Latour refers to this book in his Facing Gaia lectures. Toulmin provides a lucid and easy-to-read understanding of Modernity’s shift from tolerant skepticism (e.g., Montaigne) to a drive toward certainty of knowledge (e.g., Descartes). This is not just an evolution within the History of Ideas and Philosophy but is entangled with the cultural and political mess, including the Thirty Years War, of the early 17th century.