Worldwide deliberation and public use of reason online

The aim of this paper is threefold: (i) to trace the idea of deliberation back in the history of philosophy and establish the link to the Kantian concept of public reason; (ii) to pave the way for rhetoric as a constituent part of public deliberation; (iii) to undertake an applied ethical approach to worldwide deliberation online. The two former aims are treated in part one of the paper, whereas the applied analysis is undertaken in part two. One important task is to demonstrate in what ways the internet as a new and powerful venue for deliberation both challenges the old theories of public deliberation, and also points in the direction of certain revisions of our basic ideas about deliberation.