Political Scepticism, Moral Scepticism, and the Scope and Limits of Toleration in John Locke (original) (raw)

2018, YEARBOOK OF THE MAIMONIDES CENTRE FOR ADVANCED STUDIES

In AL etterc oncerning Toleration,w ritten in late 1685a nd published in 1689,J ohn Lockea rgued for the separation between the state and religious organizations.¹ He advocated toleration of all those subscribing to organized religion, be they Christians, Jews, Muslims, or pagans.Nevertheless, as Jonathan Israel has noted, in Locke's Letter 'thosewho subscribe to no organized religion, be they agnostics,D eists or indifferenti,i nc onfessional matters while not explicitlye xcluded are left in av ague This essay is one of the results of astudy period Ispent in HamburgfromFebruarytoJuly 2018, when Iw as aS enior ResearchF ellow of the Maimonides Centref or AdvancedS tudies (MCAS) at the Universityo fH amburg. Before finalizingt his essay,Ip resented its thesis at the 2018 Conferenceo f the International Society forI ntellectual History (ISIH),w hich took placea tt he Universityo fS tA ndrewso nJ une1 0t o1 3, 2018. Iw ould like to express my deepest gratitude to the Directoro ft he MCAS, Prof.G iuseppe Veltri, forh is support, friendship,a nd sincerei nteresti nm yr esearch. I would also like to thank all the administrators,staff members,research associates, and research fellows of the MCAS fortheir assistance, encouragement, and attention to my scholarly activities.C oncerning thisa rticle, Ia mv ery grateful to Dr.B illR ebiger,D r. Raffaele Russo, Dr.J effreyR .W igelsworth, and an anonymous reviewer for their precious suggestions and assistance. Iw ould finally like to thankProf.