Criticism without fundamental principles

Abstract

In this paper I develop and defend a form of argumentative nor-mativity that is not based on fundamental principles. I first argue that research agendas that aim to discover (or claimed to have discovered) fundamental principles of 'good' argumentative discourse share one crucial weak spot, viz. circularity. I then argue that this weak spot can be avoided in a pancritical (Bartley, 1984) view of normativity.