, Meslier is completely unique in his philosophy. His unique arguments are able to encompass atheism, materialism, as well as communalism. Voltaire's edition of Meslier's Testament shows that Meslier's work is able to explain and account for most of Voltaire's positions; thus it makes more sense to include Meslier since he is able to explain Voltaire while also pushing it further to provide fascinating and unique arguments against God. Finally, Meslier did all of this in a single book! All of his completely novel, strong, and powerful arguments came from one piece of work! If that feat alone does not show his philosophic prowess, then I am not sure what does. I think adding Meslier to the syllabus next year would seriously enrich the overall understanding students will have for what philosophy was during this time.