Intellectual History: Formation and Methodological Features of a Scientific Field

Abstract

The article analyzes theoretical and methodological issues related to the formation and development of one of the most relevant and in-demand areas of contemporary historical science—intellectual history. Intellectual history is a field of scientific research that developed intensively throughout the 20th century and has been the subject of constant debate at every stage of its evolution to the present day. The authors emphasize the important interdisciplinary significance of the term itself, which expresses a general methodological tendency toward synthesis within social and humanistic knowledge, and consider various forms of institutionalization of intellectual history, as well as its directions. The authors analyze the conditions of emergence, methodological features, and thematic scope of intellectual history, revealing the subject of intellectual history of science as human activity in specific social conditions. The article traces the formation of the modern view of the ideas, creativity, and biography of intellectuals as creators of a special intellectual space within their temporal context, and defines the originality of Lovejoy’s historiographical concept by two main points: first, the consideration of history through the prism of the development of individual ideas; second, the use of an interdisciplinary approach covering all aspects of reflective human life.