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The Department of Philosophy Colloquium Series will present the following:
A Pragmatist's Approach to Free Speech
Prof. Susan Dieleman
Thursday, November 9, 2023
4 - 5:30 p.m.
C-630 (University Hall)
Few thinkers have explored what Richard Rorty’s position on free speech might be. A typical strategy is to point to his claim in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity that “Mill’s suggestion that governments devote themselves to optimizing the balance between leaving people’s lives alone and preventing suffering seems to me pretty much the last word” (1989, 63) to justify the view that Rorty’s position on free speech would be the same as Mill’s. Rorty himself never explicitly addressed the topic, though there are passing references in his work to the democratic value of free speech. Despite this paucity of evidence, my aim in this paper is to think through what our position on free speech might be were we to take Rorty’s pragmatism seriously.
Contact:
Bev Garnett | bev.garnett@uleth.ca | 403-380-1894 | ulethbridge.ca/artsci/philosophy