Toleration in conflict
Subtitle: past and present
By: Rainer Forst
Series: Ideas in context
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Cambridge
Language: eng
Number of pages: 635
ISBN-13: 9780521885775
Subjects: Toleration; History; Religious tolerance; POLITICAL SCIENCE / History & Theory; Political aspects
Description: "The concept of toleration plays a central role in pluralistic societies. It designates a stance which permits conflicts over beliefs and practices to persist while at the same time defusing them, because it is based on reasons for coexistence in conflict - that is, in continuing dissension. A critical examination of the concept makes clear, however, that its content and evaluation are profoundly contested matters and thus that the concept itself stands in conflict. For some, toleration was and is an expression of mutual respect in spite of far-reaching differences, for others, a condescending, potentially repressive attitude and practice. Rainer Forst analyses these conflicts by reconstructing the philosophical and political discourse of toleration since antiquity. He demonstrates the diversity of the justifications and practices of toleration from the Stoics and early Christians to the present day and develops a systematic theory which he tests in discussions of contemporary conflicts over toleration"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Introduction; Part I. Between Power and Morality: The Historical Discourse of Toleration: 1. Toleration: concept and conceptions; 2. More than a prehistory: Antiquity and the Middle Age; 3. Reconciliation, schism, peace: humanism and the Reformation; 4. Toleration and sovereignty: political and individual; 5. Natural law, toleration and revolution: the rise of liberalism and the aporias of freedom of conscience; 6. The Enlightenment - for and against toleration; 7. Toleration in the modern era; 8. Routes to toleration; Part II. A Theory of Toleration: 9. The justification of toleration; 10. The finitude of reason; 11. The virtue of tolerance; 12. The tolerant society.