Abstract

Joseph Agassi in his ?Rationality and the Tu Quoque Argument? (Inquiry, Vol. 16 [1973], pp. 395?406) characterizes the Popperian and Polanyian approaches as rationalist and irrationalist, respectively. Such a characterization of Polanyi is only possible, however, if one ignores the most fundamental aspect of the whole problem: the factual question of the constitutive conditions for inquiry. It is suggested that an investigation along these lines would lead to a normative theory of rationality grounded in cog?nitional fact, the uncovering of which would be nothing less than a self?appropriation of our rational consciousness