R G Collingwood, "The Idea of History" (Book Note)

 

Collingwood's idea of history is about the philosophy of history, focusing on the philosophical problems created by organized and systematized historical research. The goal of this philosophy is to create a complete philosophy conceived from an historical point of view. Collingwood's critical history of the development of the philosophy of history from Herodotus to Croce spans around 200 pages, with the remainder of the book devoted to "Epilegomena," which state more systematic conclusions from the historical survey.

Collingwood's criticism of historians and philosophers is striking, as he criticizes Marx, Bury, and the "common sense" theory of history. He believes that history is the present re-enactment in the mind of the historian of the thought of the past. This process of re-enactment allows the past to live in the present and the present attains self-knowledge through its historical understanding of what man has done and thus what man is.

History differs from a merely natural one, as it is a process in which the past is not over and done but does genuinely "live in the present." To understand history in its distinctive character, one must understand just this process. Since it is only the thought of the past that can be "reenacted" in the present, the historical process is a process of thought, and it exists only in so far as the minds which are parts of it know themselves for parts of it. Thus, all history is the history of thought.

Three of the most striking points in Collingwood's paradoxical but formidable theory are the autonomy of history, the connection between the autonomy of history and the freedom of man, and the process of historical re-enactment or, as Collingwood sometimes suggests, as historian, that man is effectively free at all. It is apparent that "history" as a special discipline of inquiry or research and "history" as the process of cultural inheritance and assimilation must be simultaneously identified and distinguished if the final step in the analysis is to retain its plausibility.

Collingwood's argument is impressive, as it maintains that it is in the way in which men in the present respond to and appropriate their past that the meaning and measure of their freedom is to be found. This process of appropriation, which in a broad sense is both the understanding and the making of history, gets more substantial justice done it in "history" as Collingwood proposes to write it than in the simplifications of naturalism and positivism or the speculations of theologians and their metaphysical allies.

While there is a need for a more sober account of this aspect of Collingwood's theory, it is worth taking more seriously than in our current climate of opinion. However, Collingwood's work is written at firsthand about something of the most genuine philosophical importance, and this aspect of his theory deserves to be taken more seriously than it is likely to be.

Historical thinking is a critical aspect of human history, as it involves the understanding and application of past thought. It involves re-enacting the same activity in one's own mind to understand what someone else has thought. This process allows for the incorporation of past ideas into present thought, enabling individuals to develop and critique them for their own advancement.

Collingwood's account of historical thinking is both profound and overstated. The profundity lies in the wisdom that knowing what someone has thought is to think it for oneself. If historians of ideas could realize this, we might have a genuine history of ideas in their dynamic and constructive efficacy. Instead of focusing on events, the history of ideas should be more about the conditions and consequences of their occurrence.

Collingwood's identification of all history with the history of thought is an unfortunate overstatement. At its most innocent, this language leads to the conclusion that what is not "really" history, or the history of thought, is also "history" in its own fashion. This suggests that since the history of natural events is really history, it must ultimately be a history of thought, and thus, nature itself as historical is thought on a lower and more rudimentary level.

Collingwood's approach to historical thinking is not helpful to his analysis and is not justified by the true and important things he has to say about the history of thought. Instead, we should focus on understanding the natural environment within which thought has developed and the ways in which we can use this knowledge to advance our understanding of the world.

Collingwood's view on critical or reflective thinking in philosophy is that it occurs within the historical process and is relative to the present from which judgments must be made. He argues that historians and philosophers are not Gods, but rather individuals of their time and place, looking at the past from the point of view of the present. This perspective is valid only for them and people situated like them, and without it, they cannot see anything at all.

Collingwood's belief that the present is our own activities and that what we see and make of the world is profoundly colored by our standpoint within the present is fundamental to all critical thinking in philosophy. However, this standpoint can also be criticized within the present. Collingwood suggests that the historically relative "presuppositions" of any period's thought are absolute and cannot be subjected to rational criticism. Their de facto historical acceptance is to be accepted as the guarantee of their metaphysical finality.

This doctrine is bound up with Collingwood's claim that "philosophy as a separate discipline is liquidated by being converted into history." He seems to mean that philosophical ideas ought to be understood within the total "historical" process in which all thinking goes on, but sometimes to press to the conclusion that the validity of philosophical ideas is an affair of their de facto acceptance as "absolute presuppositions" at some stage in the history of thought.

This claim is inconsistent with Collingwood's earlier teachings about the nature and function of philosophy and is highly unplausible on its own account. It reflects the unworthy passion for the identification of things that are essentially related but essentially distinct, which is the ruling passion of the speculative philosopher in a hurry. However, the essential connection survives the false identification, and the historicity of a philosophy that is nevertheless not history remains a central philosophical problem.