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Roczniki Filozoficzne

Volume 70, Issue 4, 2022
Studies in the History of the Modern Idea of Toleration

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1. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 70 > Issue: 4
Stefan Swieżawski Stefan Swieżawski
Beginnings of Modern Christian Aristotelianism
Beginnings of Modern Christian Aristotelianism

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The paper focuses on four main topics: (a) increased theological standing of Aristotle in the 15th century; (b) critical concerns over the compatibility of Aristotle’s philosophy with Christianity, as well as over its interpretation by Averroes; (c) search for the “historical Aristotle” and an objective assessment of the resultant interpretations of Aristotle’s philosophy; (d) identification of Thomism with Christian Aristotelianism.
2. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 70 > Issue: 4
Stanisław Wielgus Stanisław Wielgus
The Medieval Polish Doctrine of the Law of Nations: Ius Gentium
The Medieval Polish Doctrine of the Law of Nations: Ius Gentium

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In attempting to summarize in a few sentences the achievements of the medieval scholars of the Polish school of ius gentium, we must emphasize that by employing the inherited legal and philosophico-theological tradition and intellectual achievements of the University of Kraków, coupling it with their own genius, they manager to create a coherent and universal system of international law. It was a system so modern, wise, tolerant and universal that it was able to be applied not only in solving the painful problem stemming from the lengthy conflict between Poland and the Teutonic Knights but was also used in resolving global problems of the contemporary Christian’s world conflict with the non-Christian one. That legal system, based upon the eternal principles of Divine and natural law, taking account of the Gospel Law of Love and inseparably connecting law with morality and justice with truth, remains valid even today
3. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 70 > Issue: 4
Juliusz Domański Juliusz Domański
Fausto Sozzini’s Explicatio Primae Partis Primi Capitis Euangelii Ioannis and Its Erasmian Exegesis
Fausto Sozzini’s Explicatio Primae Partis Primi Capitis Euangelii Ioannis and Its Erasmian Exegesis

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The paper compares the method of Biblical interpretation used by Erasmus of Rotterdam with the method of Socinus, raising the question of the extent to which the method outlined by Socinus in his Explicatio primae partis primi capitis Euangelii Joannis can be seen as continuous and and consonant with the method of Erasmus, and to what extent it should be seen as its rejection or modification. In addition, the essay outlines similarities and differences, with respect to both method and content, between Erasmus' Adnotationes and Socinus’ Explicatio
4. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 70 > Issue: 4
Zbigniew Ogonowski Zbigniew Ogonowski
Antitrinitarianism in Poland before Socinus. A Historical Outline
Antitrinitarianism in Poland before Socinus. A Historical Outline

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The paper takes an in-depth look at an early, pre-Socinian stage of Polish antitrinitarianism. First, it outlines the historical reasons for the emergence of antitrinitarianism in Poland. Second, it explains how the early Polish antitrinitarians were able to develop a view substantial enough to provide a basis for Socinianism, a philosophical and religious movement with a pan-European reach. Third, it discusses similarities and differences between the two stages of Polish “Arianism”, pre-Socinian and Socinian.
5. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 70 > Issue: 4
Marcin Iwanicki Marcin Iwanicki
Johann Crell on Religious Tolerance and Salvation
Johann Crell on Religious Tolerance and Salvation

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The essay discusses the defense of religious tolerance presented in Johann Crell’s treatise On Freedom of Conscience, pointing to the tension between Christian exclusivism on the one hand and religious practicalism and rationalism on the other inherent in Crell’s views. This tension can be resolved by adopting theistic minimalism or extreme practicalism.
6. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 70 > Issue: 4
Edwin Curley Edwin Curley
Locke on Religious Toleration
Locke on Religious Toleration

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The paper analyses and criticizes Locke’s arguments for religious toleration presented in his Letter concerning Toleration. The author argues that the epistemology Locke developed in his Essay concerning Human Understanding made a more constructive contribution to the case for toleration.
7. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 70 > Issue: 4
Nicholas Jolley Nicholas Jolley
Hobbes and Religious Freedom
Hobbes and Religious Freedom

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This paper seeks to examine Hobbes’s credentials as a defender of religious freedom along three dimensions. The first section analyzes what might be called Hobbes’s core position on freedom of conscience and worship; it is shown how, by means of a characteristically reductionist strategy, he seeks to persuade the reader that the absolute state allows room for freedom of conscience and worship in all ways that they have reason to care about. The second section turns to Hobbes’s praise of Independency and addresses the issue whether it is consistent with his core position; it is argued that though it supplements this position it does not represent a fundamental departure from it. The final section takes up the perennially fascinating issue of the relationship between Locke’s mature defence of religious toleration and the teachings of his great precursor in the social contract tradition. Without seeking to minimize the differences I argue that Locke is able to adapt Hobbesian themes to his own distinctive purposes.
8. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 70 > Issue: 4
Matthew J. Kisner Matthew J. Kisner
Spinoza’s Defense of Toleration: The Argument From Pluralism
Spinoza’s Defense of Toleration: The Argument From Pluralism

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Spinoza’s bold, spirited defense of toleration is an animating theme of the Theological- Political Treatise (TTP) and an important reason for the significant historical impact of the text. But Spinoza’s arguments for toleration can be challenging to discern. True to its title, the TTP offers two main arguments for toleration, one political, the other theological. This paper argues that Spinoza’s theological argument for toleration is closely connected to a distinct and often over looked argument from pluralism. This paper examines Spinoza’s argument from pluralism and defends that it is more attractive to similar arguments for toleration offered by Bodin and Bayle. It is more attractive than Bodin’s pluralism argument because Spinoza’s allows that religious beliefs and doctrines of faith have a rational justification, which makes possible a more optimistic picture of the prospects for religious disputation. Spinoza’s pluralism argument is also more attractive than Bayle’s argument because Spinoza’s does not regard religious beliefs as justified by sincerity, which means that he does not need to recognize any problematic rights of erroneous conscience, nor is he forced to accept as justified sincere beliefs in persecution or obviously immoral or irreligious beliefs.
9. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 70 > Issue: 4
Elainy Costa Da Silva, Nythamar De Oliveira Elainy Costa Da Silva
Spinoza’s Geometry of Affective Relations, the Body Politic, and the Social Grammar of Intolerance: A Minimalist Theory of Toleration
Spinoza’s Geometry of Affective Relations, the Body Politic, and the Social Grammar of Intolerance: A Minimalist Theory of Toleration

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In this paper, we set out to show that the relationships between individuals, including the intersubjectivity inherent to the body politic, are also affective relationships, so as to reconstruct Spinoza’s minimalist theory of tolerance. According to Spinoza’s concept of affectivity and bodily life, affection refers to a state of the affected body and implies the presence of the affecting body, while affect refers to the transition from one state to another, taking into account the correlative variation of affective bodies, that is, the affect is always a passage or variation in the intensity of our power to exist and act—the increase or decrease, the favoring or the restraint of our power to exist and act. We argue that Spinoza’s geometry of affective relations decisively contributes to a political theory of democracy, insofar as it anticipates modern, liberal conceptions of tolerance.
10. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 70 > Issue: 4
Charles Ramond Charles Ramond
Beyond Tolerance? Spinozist Proposals on Preferences and Justifications
Beyond Tolerance? Spinozist Proposals on Preferences and Justifications

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The term “tolerance”, strictly speaking, does not belong to Spinoza’s vocabulary, and the notion of “tolerance”, in its modern sense, is not part of his concepts either. However, the separation of theology and politics, which is the subject of the Theological-Political Treatise, envelops an even more radical separation between immanence and transcendence. An entirely immanent policy would be indifferent to “values” and “justifications” of any kind (moral, religious, rational). It would be based only on the “accounts” of individual “preferences”. We show that Spinoza’s philosophy can help us conceive (perhaps one day achieve) such a form of radical, or “absolute” democracy.
11. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 70 > Issue: 4
Sonja Lavaert Sonja Lavaert
Passive Tolerance versus Political Engagement. Antistius Constans, Koerbagh, Van den Enden, and Spinoza
Passive Tolerance versus Political Engagement. Antistius Constans, Koerbagh, Van den Enden, and Spinoza

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This article investigates the contribution of Spinoza and authors of his circle (Antistius Constans, Van den Enden and Koerbagh) on the modern conception of tolerance. In his Tractatus theologico-politicus (1670), Spinoza launches the libertas philosophandi-question integrating two kinds of freedom between which there is a tension: freedom of thought and speech and freedom of religious conscience. As freedom means living and acting in society in light of one’s own interests, tolerance becomes a political issue that depends from political perspectives and priorities. This insight leads Spinoza to bringing together the control of political authority on religious affairs and a political regime of religious plurality and toleration. These ideas seem to be reminiscent of texts published in his immediate circle: the anonymus De jure ecclesiasticorum (1665); the political pamphlets Kort verhael (1662) and Vrye Politijke Stellingen (1665) of his teacher Van den Enden; the subversive dictionary Een Bloemhof (1668) and the systematic philosophical Een Ligt (1668) of Koerbagh. In these texts the question of religion and religious authority shifts to the question of the nature and origin of political authority. The authors all criticize the abuse of power in light of the idea that there is no freedom without equality and no equality without freedom. Together with Spinoza’s Tractatus politicus (1677), they thereby form an anomaly within the anomaly of the Calvinist Low Countries that regards specifically this radical democratic view. They are not so much talking about tolerance but about everyone’s active participation in political life which is necessary for the rescue of the republic.
12. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 70 > Issue: 4
Przemysław Gut Przemysław Gut
Spinoza’s Critique of Religious Intolerance
Spinoza’s Critique of Religious Intolerance

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This article presents a new interpretation of Spinoza’s account of religious intolerance. According to Rosenthal and Steinberg Spinoza explains the origins of religious intolerance in two ways. The first is in the Ethics, which is grounded on the affect of ambition; the second in the Theological-Political Treatise, which is based on the opposed affects of fear and hope. I agree with this interpretation, yet I considerably modify and supplement this account. The interpretation I propose rests on the observation that in order to understand Spinoza's view we need to draw the subtle distinction between the explanation of the psychological causes of religious intolerance and the elucidation of why religious intolerance appears to appeal so much. First, I shall discuss Spinoza’s account of the origin of religious intolerance. Second, I shall discuss what it is about us, according to Spinoza, that makes us exposed to religious intolerance. Third, I shall consider the measures which, in his view, should be taken in order to curb religious intolerance effectively.
13. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 70 > Issue: 4
Paul Guyer Paul Guyer
Arguing for Freedom of Religion
Arguing for Freedom of Religion

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My title is “Arguing for Freedom of Religion,” not for “Toleration,” because I follow the eighteenth-century writer Christoph Martin Wieland in taking “toleration" to connote a gift or indulgence from a majority to a minority, whereas true freedom of religion would put everybody on the same plane to believe and practice religion as they see fit, or not at all. I consider three historically distinct ways of arguing for freedom of religion: from a premise held by one religion that requires freedom from others (the strategy of Locke, Madison, and Mendelssohn); from a premise about the uncertainty of all religious beliefs which calls for equal freedom (Bayle and Wieland); or from a fundamental requirement of equal freedom for all, with no premise about religion although it entails freedom in religious matters as in other things (Hutcheson, Meier, Kant). The latter approach may be most appealing from a purely philosophical point of view, but the former styles of argument have obviously had much to recommend them in historical contexts, and may still be useful.
14. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 70 > Issue: 4
Georg Gasser Georg Gasser
Pluralism is not Enough for Tolerance. Philosophical and Psychological Reflections on Pluralism and Tolerance
Pluralism is not Enough for Tolerance. Philosophical and Psychological Reflections on Pluralism and Tolerance

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The issue of religious tolerance is increasingly raised in a globalized world with societies becoming more and more religiously diverse and inhomogeneous. Religious tolerance can be defined as the practice of accepting others as acting in accordance with their religious belief system. Philosophers have recently begun to study more thoroughly the relationship between religious pluralism and religious (in)tolerance with a main focus on the epistemic question of whether the recognition of and reflection on religious pluralism might lead to greater religious tolerance. The major thrust of this idea is that any genuine reflection of a person about her epistemic peers adhering to other religions will weaken the person’s epistemic justificatory basis for believing that her own religious beliefs are better warranted than the religious beliefs of her peers. The rational consequence of the recognition of this justificatory fact, in turn, should lead to more religious tolerance and to a weakened dismissive attitude towards adherents of other religions. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the plausibility of this account against the background of existing empirical, in particular psychological literature: Does increased contact with adherents of other religious traditions indeed lead to more tolerance? How are we able to show a deeper understanding for people with different religious beliefs and to take on—at least partially—their perspective? What are potential psychological obstacles to these achievements? Resources from research on intergroup toleration, social identity-theories, developmental psychology and personality traits will be used for tackling these questions. This shall help to broaden the so far rather narrow epistemic philosophical perspective on religious pluralism and (in)tolerance by embedding it into the larger context of constitutive traits of the human psyche.