R. G. Collingwood

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Robin George Collingwood

Born February 22, 1889
Lancashire
Died January 9, 1943
Coniston, Cumbria
Occupation Philosopher and historian

Robin George Collingwood (February 22, 1889 – January 9, 1943) was a British philosopher and historian. He was born at Cartmel Fell in Lancashire the son of the academic W. G. Collingwood, and was educated at Rugby School and the University of Oxford.

Collingwood (though he disliked the label) was an idealist who was a fellow at Pembroke College, at the University of Oxford, for some 15 years, prior to becoming Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at Magdalen College. He was the only pupil of F. J. Haverfield to survive World War I. Important influences were the Italian Idealists Croce, Gentile and de Ruggiero, the last of whom was also a close friend. Other important influences were Kant, Vico, F. H. Bradley, and J. A. Smith. His father W. G. Collingwood, who became professor of fine arts at Reading University, was a student of Ruskin and was also an important influence.

Collingwood is most famous for his book The Idea of History, a work collated from various sources soon after his death by his pupil, T. M. Knox. The book came to be a major inspiration for philosophy of history in the English-speaking world. It is extensively cited, leading one commentator to ironically remark that Collingwood is coming to be "the best known neglected thinker of our time".[1] Not just a philosopher of history, Collingwood was also a practicing historian and archaeologist, being during his time a leading authority on Roman Britain.

Collingwood held history is "recollection" of the "thinking" of a historical personage. Collingwood considered whether two different people can have the same thought and not just the same content, concluding that "there is no tenable theory of personal identity" preventing such a doctrine.

In The Principles of Art Collingwood held (following Croce) that works of art are essentially expressions of emotion. He portrayed art as a necessary function of the human mind, and considered it collaborative activity. In politics Collingwood defended the ideals of what he called liberalism "in its Continental sense":

The the essence of this conception is ... the idea of a community as governing itself by fostering the free expression of all political opinions that take shape within it, and finding some means of reducing this multiplicity of opinions to a unity.[2]

He also published "The First Mate's Log" (1940), an account of a yachting voyage in the Mediterranean, in the company of several of his students.

After many years of ill health Collingwood died at Coniston in January 1943.

Contents

[edit] Main works published in his lifetime

Note that in his essay "Expressionism in Art" Collingwood makes a distinction between expression and emotion in that expression, being transcendant of the five senses precludes action and reaction, and that emotion - a resultant of biochemical activity in body is purely "exhbihition"-'istic' if not invoked by a pure thought.

[edit] Posthumously-published works

All 'revised' editions comprise the original text plus a new introduction and extensive additional material.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Mink, Louis O. (1969). Mind, History, and Dialectic. Indiana University Press, 1.
  2. ^ R. G. Collingwood (2005). "Man Goes Mad" in The Philosophy of Enchantment. Oxford University Press, 318.

[edit] External links