Social science originates in the radical idea that society and culture are natural, not God-given, phenomena and, therefore, are governed by general laws of an earthly character. Many thinkers and writers directly and indirectly related to the mainstream of social science have refused this starting point, but the attempt has always failed to change this basic premise, because the denial of the natural basis of culture and society negates the essential prerequisite for the idea of social science. Social science is therefore a materialist study in that it assumes that social phenomena are, in the end, to be explained as natural phenomena and it studies the factors creating society and culture. This is not to say that non-human material phenomena such as the properties of plants, animals and the soil and of man as a non-social being are what determine the ideas of human being. Such a view of materialism is a simple misunderstanding, making it patently false, since the influence of ideas on history is clear all around us. Rather, materialism sees that ideas also are, in the end, products of a complex yet natural process taking place in history.

All social science, therefore, attempts to explain the way the mechanisms of production and reproduction continuously produce social and cultural phenomena. Many social scientists would shy away from such a bold and bald statement of their position, partly because they may not want to be reminded of the impious basis of their endeavour, but also for two better reasons.