The misconceptions about intellectual history stem from

Concept

In reading comprehension, a cause question is answered by locating the statement that explicitly links an outcome to its source. Examples, definitions, and nearby details are not causes unless the passage gives them a causal role.

Application

The passage first notes that intellectual history attracts misunderstanding. It then says that the long dominance of the historical profession by political historians bred a philistinism—the belief that political power and its exercise were what mattered. This sentence explicitly supplies the cause of the misconceptions.

Contrast

• A body of techniques is mentioned only to deny that intellectual historians have exclusive possession of special methods.

• The common stock of knowledge illustrates overlap among intellectual, art, and science history.

• Cosmological beliefs are an example within that shared stock of knowledge, not the stated source of misunderstanding.

Cross-check

The causal verb “bred” directly connects the dominance of political historians with the prejudice described immediately afterward. None of the other offered ideas is linked to misconceptions by comparable causal wording.

Result

Therefore, the misconceptions about intellectual history stem from the dominance of political historians.