Robin George Collingwood

Robin George Collingwood (born February 22, 1889 in Gillhead , Cartmel Fell , County Lancashire , † January 9, 1943 in Coniston , County Lancashire) was a British philosopher , as a historian and archaeologist also a connoisseur of Roman Britain .

Life

Robin G. Collingwood was raised and taught at home until the age of 13. His mother, Edith Mary Collingwood (1857–1928), was a well-known painter and musician. She conveyed to her son the love of art and the music of Chopin and Ludwig van Beethoven . His father, William Gershom Collingwood (1854–1932), taught him Latin and Greek.

When he was eight years old, Collingwood met with Thomas Kingsmill Abbott's translation of Kant's work Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals ( A Theory of Ethics ) and found an unusual philosophy. He accompanied his father, who was an important writer, archaeologist and antiquarian, on archaeological research and in this way soon developed a feeling for the practical-technical side of the science of history. Two main interests arose in the young man's life early on: ancient history and philosophy .

In his teenage years, the knowledge that was imparted in the rugby school seemed to him insufficient. He often withdrew and devoted his time to reading old classics in the library. He also learned to play the violin and discovered Johann Sebastian Bach . Many of his teachers soon found him to be a rebel against the entire teaching system. In fact, it reminds him in a way of Max Demian in Hermann Hesse's Demian .

At the age of 24, Collingwood took over excavations after being his father's assistant. He describes this activity in his autobiography as one of the main joys of his life. In the same year 1913 he translated Benedetto Croce's work The Philosophy of Giambattista Vico . Both Giambattista Vico and Croce were instrumental in influencing Collingwood's thinking. The latter explained the Hegelian system to him in more detail. This states that every form of knowledge is linked to a specific type of conceptual activity or idea.

In the 1930s and 40s the two main currents of philosophical thought in England were metaphysical " realism " ( John Cook Wilson and his students Prichard & Joseph) on the one hand and " analytical philosophy " ( Gilbert Ryle & Alfred Jules Ayer ) on the other other. In his autobiography, Collingwood takes the view that the "realists," especially John C. Wilson, criticized views that he attributed to Francis Herbert Bradley , but that were not Bradley's views at all. The criticism, which increasingly assumed a self-destructive character, should discredit the school of so-called " idealism " ( Thomas Hill Green and his students JA Smith , Francis Herbert Bradley, HH Joachim and Robert Lewis Nettleship ).

His works were written between 1916 ( Religion and Philosophy ) and 1942 ( New Leviathan ) and describe the path of his spiritual development. His philosophical career began with the vehement defense of analytical philosophy in the political turmoil of the First World War . From 1936 he wrote increasingly polemical writings that should represent socio-political support of liberal forces. Collingwood took a path marked by overwork and illness and the fight against irrationalism . Throughout his life he wrote against the mainstream of British philosophy. His greatest concern was - with the philosophy “as a weapon” - to create a unity of theory and practice. This should happen in the sense of a mutual penetration of thought and action through a rapprochement of philosophy and history. Metaphysics played an essential role in this regard.

1934 was elected a member ( Fellow ) of the British Academy .

As the predecessor of Gilbert Ryle , Collingwood was Professor of Metaphysics at Oxford from 1935 to 1941 . Due to his poor health, he moved to the Lake District in 1942 to the house that his family had left him. Seriously ill during the last months of his life, he died on January 9, 1943 in Coniston.

The philosophy of history

Collingwood considered Benedetto Croce's philosophy of history to be the ideal embodiment of a picture of history appropriate to us. Even Karl Marx had in his Theses on Feuerbach found himself thinking that even only as a historical practice can understand. He had also seen the lack of previous materialism in the fact that it did not see human life as "human sensual activity".

Historical knowledge confers both personal and social identity as it shows us how individuals and societies have become what they are today. A proper understanding of history as the "science of human affairs" ( Thinking , p. 133) is thus a condition for man's understanding of man. In order to be able to recognize a situation clearly, we have to think historically-hermeneutically, ie on a historical level that is related to the solution of the situation given at the moment. On the other hand, rules of life lead to a certain blindness to the realities of the current situation. In this way, history and the present are always closely linked, because history is the “school of moral and political wisdom”, in that it sharpens the eye for the situation in which one has to act. History does not convey rules, but insight . The “scientific” method of natural science (observation / experiment, judgment, induction method, etc.) is a tradition of the early 17th century.

Robin G. Collingwood sees the philosophy of history as the basis for the future, what the natural sciences were for about 1600 to 1900 .

The historian's job is to find human activities , not just events. It interprets evidence through inference , creating a sequence of actions that have taken place in the past. So it is a reconstruction of the past through imagination and interpolation . This reconstruction must be consistent with evidence (documents, found objects, etc.) and coherent in the sense of an understandable and plausible narrative.

But the historian also wants to find out why something happened. To do this, he has to rethink the intention or the motive, the motive of the actors involved in the past. This is done through re-enactment . In thinking through someone else's thought, two thoughts arise, one of, say, Napoleon and one of the historian. The past does not live in the presence of the historian as a momentary experience ( experience ), but as self-knowledge ( self-knowledge ). A permanent problem P is actually a series of temporary problems p ₁ , p ₂ , p ₃ … The conclusion is drawn from the solution to the specific question that Nelson posed to Trafalgar or Leibniz in relation to a specific philosophical dilemma of his time. This approach prevents the "scissors-and-paste" method criticized by Collingwood. Instead, in the sense of a Baconian science, the question is asked: What do I want to know as a historian?

The answer to this question , which requires a comprehensive scientific education, is followed by the practice of archaeological investigation , which is finally followed by the formulation of a theory . In doing so, Collingwood adhered to the following considerations, which he also wanted to bring closer to his students at Oxford:

History is always the history of what is thought.
Historical knowledge is the re-enactment (the comprehensible rethinking) of a thought thought in the past, which is encapsulated in a context of present thoughts, which, as contradicting it, refer it to a completely different area.

Philosophical positions

The separation of history and philosophy, the division into fact and theory, the distinction between the particular and the universal is dogmatic and arbitrary. It in no way corresponds to reality as it was and is.

The usual division of people, their differentiation into thinkers and doers, is a “holdover from the Middle Ages [...]” and from his own experience he established that “the university [...] is an institution that based on medieval ideas. "( Thinking , p. 148)

Philosophy thrives when it treats its object as an activity . Philosophical thinking is thinking about thinking, a unique way of self-referential activity. It is the activity that reveals the criterion by which we judge any activity (artistic, religious, moral).

The questions of philosophy do not exist independently of time and place. The claim that the same questions have to be resolved in philosophy is based on historical myopia and the illusion that we can emerge from the historical circumstances and conditions under which we ourselves think and act. Rather, they are historical questions , because at different times in the same peoples and at the same times in different peoples of the earth there are different questions that must be answered. Whether the belief of the respective people was right or wrong at any given time remains unanswerable.

History is the condition of human understanding in general, not just the practice of historians. It is a dimension of human existence. Together with language, it constitutes the human lifeworld.

The aim of metaphysics is the hermeneutic reconstruction of absolute presuppositions . It is a historical science because it reveals the view of the changeable structures underlying the ideas of a liberal civilization and contributes to the “civilization process” through their explication, evaluation and criticism.

Question and answer are strictly correlative: the propositional logic of the realistic tradition is to be replaced by the logic of question and answer , since the truth of a statement is inseparable from its function as an answer to a specific, precise and meaningful question.

A proposition is not the same as an answer: two statements can only contradict each other if they are answers to the same (special) question.

Collingwood strictly rejects the separation of spirit and matter, ie the Cartesian dualism.

He also speaks out against physicalistic and naturalistic views of consciousness.

Language is used in its most elementary form to express emotions and to indicate the development of consciousness. There is a strong connection between (the process of developing) language, imagination and consciousness . Language acquisition takes place through repetition and increasing physical and mental activity or maturity. Collingwood was interested in experience and an understanding of the use of language, not dissimilar in approach to Wittgenstein's investigations into everyday language.

Ethics and politics must come closer to one another. The request that thinking and acting must be united in this way is also found in the connection between existentialist philosophy and political commitment that Sartre strives for .

Feelings are a fundamental part of consciousness. Here his attitude in many ways resembles that of Gilbert Ryle in The Concept of Mind .

Faith and reason support each other.

Against the pseudosciences

The psychology called Collingwood as pseudoscience with academic jargon. He spoke out against the psychological treatment of religion: "If the mind is viewed in this way, it ceases to be mind at all." ( Thinking , p. 91) "You (the psychology, author's note. ) is what ' phrenology ' was in the early 19th century and what astrology and alchemy were in the Middle Ages as in the 16th century : the modern form of scientific deception in our age. "(Thinking, p. 93)

In contrast to archeology , he also describes geology , palaeontology and astronomy as pseudosciences, since those relics, which she interprets as the remains of different periods of the past, are classified according to a time scale, while this is dedicated to the expression of the purposes of the respective finds and these only as long as they serve as evidence, as long as the historian can see their intended purpose: what were they used for?

Own studies of the history of ideas

He formulated the philosophical method in 1932 during a long illness, he wrote an Essay on Philosophical Method . It developed from his early lectures on moral philosophy . In his autobiography, Collingwood describes it as his "best book in terms of content", stylistically "almost my only book". ( Thinking , p. 116) It was to come out as part of a series with An Essay on Metaphysics under the title Philosophical Essays . In addition to the planned Philosophical Principles ( The Principles of History and The Principles of Art ), the collective publication Studies in the History of Ideas ( The Idea of Nature and The Idea of History ) should appear.

The practical value of philosophy runs like a thread through Collingwood's work. He criticized propositional logic and offered his question and answer logic as an alternative. Four years before the publication of Wittgenstein's Tractatus logico-philosophicus , his first essay Truth and Contradiction appeared in 1917 , in which he expounded these ideas. From the attempt to overcome mistakes by re-establishing a unity of thought and action in Speculum Mentis (1924) to the warning of the dangers faced by European civilization in An Essay on Metaphysics (1940), Collingwood tries again and again who live practical side of philosophy , the history and the philosophy of history ( philosophy of history to emphasize).

Philosophy finally reveals the lack of clarity that makes political positions seem irreconcilable. It creates ideals how people should live. The philosopher himself has to embody at least some of the virtues he describes in his own thoughts, words and deeds, because the ultimate purpose of philosophy is the experience of self-knowledge. Art, religion, science, history and philosophy itself represent successive stages in the development of the self-knowledge of the mind .

Absolute and relative presuppositions

Collingwood was particularly interested in the emergence and fading of unconscious prerequisites for thinking. The method used for this was that of the hermeneutic reconstruction of absolute presuppositions. These ideas are elaborated in An Autobiography and An Essay on Metaphysics .

In response to the question of how science arrives at its fundamental statements, Collingwood formulated three "absolute presuppositions or presuppositions" for modern science:

1. "Nature and its regularities can be fathomed and logically consistently described through reason and action guided by reason."
2. "Nature consists of energy and matter and can be divided into the smallest entities."
3. "The appearance of complex structures can be explained by the combination of different individual elements. The simple establishes the complex through its relationships."

In An Essay on Metaphysics , Collingwood describes how the assumptions underlying our thinking and acting change: Absolute presuppositions themselves cannot be changed through rational inquiries. Rather, they change from within. This happens continuously through adaptations of unconscious (thought) processes that are caused by tension.

The philosopher / archaeologist is the one who comes across the web of background convictions that determine our understanding and relationship to the world. He discovered in constellations ( constellations ), the absolute presupposition, d. H. the pre-established conceptual programs that allow us to distinguish true and false.

Absolute presuppositions determine a priori what we can and cannot ask. Everyone has deep, absolute moral presuppositions on which to base their decisions and actions. They show what we do and who we are. They can break if the pressure gets too much to keep them up. They are what is taken for granted in the group and by the individual. In Collingwood's “ Idea of Nature ”, the underlying ideas of nature are elaborated across the ages of history.

Relative presuppositions, on the other hand, can be explored through rational (metaphysical / hermeneutic) research, because these are questions of historical knowledge. In this way, metaphysics and history are closely linked.

The logic of question and answer

The method used by logicians and grammarians to break down language into its constitutive features, to find and analyze its parts, this method is that of propositional logic. According to the RGC, the linguists do not find the different parts, but rather bring about the division of the language through the method used. What is being done is to fit the language into the models brought by the analysts. For Collingwood, however, language is seen as changeable, as a growing, living activity that is closely related to the development of individual (and social) consciousness. Division and classification is therefore an inadequate method per se, because language will never be grasped in this way.

Both Plato , when he describes thinking as a dialogue of the soul with itself , and Kant , when he says that it distinguishes the wise man to know which questions can be asked meaningfully, according to Collingwood, reject mere propositional logic and demand a logic of Question and answer. If this is applied to archeology, then the following questions arise for it: “What do I want to find?” And “What excavation could unearth what I was looking for?” This is what Collingwood undertakes in The Idea of History by trying to find all up to to reconstruct the modern leading stages of the understanding of history.

For Collingwood, metaphysics, history and art were fundamentally linked. He therefore started in precisely these three areas with his new method, the logic of question and answer. The two required premises of propositional logic in the analytic tradition, which is merely an analysis of verbal utterances, are rejected :

The proposition (statement) is the true vehicle of the thought, i.e. H. to every word there is a correspondence in the world.
The world becomes understandable through the components of the sentence.

He wants to replace it with a logic of question and answer. To be able to lay claim to truth , the following requirements must be met:

The statement belongs to a question-and-answer complex that is "true" as a whole.
Within the complex, the statement is an answer to a specific question.
The question "arises" (makes sense).
The statement is the "correct" answer to this question.

metaphysics

An Essay on Metaphysics was written on a trip to Java in 1938. The work served to illuminate the non-thematized background assumptions ( absolute presuppositions ). These absolute presuppositions are immune to the true / false distinction because they are so fundamental to human life.

If Collingwood was revolutionary in questions of logic (the logic of question and answer is supposed to replace propositional logic), he was reformist in questions of metaphysics (it is also supposed to take on a historical character). Metaphysics is almost as close to history as genetics is to life, because it shows what is fundamental in the image we have of the world. To that extent it is a historical science, because it takes on the function of finding out what people believed in their time about the general nature of the world. But it is also an attempt to discover the corresponding conditions of other peoples and of other times in order to follow the historical process in the course of which certain conditions have turned into others.

The metaphysician reconstructs conceptual systems, i.e. H. Question-answer complexes in themselves, like a chess player who gradually learns and discovers the player's strategy by replaying a game. It is undoubtedly a process, an activity. In this research process, according to Collingwood, the logic of question and answer should prevail. This view sparked a critical debate about the relevance of propositional logic .

aesthetics

Collingwood's theory of aesthetics is influenced by Plato , Coleridge and Hegel , but also by Croce , Samuel Alexander and David Carritt , v. a. but Giambattista Vico . He developed them in Speculum Mentis (1924), Outlines of a Philosophy of Art (1925) and finally The Principles of Art (1938).

The aim of art is the discovery of feeling. Good art therefore means that feelings are not represented in a falsified manner, but rather true , i.e. H. according to them. It is shown as it is ( how we feel ...). Bad art, on the other hand, is actually not expressive art at all. The essence of art lies in destroying stereotypes and being effective as a form of therapy by clearing up the (self-) deception of the community as well as illusions and insincere feelings of the individual.

Art is both intuitive (pure imagination) and expressive (revealing about truth). Since language and consciousness develop together, and art is identical to language , it follows that there is a close connection between art and consciousness . The actual work is not visible, the real music cannot be heard, but can be reconstructed from self-knowledge. The actual image, the actual sound, is in the artist's head, and nowhere else. This original intuition of the artist has to be recreated by the viewer / listener. This happens actively, and not through merely passive absorption / perception of the work of art. The transformative character of art lies in the process, the activity, the growing of the knowledge of the underlying intuition, intention or emotions of the artist. There are echoes of subjective idealism . Collingwood was sometimes referred to as an “actualistic idealist” (and was exposed to sharp criticism), even though he himself rejected this classification.

Collingwood's approach must be seen in contrast to "naive expressivism". His criticisms:

Against the means / end scheme of art, which stipulates that the essential is the expression of emotions in the work.
Against the assumption that the emotion is there first and then the work of art is created that is supposed to express it.
For the inseparability of experience and work
For the distinction between art and effects of art, for the distinction between art ( art ) and craft ( craft )

Ethics (New Leviathan)

Collingwood's last book, New Leviathan , which was written in the midst of World War II , exposes the network of conceptual presuppositions that underlie liberal culture in Europe in order to “understand the spiritual learning process through which liberal values, practices and institutions arose which we as Europeans need to know that we are mentally bound. "( The idea of nature , p. 229)

The New Leviathan is divided into four parts: Man, Society, Civilization and Barbarism. In the first two, the theory of consciousness and the moral system are dealt with, in the third the beneficial and dangerous factors of civilization (swerdung), in the last part the essence and danger of barbarism, which the civilization process (approach to the Christian ideal of courteous manners, i.e. self-respect to uphold the other and to practice non-violence) wants to repent.

Collingwood makes no mention of justice as we understand it today in his political philosophy. Instead, the emphasis is on civility and civilization , ie on polite, courteous "manners" and "civilization". It was his last book and thus the last attempt to use his thoughts to help clear up the political turmoil of his time. The gradual process of mental self-purification from simple sensations to the development of state institutions may suggest that it is an attempt to imitate Hegel's phenomenology of the mind .

Axel Honneth says in the epilogue to Collingwood's The Idea of Nature (2005): “If one wanted to cite political-philosophical writings that counteracted the unfortunate opposition between liberalism and communitarianism early on by creating the image of a liberal-democratic morality, then Collingwoods would be New To mention Leviathan in the foreground. "(P. 230)

Criticism, reception, impact

The most publicly discussed was Collingwood's work The Idea of History (translated slightly misleadingly in German as Philosophy of History ), in which the question of how history is possible at all should be answered. Much in Foucault's work The Order of Things . An Archeology of Human Sciences (Frankfurt, 1974) is reminiscent of Collingwood in terms of systematic concern and archeological fervor.

Collingwood's conviction that mind is an activity and not a substance and that the unity of mind is a fact is reminiscent of the Santiago theory of the constructivists Maturana and Varela .

For their part, the propositional logic defenders sharply attacked Collingwood. There is also an approach in the sense of constructive collaboration: Collingwood's question-and-answer logic should be viewed as complementary logic for cases where propositional logic is insufficient, but not as a substitute (Johnson 1998).

His critics pointed emphatically to the seemingly contradicting arguments in the writings on religion, art, philosophy, history and metaphysics. The author foresaw this criticism, mostly responded by means of personal letters and claimed in public that the thoughts could only be understood against the background of the whole.

Collingwood stood for the theories about language by the "realists" like the Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations on Wittgenstein of the Tractatus logico-philosophicus . They both rejected the view that language is a representation of the world. Certain parallels in thinking can be seen not only with Wittgenstein ( Über Gewissheit , In: ders., Werkausgabe, Vol. 8, Frankfurt, 1989, pp. 113-258), but also with Strawson and his “descriptive metaphysics” in single things and logical subject (Stuttgart 1986).

Robin G. Collingwood was not an easily classifiable thinker. He could not (and cannot) be classified in one of the various schools. He remained unknown during his lifetime, including in Germany. Collingwood's renaissance did not take place until the 1990s. In 1994 the Collingwood Society (see web links ) was founded, including Alasdair McIntyre and Quentin Skinner . This society publishes the Collingwood Studies . There is a large collection of Collingwood's manuscripts on folklore and fairy tales in the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

Quotes

"The question of whether a man's views are true or false does not arise until we have found out what they are. Hence the reader's thought must always move from comprehension to criticism… Criticism… may be regarded as a single operation: the bringing to completeness of a theory which its author has left incomplete… in practice, it is well known that a man's best critics are his pupils, and his best pupils the most critical. " (An Essay on Philosophical Method, pp. 217–220)

"Metaphysics is the attempt to find out what absolute presuppositions have been made by this or that person or group of persons, on this or that occasion or group of occasions, in the course of this or that piece of thinking." (Essay on Metaphysics , p. 47)

"Appetite is a name for the inherent restlessness of mind ... choice and reason and goal are not among the sources or conditions of appetite, they are among its products" (New Leviathan, 7.69)

"Art is the community's medicine for the worst disease of mind, the corruption of consciousness." (The Principles of Art, p. 336)

"In so far as consciousness is corrupted, the very wells of truth are poisoned. Intellect can build nothing firm. Moral ideals are castles in the air. Political and economic systems are mere cobwebs. Even common sanity and bodily health are no longer secure. " (The Principles of Art, pp. 289-290)

literature

Works by Collingwood

Religion and Philosophy. Macmillan, London 1916 (reprinted. Thoemmes, Bristol 1994, ISBN 1-85506-317-4 ).
With Margerie V. Taylor: Roman Britain in 1921 and 1922. In: Journal of Roman Studies . Vol. 11, 1921, pp. 200-244.
Ruskin's philosophy. An Address delivered at the Ruskin Centenary Conference, Coniston, August 8th, 1919. T. Wilson & Son, Kendal 1922.
Speculum Mentis or the Map of Knowledge. Clarendon Press, Oxford et al. 1924 (Reprinted. Greenwood Press, Westport CT 1982, ISBN 0-313-23701-8 ).
Archeology of Roman Britain. Methuen, London 1930 (Reprint. Bracken Books, London 1996, ISBN 0-09-185045-2 ).
Outlines of a Philosophy of Art. Oxford University Press, London 1925 (Reprinted. Thoemmes Press, Bristol 1994, ISBN 1-85506-316-6 ).
An Essay on Philosophical Method. Clarendon Press, Oxford et al. 1933 (Revised edition. Edited by James Connelly. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2008, ISBN 978-0-19-954493-6 ).
The Historical Imagination. An Inaugural Lecture delivered before the University of Oxford on October 28, 1935. Clarendon Press, Oxford et al. 1935.
Human Nature and Human History. In: Proceedings of the British Academy. Vol. 22, 1936, ISSN 0068-1202 , pp. 97-127 (reprinted in: Michael Martin , Lee C. McIntyre (Eds.): Readings in the Philosophy of Social Science. MIT Press, Cambridge MA et al. 1994, ISBN 0 -262-13296-6 , pp. 163-171).
With John NL Myres: Roman Britain and the English Settlements (= The Oxford History of England. Vol. 1). Clarendon Press et al., Oxford et al. 1936.
The Principles of Art. Clarendon Press, Oxford et al. 1938 (39th printing. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010, ISBN 978-0-19-500209-6 ).
1939: To Autobiography. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 1939 (reprint. With a new introduction by Stephen Toulmin . Ibid. 1978, ISBN 0-19-824694-3 ).
An Essay on Metaphysics (= Philosophical Essays. Vol. 2, ZDB -ID 418668-0 ). Clarendon Press, Oxford et al. 1940 (Revised edition. Edited with an introduction by Rex Martin. Ibid 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-924141-5 ).
The First Mate's Log of a Journey to Greece in the Schooner Yacht Fleur de Lys in 1939. Oxford University Press, London 1940 (reprint. Thoemmes, Bristol 2003, ISBN 1-85506-328-X ).
The New Leviathan or Man, Society, civilization and Barbarism. Clarendon Press, Oxford et al. 1942 (Revised edition, reprinted. Edited and introduced by David Boucher. Ibid 2005, ISBN 0-19-823981-5 ).
The Idea of Nature. Clarendon Press, Oxford et al. 1944 (Reprinted. Greenwood Press, Westport CT 1986, ISBN 0-313-25166-5 ), (posthumously).
The Idea of History. Clarendon Press, Oxford et al. 1945 (Revised edition, reprinted. Edited with an introduction by Jan van der Dussen. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005, ISBN 0-19-285306-6 ), (posthumously).
The Principles of History. And other Writings in Philosophy of History. Edited with an Introduction by William H. Dray and WJ van der Dussen. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 1999, ISBN 0-19-823703-0 (posthumous).

German translations

Think. An autobiography. Introduced by Hans-Georg Gadamer . Translated by Hans-Joachim Finkeldei. Koehler, Stuttgart 1955.
Philosophy of history. Translated from the English by Gertrud Herding. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1955.
The idea of nature (= Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch Wissenschaft 1747). With an afterword by Axel Honneth . Translated from the English by Martin Suhr. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-518-29347-8 .

Works on Collingwood

Secondary literature

David Boucher: The Social and Political Thought of RG Collingwood. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 1989, ISBN 0-521-36384-5 .
William H. Dray: History as Re-enactment. RG Collingwood's Idea of History. Clarendon Press, Oxford et al. 1995, ISBN 0-19-824293-X .
Giuseppina D'Oro: Collingwood and the Metaphysics of Experience (= Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Philosophy. Vol. 13). Routledge, London et al. 2002, ISBN 0-415-23971-0 .
Peter Johnson: RG Collingwood. An Introduction. Thoemmes Press, Bristol et al. 1998, ISBN 1-85506-530-4 .
Jan van der Dussen: History as a Science: The Philosophy of RG Collingwood. Springer, 2012. ISBN 978-94-007-4311-3 [Print]; ISBN 978-94-007-4312-0 [eBook]
Martin Klüners: RG Collingwood and the soul sciences. In: Psychosozial 40 (4), 2017, pp. 105–114.
Ernest Wolf-Gazo: On the philosophy of history RG Collingwoods, in: Philosophisches Jahrbuch 93 (1986) 354–365.

Bibliographies

Ruth A. Burchnall: Catalog of the Papers of Robin George Collingwood (1889-1943). Oxford 1994 (Dep Collingwood 1-28; Bodleian Library, Oxford).
Christopher Dreisbach: RG Collingwood. A bibliographical checklist. Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green OH 1993, ISBN 0-912632-93-3 .
Donald S. Taylor: RG Collingwood. A Bibliography. The complete Manuscripts and Publications, selected secondary Writings, with selective Annotation (= Garland Reference Library of the Humanities. Garland Bibliographies of modern Critics and critical Schools. Vol. 11 = Garland Reference Library of the Humanities. Vol. 810). Garland, New York NY et al. 1988, ISBN 0-8240-7797-0 .

Other literature

Harald Walach: "Psychology - Theory of Science, Philosophical Foundations and History" Kohlhammer 2013

Web links

Commons : Robin George Collingwood - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed May 16, 2020 .

personal data
SURNAME	Collingwood, Robin George
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Collingwood, Robin G.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	British philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH	February 22, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH	Gillhead
DATE OF DEATH	January 9, 1943
Place of death	Coniston

[1] Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed May 16, 2020 .