Is Agassi’s philosophy of practical affairs applicable in philosophical practice? Is it recommendable to philosophical practitioners, counselors, or counselees? A critical rational approach like his demands a prior awareness, which participants in practical philosophy programs often miss. That approach is necessary for counseling that is really philosophical, and some of his ideas are inspiring. Yet the problems that interested him and his way of solving or dissolving them on meta-levels, are not always relevant to the counselees’ concerns. His attitude to (...) the opinions, background, and concerns of others, though tolerant, is not recommendable to practitioners who have to take into account the perspectives of participants with other backgrounds, understand their “problem situations” and their “logic.”. (shrink)

Critical rationalists cannot reconcile their falibilism with the demand of logic for universality. Popper tried, but failed, to achieve universality in logic without proof. Attempts to find a limited approach to logic as ‘logics of’ have failed to find a coherent critical rationalist alternative. Critical rationalists take Tarski’s logic to be the best of logic today. But Tarski renders logic as close to justification, and thereby universality, as possible. A fallibilist version of Tarskian logic can yield a critical rationalist alternative: (...) It provides rules for solving problems in linguistic contexts, but also discovers mistakes by discovering errors in logical inference. (shrink)