The Second Treatise is one of the most important political treatises ever written and one of the most far-reaching in its influence. In his provocative 15-page introduction to this edition, the late eminent political theorist C. B. Macpherson examines Locke's arguments for limited, conditional government, private property, and right of revolution and suggests reasons for the appeal of these arguments in Locke's time and since.

Inspired by Voltaire’s advice that a text needs to be concise to have real influence, this anthology contains fiery extracts by forty eighteenth-century authors, from the most famous philosophers of the age to those whose brilliant writings are less well-known. These passages are immensely diverse in style and topic, but all have in common a passionate commitment to equality, freedom, and tolerance. Each text resonates powerfully with the issues our world faces today. Tolerance was first published by the Société française d’étude du dix-huitième siècle (the French Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies) in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo assassinations in January 2015 as an act of solidarity and as a response to the surge of interest in Enlightenment values. With the support of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, it has now been translated by over 100 students and tutors of French at Oxford University.

This volume brings together the principal writings on religious toleration and freedom of expression by one of the greatest philosophers in the Anglophone tradition. It contains not only Locke's canonical Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), but also his early Essay Concerning Toleration (1667), extracts from the Third Letter for Toleration (1692), and a large body of Locke's briefer essays and memoranda on these themes.

J. R. and Philip Milton present the first critical edition of John Locke's Essay concerning Toleration, based on all extant manuscripts, and a number of other writings on law and politics composed between 1667 and 1683. Although Locke never published any of these works himself they are of very great interest for students of his intellectual development because they are markedly different from the early works he wrote while at Oxford and show him working out ideas that were to appear in his mature political writings, the Two Treatises of Government and the Epistola de Tolerantia. With authoritative contextual guidance from the editors, this will be an invaluable resource for all historians of early modern philosophy, of legal, political, and religious thought, and of 17th century Britain.

La 4e de couverture indique : "Despite recent advances in Locke scholarship, philosophers and political theorists have paid little attention to the relations among his three greatest works: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Two Treatises of Government, and Epistola de Tolerantia. Toleration and Understanding in Locke argues that these works are unified by a concern to promote the cause of religious toleration. Making extensive use of Locke's neglected replies to Proast, Nicholas Jolley shows how Locke draws on his epistemological principles to criticize religious persecution. Attention is paid to demonstrating the range of Locke's arguments for toleration and to defending them, where possible, against recent criticisms. The book also includes discussions of Locke's individualism about knowledge and belief, his critique of religious enthusiasm, his commitment to the minimal creed, and his teachings about natural law. Locke emerges as a rather systematic thinker whose arguments are highly relevant to modern debates about religious toleration. debates about religious toleration."