R. G. Collingwood
Encyclopedia
Robin George Collingwood (22 February 1889 – 9 January 1943) was a British
philosopher and historian. He was born at Cartmel
, Grange-over-Sands
in Lancashire
, the son of the academic W. G. Collingwood
, and was educated at Rugby School
and at University College, Oxford
, where he read Greats. He graduated with congratulatory first class honours and, prior to his graduation, was elected a fellow of Pembroke College
, Oxford.
, Oxford for some 15 years until becoming the Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at Magdalen College, Oxford
. He was the only pupil of F. J. Haverfield
to survive World War I. Important influences on Collingwood were the Italian Idealists Croce
, Gentile
and Guido de Ruggiero
, the last of whom was also a close friend. Other important influences were Hegel, Kant
, Vico
, F. H. Bradley
and J. A. Smith. His father W. G. Collingwood
, professor of fine art at University College, Reading, 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". 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 as "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":
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.
Arthur Ransome
was a family friend, and learned to sail in their boat, subsequently teaching his sibling's children to sail. Ransome loosely based the Swallows in Swallows and Amazons series on his sibling's children. Ransome also proposed to two of his three sisters.
After several years of increasingly debilitating strokes Collingwood died at Coniston, Lancashire
in January 1943. He was a practising Anglican throughout his life.
All 'revised' editions comprise the original text plus a new introduction and extensive additional material.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
philosopher and historian. He was born at Cartmel
Cartmel
Cartmel is a village in Cumbria, England, situated north-west of Grange-over-Sands and close to the River Eea. Historically it was in Lancashire; boundary changes brought it into the newly created county of Cumbria in 1974, yet keeping it within the boundaries of the traditional County Palatine...
, Grange-over-Sands
Grange-over-Sands
Grange-over-Sands is a town and civil parish by the sea – with a wide tidal range, hence the "sands" name – in Cumbria, England. Historically, Grange-over-Sands was part of the County of Lancashire until 1974, when Cumbria was created under Local Government re-organisation which absorbed the area...
in Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
, the son of the academic W. G. Collingwood
W. G. Collingwood
William Gershom Collingwood, was an author, artist, antiquary and Professor of Fine Arts at Reading University....
, and was educated at Rugby School
Rugby School
Rugby School is a co-educational day and boarding school located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain.-History:...
and at University College, Oxford
University College, Oxford
.University College , is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2009 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £110m...
, where he read Greats. He graduated with congratulatory first class honours and, prior to his graduation, was elected a fellow of Pembroke College
Pembroke College, Oxford
Pembroke College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, located in Pembroke Square. As of 2009, Pembroke had an estimated financial endowment of £44.9 million.-History:...
, Oxford.
Biography
Collingwood was a fellow of PembrokePembroke College, Oxford
Pembroke College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, located in Pembroke Square. As of 2009, Pembroke had an estimated financial endowment of £44.9 million.-History:...
, Oxford for some 15 years until becoming the Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...
. He was the only pupil of F. J. Haverfield
Francis J. Haverfield
Francis John Haverfield was a British historian and archaeologist.Educated at the University of Oxford, he also worked under Theodor Mommsen...
to survive World War I. Important influences on Collingwood were the Italian Idealists Croce
Benedetto Croce
Benedetto Croce was an Italian idealist philosopher, and occasionally also politician. He wrote on numerous topics, including philosophy, history, methodology of history writing and aesthetics, and was a prominent liberal, although he opposed laissez-faire free trade...
, Gentile
Giovanni Gentile
Giovanni Gentile was an Italian neo-Hegelian Idealist philosopher, a peer of Benedetto Croce. He described himself as 'the philosopher of Fascism', and ghostwrote A Doctrine of Fascism for Benito Mussolini. He also devised his own system of philosophy, Actual Idealism.- Life and thought :Giovanni...
and Guido de Ruggiero
Guido De Ruggiero
Guido De Ruggiero was an historian of philosophy, university professor and Italian politics.-Biography:...
, the last of whom was also a close friend. Other important influences were Hegel, Kant
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
, Vico
Giambattista Vico
Giovanni Battista ' Vico or Vigo was an Italian political philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist....
, F. H. Bradley
F. H. Bradley
Francis Herbert Bradley, OM, was a British idealist philosopher.- Life :Bradley was born at Clapham, Surrey, England . He was the child of Charles Bradley, an evangelical preacher, and Emma Linton, Charles's second wife. A. C. Bradley was his brother...
and J. A. Smith. His father W. G. Collingwood
W. G. Collingwood
William Gershom Collingwood, was an author, artist, antiquary and Professor of Fine Arts at Reading University....
, professor of fine art at University College, Reading, was a student of Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
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". 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 as "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 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.
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.
Arthur Ransome
Arthur Ransome
Arthur Michell Ransome was an English author and journalist, best known for writing the Swallows and Amazons series of children's books. These tell of school-holiday adventures of children, mostly in the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads. Many of the books involve sailing; other common subjects...
was a family friend, and learned to sail in their boat, subsequently teaching his sibling's children to sail. Ransome loosely based the Swallows in Swallows and Amazons series on his sibling's children. Ransome also proposed to two of his three sisters.
After several years of increasingly debilitating strokes Collingwood died at Coniston, Lancashire
Coniston, Cumbria
Coniston is a village and civil parish in the Furness region of Cumbria, England. It is located in the southern part of the Lake District National Park, between Coniston Water, the third longest lake in the Lake District, and Coniston Old Man; about north east of Barrow-in-Furness.-Geography and...
in January 1943. He was a practising Anglican throughout his life.
Main works published in his lifetime
- Religion and Philosophy (1916) ISBN 1-85506-317-4
- Roman Britain (1923, ed. 2, 1932) ISBN 0-8196-1160-3
- Speculum Mentis; or The Map of Knowledge (1924) ISBN 978-1-89740642-7
- Outlines of a Philosophy of Art (1925)
- The Archaeology of Roman Britain (1930) ISBN 978-0-09185045-6
- An Essay on Philosophic Method (1933, rev. ed. 2005). ISBN 1-85506-392-1
- Roman Britain and the English Settlements (with J. N. L. MyresJ. N. L. MyresJohn Nowell Linton Myres CBE was a British archaeologist and Bodley's Librarian at the Bodleian Library in Oxford from 1948 until his resignation in 1965; and librarian of Christ Church before his Bodleian appointment....
, 1936, second edition 1937) - The Principles of Art (1938) ISBN 0-19-500209-1
- An Autobiography (1939) ISBN 0-19-824694-3
- The First Mate's Log (1940)
- An Essay on Metaphysics (1940, revised edition 1998). ISBN 0-8191-3315-9
- The New Leviathan (1942, rev. ed. 1992) ISBN 0-19-823880-0
Posthumously-published works
- The Idea of Nature (1945) ISBN 0-19-500217-2
- The Idea of History (1946, revised edition 1993). ISBN 0-19-285306-6
- Essays in the Philosophy of Art (1964)
- Essays in the Philosophy of History (1965) ISBN 0-8240-6355-4
- Essays in Political Philosophy (1989) ISBN 0-19-823566-6
- The Principles of History and Other Writings in Philosophy of History (2001) ISBN 0-19-924315-8
- The Philosophy of Enchantment: Studies in Folktale, Cultural Criticism, and Anthropology (2005) ISBN 0-19-926253-5
All 'revised' editions comprise the original text plus a new introduction and extensive additional material.
External links
- Additional Articles and Documents by R. G. Collingwood
- Voice in the wilderness: RG Collingwood radio discussion from Australian Broadcasting CorporationAustralian Broadcasting CorporationThe Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
- Robin Collingwood: Archaeologist of Roman Britain