The Open Society and Its Enemies (Routledge Classics)

by Karl Popper

The methodological nominalist will never think that a question like ‘What is energy?’ or ‘What is movement?’ or ‘What is an atom?’ is an important question for physics; but he will attach importance to a question like: ‘How can the energy of the sun be made useful?’ or ‘How does a planet move?’ or ‘Under what condition does an atom radiate light?’ And to those philosophers who tell him that before having answered the ‘what is’ question he cannot hope to give exact answers to any of the ‘how’ questions, he will reply, if at all, by pointing out that he much prefers that modest degree of exactness which he can achieve by his methods to the pretentious muddle which they have achieved by theirs. As indicated by our example, methodological nominalism is nowadays fairly generally accepted in the natural sciences. The problems of the social sciences, on the other hand, are still for the most part treated by essentialist methods. This is, in my opinion, one of the main reasons for their backwardness. But many who have noticed this situation30 judge it differently.