History of Philosophy, Free-thinking, Deception, Etienne de la Boétie, John Toland
Abstract
In the sixteenth-century France shaken by religious wars, Etienne La Boétie wrote a short essay entitled Discours de la servitude volontaire. It was devoted to the relationship between rulers and subjects and focused on the deception of subjects through the arrogance of tyrants. The topics of the essay, firstly “adopted” by the French Hugeonots in their polemic against Catholics, are later borrowed and widely developed in England in the eighteenth century, when the task of unveiling and shaking off deception is central in the Freethinkers' struggle against the imposture of politicians and clergy. Among them, John Toland emerges for his originality, in so far as he replaces the traditional couple imperium sacerdos with new strategies of dissimulation, in order to popularise his own philosophy.
