Difference and Dissent • Theories of Toleration in Medieval and Early Modern Europe
Edited by Cary J. Nederman and John Christian Laursen This innovative collection points to the need for a reevaluation of the origins of toleration theory. Philosophers, intellectual historians, and political theorists have assumed that the development of the theory of toleration has been a product of the modern world, and John Locke is usually regarded as the first theorist of toleration. The contributors to Difference and Dissent, however, discuss a range of conceptual positions that were employed by medieval and early modern thinkers to support a theory of toleration, and question the claim that Locke's theory of toleration was as original or philosophically adequate as his adherents have asserted.
Table of ContentsDifference and Dissent: Introduction 1
Liberty Community and Toleration Freedom and Function in Medieval Political Thought 17
Toleration in the Theology and Social Thought of John Wyclif 39
Respect Interdependence Virtue A Medieval Theory of Toleration in the Works of Christine de Pizan 67
Turks and Heathen Are Our Kin The Notion of Tolerance in the Works of Hans Denck and Sebastian Franck 83
Spanish Thomism and the American Indians Vitoria and Las Casas on the Toleration of Cultural Difference 99
Bodins Pluralistic Theory of Toleration 119
Thomas Hobbes Religious Toleration or Religious Indifference? 139
Samuel Pufendorfs Concept of Toleration 163
Spinoza on Toleration Arming the State and Reining in the Magistrate 185
Force Metaphor and Persuasion in Lockes A Letter Concerning Toleration 205
Index 231
About the Contributors 239
Rowman & Littlefield, Paperback, english, 250 pages
