Abstract

Contemporary philosophy is marked by a turn to 'practical rationality' in the face of the issues associated with relativism and foundationalism. This turn is visible in the work of gadamer and rorty (among others) and has recently been surveyed by richard bernstein. The paper shows that 'practical rationality' fails as a model for rational justification in both 'post-Empiricist' philosophy of science and philosophical hermeneutics. The popular appeal to "phronesis" is shown to be an abuse of the ancient notion