Tolerance as an ethical principle and moral quality of the personality: a philosophical and historical retrospective

The article discusses the transformation of the ideas, peculiarities and manifestation of tolerance as a phenomenon of social life. We emphasize that the outstanding thinkers of humankind consider tolerance not only as a means and mechanism of dealing with disputes, controversy and conflicts in the society. The main tendency in their observations was the belief in ontological roots of tolerance in the life of people and humankind, its understanding as consciously formatted moral virtue and ethical principle of coexistence and cooperation. We draw a line between external tolerance, which is not rooted in the moral consciousness of people and society, and internal tolerance as a cultural tradition, social and psychological phenomenon, i. e. the ability to understand, respect and support, the readiness to accept others as they are and cooperate with them on the basis of agreement and solidarity. Today the most effective way for becoming a tolerant personality is thought to be the principle of dialogue that enables to unite in people’s mind and behavior various cultural values and norms, forms of activity and communication. We have concluded that modern situation of tolerance is a situation of dialogue that leads through mutual criticism and self-criticism towards mutual understanding.