Religion and tolerance: Thematization of the relationship in the age of enlightenment

pages: 311-337

Abstract

This paper presents the two competing models of Enlightenment tolerance and testing their status and scope. In the first part of the paper the author points out the limits of moderate Enlightenment’s “religious tolerance” as represented by Locke and Voltaire. That notion of tolerance to this day dominates in public and academic discourse. The second part of the paper, through figures of Spinoza, Bayle and Diderot, presents the radical Enlightenment’s concept of “universal” or “philosophical” tolerance. The conclusion is that, despite its theoretical superiority, the prospects of social implementation of the latter, fortunately or not, are still no bigger than they were in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Keywords: early modern philosophy, Spinoza, Bayle, Locke, Voltaire, Diderot, tolerance, religion, enlightenment