Critical comments to Miller’s defense of Bartley’s Pancritical Rationalism

Resumen

W.W. Bartley argued that Popper’s original theory of rationality opened itself to a tu quoque argument from the irrationalist and to avoid this Bartley proposed an alternative theory of rationality: pancritical rationalism (PCR). Bartley ‘s PCR leads, however, to a self-referential paradox. David Miller outlaws self-reference (and in this way he avoids PCR’s paradoxical nature) by distinguishing between positions and statements. Miller’s move looks suspiciously like an ad hoc maneuver or a stipulation that has to be accepted dogmatically. Furthermore, Miller’s move seems to be giving up the comprehensive intention of PCR, a comprehensiveness which was PCR’s central claim and aim and which distinguished it from the older non-comprehensive Popperian critical rationalism. Moreover, Miller’s move is inadequate because it is a second world answer (i. e., it involves attitudes or thoughts) to a third world problem, that is, to logical paradox.

Key words: Rationality, Critical Rationalism, Pancritical Rationalism, minimal methodological dogmatism, self-referential paradox, tu quoque argument.