A CRITIQUE OF JOHN LOCKE'S UNDERSTANDING OF TOLERANCE
JOHN LOCKE’UN TOLERANS ANLAYIŞINA BİR ELEŞTİRİ

Author : Fikret YILMAZ
Number of pages : 281-304

Abstract

John Locke (1632-1704) is the father of liberalism and at the same time one of the most prominent personalities of history of political thought. Despite the fact that liberalism dates back long before Locke, what makes Locke the most important figure of this movement is his "handling of thought currents in a consistent way". Locke accepts that everyone should live their own belief in a free way. Locke believes that anyone having any religious belief can live in accordance with his belief. Although oppression against oppositional or contradictory beliefs decreased in comparision to previous periods, in the period when he lived, In Britain, Locke had a great impact both on his own period and on later periods with respect to toleration. Locke, on the one hand, believed that religious toleration should be shown, however, he, on the other, believed that Catholics and atheists should not be tolerated. In our opinion, Locke contradicted himself in this view. This presentation is a critique of Locke’s Understanding of toleration. We believe that Locke’s thoughts on toleration are inconsistent within itself. Our goal is to present his understanding of toleration on the one hand and to try to present solutions to the contradictions at the end.

Keywords

John Locke, Toleration, Tolerance, A Letter Concerning Toleration

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