Intellectual history and cultural history: the inside and the outside

• Published in: History of the human sciences Vol. 15; no. 2; pp. 1 - 19
• Main Author: Kelley, Donald R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01-05-2002; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Contextual theory; Cultural history; Cultural relations; Historiography; History; History of ideas; Humanities; Intellectual History; Intellectuals; Intelligence; Internalization; Methodology (Philosophical); Philosophy; Social History; contextualism; externalism; intellectual history; cultural history; internalism
• ISSN: 0952-6951; 1461-720X
• DOI: 10.1177/0952695102015002123

What is the relationship between intellectual and cultural history? An answer to this question may be found in the area between the two poles of inquiry commonly known as internalist and externalist methods. The first of these deals with old-fashioned `ideas' (in Lovejoy's sense) and the second with social and political context and the sociology and anthropology of knowledge. This article reviews this question in the light of the earlier historiography of philosophy, literature and science, and debates over the role of context in determining historical meaning. Within the horizon-structure of experience and interpretation the short answer is that cultural history is the outside of intellectual history and intellectual history the inside of cultural history. Ideally, historians ought to work both sides of the historical street.