Kantian Nuances in Popper's Early Theory of Knowledge

The paper puts forth an interpretation of Popper's early theory of knowledge that is found in the work Die beiden Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie. It mainly, however, focuses on his original and surprisingly detailed interpretations of Kant's transcendental idealism. Popper is inspired by Kant in many things: he, for example, makes use of Kant's transcendental method of inquiry and also the discovery that all knowledge of reality lies in the existence of laws. At the same time, however, he criticizes Kant because of the circular reasoning of transcendental idealism by means of transcendental deduction, which additionally leads Popper to exchange the epistemological and psychological aspects of knowledge. Although Popper distinguishes between the theory of knowledge and the psychology of knowledge, he does not recognize formal apriorism in the epistemological sense but only genetic apriorism in the cognitive psychological sense. Popper's interpretation of Kant is not however free from certain misunderstandings as it ignores the difference between "pure natural science" and "empirical physics.".