Ebook: Liberating judgment: fanatics, skeptics, and John Locke's politics of probability

Examining the social and political upheavals that characterized the collapse of public judgment in early modern Europe, this book offers a unique account of the achievement of liberal democracy and self-government.;Cover Page; Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication Page; Contents; Acknowledgement; Introduction: The Great Recoinage; I. Unsettling Judgment: Knowledge, Belief, and the Crisis of Authority; Certain Knowledge and Probable Belief; Unsettling Knowledge; Unsettling Belief; II. Abandoning Judgment: Montaignian Skeptics and Cartesian Fanatics; Montaigne and the Politics of Skepticism; Descartes and the Rationalist Dream; Young Locke as Skeptic and Absolutist; III. Reworking Reasonableness: The Authoritative Testimony of Nature; The Transformation of a Skeptic; Precursors to Lockean Reasonableness