Abstract

Through recent developments in the study of trust and social capital, social science methods are frequently breaking with previous homo economicusHomo Economicus persuasions and assumptions. The chapter theoretically considers this by exploring how social science methodology can be reoriented in its fundamentals in order to appreciate the change. In terms of the philosophical currents underlying the social sciences, there is ongoing divide between, on the one hand, individualistic and analytical approaches to interpreting social phenomena and, on the other, approaches that take more holistic and organic views of societySociety. It is suggested that the study of trust as interpersonal, habitual and exhibited in human networks steps between these views, offering what I hope is a refreshing basis to social inquiry.