ABSTRACT
Thus we have the leading advocate of a humane and critical approach to problems in theory and practice basing his whole philosophy on a premise he admits to be indefensible when scrutinized in the way he insists that the foundations of the beliefs of others be examined. This is not only unsatisfactory in itself, but it lays him right open to what Bartley (1962) calls the tu quoque of the irrationalist. The irrationalist is quite happy to say in his tiresome way that everyone, including the rationalist, makes some epistemological commitments which cannot be justified, and that on the level of ultimate commitment there is no difference between the man who says that we should be rational in our attitudes and only accept criticizable theories and the one who simply asserts that 2+2=5 or that Jesus is the Son of God. But we may wonder whether it is so tiresome of him when we have Popper apparently agreeing with him (OS, vol. 2, p. 231):
What Popper is saying here implies that even if there was some assured link between a critical methodology and truth the rationalist is hardly in a position to criticize the authoritarian dogmatist who advocates a society organized by a peace-keeping thought
police, because he (the rationalist) cannot give in his own terms a defence of his preference for listening to argument and learning from experience. It is not that the rationalist has one irrational belief or commitment among many beliefs; it is that the body of his rationalism rests on the quicksands of an irrational commitment. Once he looks for something firmer, he begins to sink.
