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The arguments of philosophers and social scientists (Popper, Morin) are compared with the works of Europe’s designers (Monnet, Delors), at two decisive moments of the European construction, in order to show (1) the great majority of intellectuals missed the European rendezvous, in the grip of philosophical doctrines (Plato, Hegel, Marx) linking the course of things with “skyhooks” (divine proposals or natural and historical determinisms) which would make it foreseeable or controllable, while men can only lean on the “terrestrial levers” of intelligent action in a bounded environment; (2) Popper and Morin themselves have eliminated many skyhooks but retained some of them, particularly the faith in rational discourse or in an autonomous world of ideas, while Monnet and Delors have believed only in the virtue of the possible and the feasible by means of ad hoc organizations; (3) European construction illustrates the relevance of the neo-Darwinian approach of human affairs (Simon), according to which knowledge and altruism are in the service of design.