The early twentieth-century breakthroughs in relativity theory, quantum mechanics, and non-Euclidean geometry had in common an encounter with phenomena from premises which were counterintuitive to a natural or rational picture of the world. Unshackling foundational axioms from fitting any "realist," "naturalist" or "a priori" presuppositions unleashed extraordinary debates and ingenuity in the advancement of these disciplines. While scientists retreated from their pretension to describe the "real" world, their quest for new theories and assumptions, which combined methodological inventiveness and instrumental needs, became boundless.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 56