Political Theory and Political Scientific Research

Extract

IN THIS COMMENT ON THE TWO TREATISES ON TOLERATION COMPOSED for us by Preston King and Bernard Crick, I wish to raise three quite familiar questions. The first is how far the growth of toleration in the past, its prevalence in the present and its fostering in the future, may be related in any society to the general level of information,education and enlightenment, of rational knowledge and discourse, there obtaining. This vague issue can only be handled superficially in so short a space, but it has to be faced, though not directly tackled by King and Crick, because it seems to me to be entailed by the other two. They are, how far specifically political knowledge about present and past actions, beliefs and behaviour – political science in fact – is itself related to the tendency towards toleration. Finally, how effective the raising of the extent of enlightenment, general or politicalscientific, is likely to be in creating tolerant attitudes and tolerant practice.