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Spinoza's Dialectic And The Paradoxes Of Tolerance: A Foundation For Pluralism, Michel Rosenfeld

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Tolerance and pluralism seem to draw on the same criterion of legitimacy. The liberal case for tolerance, however, leads to a series of paradoxes, including Popper's paradox of tolerance according to which tolerating theintolerant is self-defeating. Spinoza's defense of tolerance as it emergesfrom his Theological-Political Treatise and his Ethics is more pervasive and much more encompasssing than the liberal justification. Spinoza justifies tolerance as a private and public virtue as well as on prudential grounds. Although Spinoza's conception of tolerance appears in significant respects paradoxical and contradictory - e.g., it is puzzling why Spinoza, the philosopher of reason, should avocate …