The Problem of Toleration in Early Massachusetts

Early Massachusetts is generally seen by scholars as “intolerant.” But this is to employ a misleading dichotomy between tolerant and intolerant societies which obscures the colonists’ understanding of themselves. They believed that their society instead successfully reconciled individual liberty and communal harmony through rational debate, social consensus, and the pursuit of truth. Their response to the Antinomian controversy is highly revealing in this context, demonstrating that they desired to persuade the aberrant back into the fold and that they reserved political intervention for when dissension had serious public implications. It was only those deemed irreconcilable who were ultimately excluded from the community. To approach the topic in this way is to resist the marginalisation of New England from the history of political and social thought by re‐evaluating the ends and actions of the colonists and by providing an important alternative perspective on the nature of toleration and its limits.     

Two Theories of Toleration: Locke versus Mill

Abstract

In her book, Zuckert presents a new interpretation of the Platonic corpus based on the internal dramatic chronology of all the dialogues. According to Zuckert, once the dialogues are ordered in this way, then it is possible to understand Plato's story of the development of Socratic philosophy, especially in relation to the other non-Socratic philosophers: Parmenides, Timaeus, the Eleatic Stranger, and the Athenian Stranger. For Plato, Socratic philosophy is superior to these other types of philosophy because of its acute understanding of both the limitations and the erotic character of human knowledge. It is only with his account of erôs in the Symposium that Socrates was able to account for the ways in which the eternal and intelligible ideas of the noble, the just, and the good could come to be exemplified in the life of mortal human beings, via the cooperative practice of philosophic virtue.     

Qualified Toleration: Bermuda and the English Revolution

Central to both the causes and development of the English revolution was the demand for reformation of the Church of England. The question of what shape this reform should take, however, divided English men and women. Debates over the further reformation of the Church of England were also complicated by the emergence of increasingly vocal and powerfully‐placed calls for freedom of religion, ranging from a limited toleration for a certain few to a broader liberty of conscience for all. This article looks at the debate surrounding liberty of conscience during the English revolution in 1644–5, but from a fresh angle: examining the context and rationale for the parliamentary ordered religious settlement of the English Atlantic colony of Bermuda in October of 1645. Integrating the fortunes of this Atlantic colony into the history of the English revolution reconfigures our understanding and analysis of revolutionary religion and politics.     

Quaker Schoolmasters, Toleration and the Law, 1689–1714

The 1689 Toleration Act allowed Protestant dissenters freedom to worship in public, but it was only a limited toleration and dissenters continued to suffer discrimination. This article examines the experience of Quakers in one important area, the Anglican monopoly in teaching. Although the prosecution of unlicensed teachers was patchy, localised, and dependent upon the hostility and zeal of particular individuals, few dissenters escaped harassment. Moreover, Friends appear to have suffered more severely because of the particular dislike that they still provoked and their unwillingness to compromise which often led to imprisonment. The growth in High Church feeling during Anne's reign led to a more rigorous enforcement of the existing statutes and the passing of the Schism Act (1714). The consequences of an Anglican educational monopoly have not been properly considered by historians largely from the assumption that the Schism Act was fatally compromised by the death of Queen Anne, and because little attention has been paid to the continued harassment of dissenters after toleration who attempted to teach. The Schism Act was repealed in 1719, but freedom for Quakers and other dissenters to teach had already been achieved largely through the courts.     

从皇太极优礼祖大寿看满族的包容性

本文主要是对满族精神内涵的再探讨。论其迅速崛起和壮大的重要因素,就是这个民族的可贵的包容性,尤其是对人的包容。皇太极是在满族共同体形成过程中塑造包容精神的最典型的代表。而他在崇政殿优礼“反复无常”之祖大寿则是最能体现包容性的例证。     

漫游欧洲

都说意大利人热情如火,可是有些方面．他们让人“搓火”的本事也是一点不差。比如意大利的交通,其实还算井然有序,可赶上堵车的时候,总是能听到后面的司机不停地按喇叭,才发现意大利人急性子比较多。可是和意大利人约会呢．晚个十几二十分钟对他们又不算什么严重问题了,甚至还会理直气壮地用“刚才堵车很严重”的理由开脱,所以如果他们为迟到而向你道歉,还是说一声That’s all right就好。     

James Fitzjames Stephen,John Stuart Mill,and the Victorian Theory of Toleration

Due to his famous conflict with John Stuart Mill, James Fitzjames Stephen is often assumed to have been an opponent of toleration and intellectual freedom and a defender of authoritarian or reactionary principles. These assumptions are misleading. Stephen was, and was known in his time to have been, a champion of toleration. This essay provides a comprehensive overview of his writing on these themes, drawing from a wider array of texts than is usually considered in the study of the Stephen-Mill controversy. Contrary to popular belief, Stephen had a deep and multi-faceted argument in favor of toleration. As a critic of contending theories of toleration and freedom of discussion (especially Mill’s), Stephen was concerned to defeat what he saw as the resurgence of a priori principles in Victorian political philosophy and to combat the expansion of a proper notion of toleration to include a cluster of beliefs and attitudes of which he disapproved. In his approach to these issues Stephen was, arguably, as representative of Victorian thinking as the author of On Liberty.