Toleration Without Tolerance
Enlightenment and the Image of ReasonLars TønderThe experience of chaos, both on the speculative and the other level,
prompts us to see rationalism in a historical perspective which it set itself
on principle to avoid, to seek a philosophy which explains the upsurge of
reason in a world not of its making and to prepare the substructure of
living experience without which reason and liberty are emptied of their
content and wither away.
—Maurice Merleau-Ponty,Phenomenology of PerceptionThe Ontological Imaginary of Reason
Contemporary attempts to justify tolerance and toleration converge on
the importance of reason. The argument for this, on behalf of what we
might call the ‘‘model of reasonable toleration,’’ is that reason is avail-
able to everyone who is willing to give to others what they want for
themselves. Its laws apply universally, and even though its results are
more reliable than those that come from other sources of knowledge, it
is always open to revision. This makes it the right candidate for being
the ‘‘neutral’’ yet ‘‘case-sensitive’’ arbitrator in societies with conflicting
notions of the common good. As Rainer Forst, a prominent advocate
of reasonable toleration, argues, ‘‘Persons are tolerant to the extent that,
even though they disagree with others about the nature of the good and
true life, they tolerate all other views within the bounds of reciprocity
and generality. This is why toleration is avirtue of justiceand ademand
of reason.’’^1
This essay addresses the ontological presuppositions that circum-
scribe this kind of argument. It does so through the notion of what I
call ‘‘the ontological imaginary of reason.’’ This term of art designates
a loose gathering of world images that seek to make sense of what rea-
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