TABLE OF CONTENTS: 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
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