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Pornography as DialoguePragmatists like Rorty take our post-Nietzschean culture seriously. There are no '800' numbers to call when we confront moral perplexity, no algorithms to use when deep conflicts of value arise. All that we are left with is what Dewey called 'social intelligence'--that open forum where ideas clash and human truth emerges: "A liberal society is one which is content to call 'true' (or 'right' or 'just') whatever the outcome of undistorted communication happens to be, whatever view wins in a free and open encounter" (Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity p. 67). In this dialogical move, "...there are no constraints on inquiry save CONVERSATIONAL ones--no wholesale constraints derived from the nature of objects, or of mind, or of language, but only those retail constraints provided by the remarks of our fellow-inquirers." (p. 165)
And that is why the unique form of these articles bears
special relation to the pressing issues of these articles. From
the pragmatist's perspective, Computer Mediated Communication
might provide an Electronic Agora where the market-place of ideas
could hold full sway. Furthermore, the rich environment of the
World Wide Web and its hypermedia design might be thoughtfully
used to enrich the data being discussed and deepen the
appreciation of the problems brought to light by the
interlocutors. Indeed, the 'conversational turn' that has been
occurring in meta-ethical theory requires us to consider ways of
linking these kinds of 'papers' to a forum where, for example,
MacKinnon, Califia, and Cornell could continue their
conversations, buttressing their positions with links to other
sources and people on the World Wide Web.
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