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This work defends two main theses. First, modern Western pornographic fiction functions as a self-deceptive vehicle for sexual or blood-lustful arousal; and second, that its emergence owes as much to Puritan Protestantism and its inner- or this-worldly asceticism as does the emergence of modern rationalized capitalism.

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Preface.-Chapter 1: The Protestant Ethic and Modern Western Pornographic Fiction.- Chapter 2: Literary Discourse and Pragmatic Implicature.- Chapter 3: Pornographic Fiction, Implicature, and Imaginative Resistance.- Chapter 4: Pornographic Fiction and Personal Integrity. Select Bibliography

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Charles O. Nussbaum received his PhD in Philosophy in 1988 from Emory University, USA. He has taught at Northwestern University, Northern Michigan University, and is currently Professor of Philosophy at UT Arlington. His publications include The Musical Representation and papers on the philosophy of mind, aesthetics, and Kant.

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