Intellectual history as a mode of social science

Partly by reference to elements from my own body of research over four decades, this essay considers how intellectual history can serve as a form of social science, via two channels: the (almost) inescapable ethical element in social science and the pursuit of alternatives to contemporary orthodoxies – in particular, contemporary economic orthodoxies. The more important latter element is connected to the dependence of values upon facts. Behind all this lies the proposition that the relationship of social science to its intellectual history is qualitatively different from the relationship of (most) natural science to its intellectual history.