Reason Tolerance

Monotheism and Tolerance suggests a way to deal with the intractable problem of religiously motivated and justified violence.

The major challenges facing higher education are often framed in terms of preparing students for life-long learning. Society's 21st century needs require civic-minded individuals who have the intellectual and personal capabilities to constructively engage political, ethnic, and religious differences, work effectively, and live together with many different kinds of people in a more global society. In this volume, Robert J. Thompson aims to influence the current conversation about the purposes and practices of higher education. Beyond Reason and Tolerance adopts a developmental science basis to inform the transformations in undergraduate educational practices that are necessary to empower students to act globally and constructively engage difference. It synthesizes current scholarship regarding the nature and development of three core capacities deemed essential: A personal epistemology that reflects a sophisticated understanding of knowledge, beliefs, and ways of thinking; empathy and the capacity to understand the mental states of others; and an integrated identity that includes values, commitments, and a sense of agency for civic and social responsibility. Beyond Reason and Tolerance argues that to foster the development of these capabilities, colleges and universities must recommit to providing a formative liberal education and adopt a developmental model of undergraduate education as a process of intellectual and personal growth, involving empathy as well as reasoning, values as well as knowledge, and identity as well as competencies. Thompson focuses on emerging adulthood as an especially dynamic time of reorganization and development of the brain that both influences, and is influenced by, the undergraduate experience. Advances in our understanding of human development and learning are synthesized with regard to the direct implications for undergraduate education practices.

This is an attempt to reflect on Islam as it appears in the context of Fethullah Gulen's teachings, an influential Turkish-Muslim scholar who inspired a movement of education and interfaith dialogue. Grinell's extensive study of Islam and of Gulen allows him to pinpoint a unique expression of values and beliefs that could alter the typical understanding of Islam and Muslims in the West. He draws upon his previous studies of the Gulen Movement and comparatively places Gulen in a wider context of faith and society. What is the concept of knowledge in Islam as understood by Gulen? How is faith and service to people connected? Is Gulen after building a sultanate? Does the Gulen movement have a (hidden) political agenda? How traditional or modern is Gulen? These are some of the questions Grinell attempts to answer from his perspective. As a humanistic researcher on Islam, Grinell believes we definitely have something to learn from Islam.

Have you ever wondered why some people are more tolerant and accepting of difference than others? Tolerance: The Glue That Binds Us: Empathy, Fairness and Reason is a ground-breaking book in its scope and in its examination of tolerance to human diversity. It is the first comprehensive publication about tolerance to human diversity which explores historical, philosophical (including the controversial relationship between freedom of speech and tolerance) and psychological aspects of tolerance as well as educational implications informed by theory and research. Rivka Witenberg suggests a new direction in research and theory and proposes an alternative way of viewing tolerance as a concept in its own right, better placed within the moral domain and not simply the opposite of prejudice. When tolerance is placed within the moral domain pertaining to empathy, equality, fairness, justice and avoiding harm to others, it should be viewed as positive in nature rather than simply forbearance or putting up with. She argues that to be tolerant is a fundamental human quality or value as central to human existence as love, charity and goodwill and that tolerance like morality is possibly instinctive. Significantly, while tolerance and prejudice do coexist, tolerance should not be confounded and confused with prejudice. Understanding more about the nature of tolerance to human diversity in todays increasingly diverse and complex world could not be more important for harmonious, cooperative intergroup living. Witenberg reflects on the origin of tolerance and its deep historical roots, exemplified by the Golden Rule. Analysis of philosophical theories and her psychological research about tolerance to human diversity further expands our understanding of this important matter. This book brings a new outlook on the questions about what tolerance is, how it is conceptualised and its practical implications. Moving away from the idea that tolerance is simply putting up with and the antithesis to prejudice, this is a major interdisciplinary work that alters our understanding of tolerance to human diversity. This book is unique in its approach and subject matter and should be of value not only to educators and policy makers but also to anyone interested in understanding this important issue. It is written in approachable language which allows everybody to understand this important topic.

Tolerance, while proving necessary in today's varied world, can be grudgingly given and resentfully received. Toleration may be necessary, but it has little appeal, and certainly cannot serve as either a central or unifying doctrine in a thriving moral or political philosophy. A deeper understanding of what tolerance requires leads us to see that it demands more. Once we inculcate the attitude of tolerance in ourselves and our politics, tolerance can occupy the difficult and contested. It does not make sense, for instance, if we already fully accept a practice; nor does it make sense if what we are asked to tolerate is 'intolerable: ' we appeal to those inclined to be intolerant to soften their judgement, to grant that what they disapprove can, and should be, permitted. What needs to be done is to show how tolerance is rooted in an appealing moral and political theory. Only then will toleration move beyond either simple expediency or grudging forbearance

In Tolerance, Lars Tønder offers a thought-provoking theory on what tolerance means in pluralistic societies. Tønder begins by showing the limitations of the way democratic theory currently understands tolerance: either as a form of restraint or as benevolence, but always divorced from what it is that the tolerant person really senses. According to Tønder, what is missing from current theories of tolerance is the idea of pain, or the lived experience of what it means to become tolerant. Introducing what he calls a "sensorial orientation to politics" and a "theory of active tolerance," he argues that the act of becoming tolerant (and the reasoning it entails) depends on sensing the world in an expansive manner attentive to the new and unforeseen. In order to illustrate, he engages with a number of theorists, from Seneca, Spinoza, Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty, and Marcuse to Locke, Kant and Mill, and he draws upon a wide range of examples, including the 2005 controversy over the Danish cartoons of Muhammad, Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs, Dave Chappelle's comedy, and methods of torture used in the war on terror. Tolerance is at once a sweeping account of the history of political thought and an invitation to rethink the meaning of tolerance within the sensorial conditions that define twenty first century democratic politics.

In this dialogue between a famous atheist and a former radical, Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz invite you to join an urgently needed conversation: Is Islam a religion of peace or war? Is it amenable to reform? Why do so many Muslims seem drawn to extremism? The authors demonstrate how two people with very different views can find common ground.

Why are religious tolerance and pluralism so difficult to achieve? Why is the often violent fundamentalist backlash against them so potent? Robert Erlewine looks to a new religion of reason for answers to these questions. Drawing on Enlightenment writers Moses Mendelssohn, Immanuel Kant, and Hermann Cohen, who placed Christianity and Judaism in tension with tolerance and pluralism, Erlewine finds a way to break the impasse, soften hostilities, and establish equal relationships with the Other. Erlewine's recovery of a religion of reason stands in contrast both to secularist critics of religion who reject religion for the sake of reason and to contemporary religious conservatives who eschew reason for the sake of religion. Monotheism and Tolerance suggests a way to deal with the intractable problem of religiously motivated and justified violence.