Paradoxes of Religious Toleration in Early Modern Political Thought

In today’s developed world, much of what people believe about religious toleration has evolved from crucial innovations in toleration theory developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Thinkers from that period have been rightly celebrated for creating influential, liberating concepts and ideas that have enabled many of us to live in peace. However, their work was certainly not perfect. In this enlightening volume, John Christian Laursen and María José Villaverde have gathered contributors to focus on the paradoxes, blindspots, unexpected flaws, or ambiguities in early modern toleration theories and practices. Each chapter explores the complexities, complications, and inconsistencies that came up in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as people grappled with the idea of toleration. In understanding the weaknesses, contradictions, and ambivalences in other theories, they hope to provoke thought about the defects in ways of thinking about toleration in order to help in overcoming similar problems in contemporary toleration theories. Contributors: Joaquín Abellán, Jonathan Israel, Henri Krop, Gerardo López Sastre, Cyrus Masroori, Rolando Minuti, Concha Roldán, Luisa Simonutti Spinoza's Paradoxes : An Atheist Who Defended The Scriptures? A Freethinking Alchemist? / María José Villaverde -- Spinoza On Lying For Toleration And His Intolerance Of Atheists / John Christian Laursen -- Jansenist Fears And Huguenot Polemics : Arnauld, Jurieu, And Bayle On Obedience And Toleration / Luisa Simonutti -- The General Freedom, Which All Men Enjoy In A Confessional State : The Paradoxical Language Of Politics In The Dutch Republic (1700-1750) / Henri Krop -- A Leibnizian Way To Tolerance : Between Ethical Universalism And Linguistic Diversity / Concha Roldán -- Toleration In China And Siam In Late-seventeenth-century European Travel Literature / Rolando Minutti -- Toleration In Denis Veiras's Theocracy / Cyrus Masroori -- David Hume On Religious Tolerance / Gerardo López Sastre -- Rousseau, A False Apostle Of Tolerance / María José Villaverdi -- Intolerance Of Fanatics In Bayle, Hume, And Kant / John Christian Laursen -- Tolerance And Intolerance In The Writings Of The French Antiphilosophes (1750-1789) / Jonathan Israel -- Immanuel Kant : Tolerance Seen As Respect / Joaquin Abellán. Edited By John Christian Laursen And María José Villaverde. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. The early modern theories of religious toleration that were so influential on our own ways of thinking about religion and tolerance were ripe with paradox, ambiguity, inconsistency, hidden flaws, and blind spots. The scholars in this volume explore those weak points in the hope that identifying their causes may help us strengthen our own ideas and promote toleration in ways that can avoid those paradoxes.