Abstract

This edited collection contains eleven essays on philosophers and political thinkers from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century who wrote on skepticism and toleration. Essays on such well-known philosophers as Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, and Locke are combined with treatments of Montaigne, the libertins erudits, the Levellers, Bayle, Diderot, Voltaire, and others to produce a broad consideration of the thought of the early modern period. The editor outlines the themes of the volume in an introductory essay that explains why arguments for toleration derived from skepticism made by early modern writers should be of contemporary interest. Levine argues that traditional arguments for toleration are no longer as convincing as they used to be. For example, the traditional liberal argument based on natural rights has been severely weakened by challenges to the status of those rights, which no longer seem so self-evident to philosophers, at least. Due to the contemporary confusion over the basis for toleration, Levine and his contributors turn to the early modern period, when the issue of principled toleration arose in reaction to the religious and political turmoil of the time, for insights that will accord with our own skeptical times.