The Open Society and Its Enemies (Routledge Classics)

by Karl Popper

When tracing back traditions and institutions to their origin, we must find that their introduction is explicable in psychological terms, since they have been introduced by man for some purpose or other, and under the influence of certain motives. And even if these motives have been forgotten in the course of time, then that forgetfulness, as well as our readiness to put up with institutions whose purpose is obscure, is in its turn based on human nature. Thus ‘all phenomena of society are phenomena of human nature’7, as Mill said; and ‘the Laws of the phenomena of society are, and can be, nothing but the laws of the actions and passions of human beings’, that is to say, ‘the laws of individual human nature. Men are not, when brought together, converted into another kind of substance …’8 This last remark of Mill’s exhibits one of the most praiseworthy aspects of psychologism, namely, its sane opposition to collectivism and holism, its refusal to be impressed by Rousseau’s or Hegel’s romanticism—by a general will or a national spirit, or perhaps, by a group mind. Psychologism is, I believe, correct only in so far as it insists upon what may be called ‘methodological individualism’ as opposed to ‘methodological collectivism’; it rightly insists that the ‘behaviour’ and the ‘actions’ of collectives, such as states or social groups, must be reduced to the behaviour and to the actions of human individuals.