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After noting that a term as peaceful as "tolerance" is surrounded by a series of false dilemmas, of topics, paradoxes and implicit presuppositions, the author of this article specifies its significance and distinguishes its two meanings: the classic original and the modern one associated with diverse relativisms. He then argues that skeptical relativism is incompatible with tolerance. Like tolerance without freedom is inconceivable, so is a tolerance separated from the truth. Only objective axiological criteria allow the triple frontier to be set (objectionable, tolerable, intolerable) that the exercise of tolerance brings with it. There are intrinsic limits to tolerance: what is intolerable cannot be tolerated. Jorge Peña holds that the delimitation of what is relevantly public is never neutral: the procedure is incapable of founding ethics and the invitation to fall back on and confine basic moral options to what is private leads to the dogmatic imposition of an individualistic morality. It therefore follows that democracy requires a common framework, spaces of shared truth like the dignity of the individual and human rights.