Liberating Judgment: Fanatics, Skeptics, and John Locke's Politics of Probability

Acknowledgments ix Introduction: The Great Recoinage 1 Chapter I: Unsettling Judgment: Knowledge, Belief, and the Crisis of Authority 23 Certain Knowledge and Probable Belief 25 Unsettling Knowledge 34 Unsettling Belief 41 Chapter II: Abandoning Judgment: Montaignian Skeptics and Cartesian Fanatics 53 Montaigne and the Politics of Skepticism 54 Descartes and the Rationalist Dream 63 Young Locke as Skeptic and Absolutist 75 Chapter III: Reworking Reasonableness: The Authoritative Testimony of Nature 92 The Transformation of a Skeptic 97 Precursors to Lockean Reasonableness 103 From Lecture Halls to Laboratories 114 Chapter IV: Forming Judgment: The Transformation of Knowledge and Belief 126 Locke's Political Pedagogy 129 Fanatics and Philosophizers 136 Defining and Redefining Knowledge and Belief 143 Chapter V: Liberating Judgment: Freedom, Happiness, and the Reasonable Self 159 Unrestrained and Restrained Freedoms 160 The Pursuit of True and Solid Happiness 168 The Formation of the Reasonable Self 178 Chapter VI: Enacting Judgment: Dismantling the Divine Certainty of Sir Robert Filmer 185 Preaching Patriarcha from the Pulpit 188 Probable Judgment and the Authority of Scripture 192 The Slavishness of Systems 205 Chapter VII: Authorizing Judgment: Consensual Government and the Politics of Probability 219 The State of Nature as a Realm of Virtue and Convenience 223 From Moral Clarity to Epistemological Confusion 233 Entrusting Judgment to a Shared Authority 238 Prerogative, Public Good, and the Judgment of the People 244 Conclusion: The Great Recoinage Revisited 253 References 263 Index 279

Douglas John Casson is assistant professor of political science at St. Olaf College.

Liberating Judgment is a welcome addition to the literature on Locke. More clearly and powerfully than any previous book, it traces the importance of the theme of probable judgment across several aspects of Locke's work, including his writings on medicine, epistemology, metaphysics, economics, and politics.--Alex Tuckness, Iowa State University