MARGINALIZING DISCOVERY - POPPER,KARL INTELLECTUAL ROOTS IN PSYCHOLOGY - OR, HOW THE STUDY OF DISCOVERY WAS BANNED FROM SCIENCE STUDIES

Karl Popper's intellectual roots in psychology are shown to be decisiv e for his later dismissal of psychology in science studies. In 1928, P opper completed his doctorate under the supervision of the psychologis t and psycholinguist Karl Buhler. Popper's dissertation addressed the question of methodology in the psychology of thinking. With his disser tation topic, Popper took up an issue that was central to the research tradition with which Buhler was affiliated-a tradition leading back t o the work of the psychologist and initiator of the Wurzburg school, O swald Kulpe. The work of Kulpe and Buhler is discussed, and the line o f intellectual descent from Kulpe to Buhler to Popper is elaborated. P opper's first important philosophical manuscript was only partially pu blished as his famous The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1935/1959); t he remaining parts, published only much later (1979), show Popper's tr ansition from a psychologist with a strong inclination toward philosop hy to a philosopher of science with a background in psychology. I argu e that the elements that Popper extracted from the psychology with whi ch he was acquainted furnished the basis for his dismissal of the stud y of discovery and the ''black-boxing'' of scientific creativity.