To Think Tolerance

Extract

Two essays have been placed under this title. The first is written in the spirit of continental European moral and political philosophy. Its emphasis is on the tensions and paradoxes inherent in the idea of tolerance. The first paradox: the possibility of tolerance, far from being based on the renunciation of the absolute nature of the conviction, depends on the contrary on the capacity for absolute engagement which itself gives rise to an unconditional right towards respect. Another paradox: while, in the case of scientific truth (rational or empirical), understanding and consent coincide, in the case of belief (moral, religious, or aesthetic), there is a striking divergence between the contestable nature of the affirmation and the risky nature of the attachment; but such is the cost of the unconditional. An extreme paradox: it is at the very heart of the idea of truth that a split between possessing and sharing must be operated; and it is then in the realm of dispossession and nonknowledge that the art of mimicking an opposed conviction within oneself - ultimate bulwark against the temptation to impose one's own portion of truth on others - can be learned. The spirit of Karl Jaspers permeates this lucid meditation.