Robin George Collingwood

Ideas

– ‘Mind’ and ‘body’ do not represent two ontologically different substances; these terms denote diverse ways of considering, historically and physiologically, a human being.

– The psychological theory of faculties understood as the capacity of parts of mind to work independently and in separation from one another is incorrect; the human spirit is a unity that includes necessary and permanent distinctions, perennially reaffirmed.

– Philosophy consists of a method that elucidates and deducts categories and concepts.

– The method whereby philosophy examines its history is a historical one; and it is by its epistemic function that philosophy becomes distinguisable from history.

– The tak of metaphysics is not to contemplate eternal verities; its aim is to make explicit the fundamental beliefs of civilization, natural science, or history at various times.

– Historical knowledge is the reenactment in the historian’s mind of the thought whose history he is studying.

– Art is the expression of feelings that represent the working out of concrete problems present in the artist’s own situation: principles of art criticism are to be adjusted in accordance with changes in the arts.

Biography

English philosopher and historian.

From 1908 he was associated with Oxford as student, fellow, lecturer in history, and professor of philosophy.

Collingwood believed that philosophy should be rooted in history rather than in formal science, and he attempted to correlate creative endeavor with historical experience rather than to sensation.

He was also significant as a historian. In Roman Britain (1936) and in some 150 monographs he brilliantly reconstructed that ancient era from his study of coins and inscriptions.

Major Works of Robin George Collingwood

– Roman Britain (1923)
– Speculum Mentis (1924)
– The Archaeology of Roman Britain (1930)
– An Essay on Philosophical Method (1933)
– The Principles of Art (1938)
– The New Leviathan (1942)
– The Idea of History (1946)