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16 THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL WORKSThis book is close to the modern (‘logistically’ oriented)positivism shared by Bertrand Russell, Moritz Schlick, PhilippFrank, Rudolf Carnap, Hans Reichenbach and LudwigWittgenstein. But this does not prevent it from engaging with thiscurrent in a radically critical manner, and from trying to lay barethe ‘fundamental contradiction of positivism’ upon whichpositivist philosophy founders.(BG: xxxv)In this work Popper draws a balance-sheet of all epistemologicalcurrents either influential in general or present within the tradition inwhich he himself was educated; his analysis focuses especially onempiricism and rationalism, but also examines the characteristic thesesof intuitionism and conventionalism, and Vaihinger’s view thatscientific concepts are only useful ‘heuristic fictions’ that cannot beshown to correspond to reality. The book is thus quite useful for anunderstanding of the roots of Popper’s philosophy: it makes explicitreference to his reading in this field, directly quotes from the authorsunder consideration, and sometimes comments on them in great detail.We learn, for example, that Popper is familiar not only withWittgenstein and neo-positivists such as Schlick, Carnap and Feigl, butalso with Hume, Kant, Mach, Duhem and Russell. Kant, in particular,stands out as his guide, as the one who offers him the means to criticizelogical positivism: indeed, Popper feels it necessary ‘indelibly tounderline his debt to Kant’ (BG: 320). At the same time, however, hedoes not actually subscribe to any of Kant’s doctrines, and takes a cleardistance from that ‘apriorism’ which seems to him irreconcilable with‘rational empiricism’. The critique of logical positivism, as of the otherapproaches just mentioned, proceeds through detailed analysis of andobjections to the theories in question, followed by Popper’s own widerangingand carefully constructed answers that provide his own solutionto the ‘two main problems of the theory of knowledge’. The firstproblem, induction, is solved through dissolution—as we shall see in amoment; while the second, the problem of demarcation, is here onlytouched upon, as much of the original material had been lost. In theintroduction written in 1978 for publication the following year, theauthor critically evaluates his early work and does not hesitate to pointout some errors or ambiguities of which he had been guilty in the firstversion (e.g., BG: xxii). But in effect he still endorses the main theses,at most demonstrating the ways in which critics have misunderstoodthem over the years (BG: xxii-xxiv).