جان تولند: روش‌ها، آداب و ذهن او

This study is the first sympathetic philosophical treatment in English of the complete works of John Toland (1670-1722). Professor Daniel presents Toland as a champion of religious toleration and civil liberty whose writing is important because it brings Drawing on a variety of published and unpublished material representing Toland's broad interests, Professor Daniel reveals a common theme emphasizing man's capacity for independent thought on basic philosophical, religious, and political issues. Roughly chronological, Daniel's treatment describes Toland's progressive refinement of this fundamental aspect of his thought. After examining, in his early works, the process whereby religion becomes mystified, Toland turned to biography, demonstrating that through it one can regain rational control over religion. Prejudices and superstitions, topics of the Letters to Serena, are shown to be overcome through corrections implicit in the principles of biographical and historical exegesis. Polemic as philosophic methode required Toland to provide a doctrine of esoteric communication. In the course of his later writings this doctrine became grounded in a metaphysics suitable for the Cieronian religion of the pantheists. CONTENTS PREFACE ABBREVIATIONS INTRODUCTION I. The Response to Priestcraft II. Reason in Biography III. The Tyranny of Custom in Prejudicial Education IV. Historical and Literary Exegesis V. The Method of Polemic VI. Toleration and the Appeal to Esoteric Communication VII. The Metaphysics of Polemic VIII. Pantheist Philosophy IX. Structure in Toland's Thought BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W