A Critical Analysis of Collingwood’s Conception of History

A Critical Analysis of Collingwood’s Conception of History

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A source to historian is not an authority but only evidence. Deriving evidence out of the source is the task of the historian. The latter always adds, deducts, ignores, interprets, rejects and modifies what his authority/source tells him. It is the authority that has to conform to the historian and not the other way round. A certain or large amount of construction is always present. He thus attributes the faculty of autonomy to the historian in being able to accept, reject or construct what an authority tells him according to criteria laid down by the historian himself. Statements made by so called “authorities” are for the scientific historian only evidence. They must be examined and interrogated by the historian to derive the answers that serve his purpose.

This construction of history involves interpolation and filling in the gaps with statements that are logically consistent with the whole. It thus involves the use of "historical imagination." It is the historical imagination which helps the historian constructs a consistent and coherent picture of the past. The data he uses must be whetted by the same historical imagination, accepted if it fits with his construction, rejected if it is at variance. There is no data but that which is constructed by historical thought. It is also verified by historical thought.

It is the duty of the historian to be autonomous. To decide for himself both the veracity of the evidence and the conclusions he draws thereupon. Testimony of an authority is inadmissible as historical knowledge unless it is based on evidence. An evidence becomes one only because the historian chooses to use it as suent whether it is justified or not depends on how it fits into the construction of the past.  Historical inference can compel the historian to make conclusions, if the process of thought is carried to its logical outcome. History is as exact as any other science which obliges the practitioner to acknowledge the conclusions implicit in his argument. “Nothing matter to him except that his decision when he reaches it, shall be right: which means, for him, that it shall follow inevitably from the evidence” (Collingwood, Idea of History, p. 268). Therefore choosing evidence and selecting the right kind of evidence is an important function of the autonomy of the historian.

The validity of the construct of the historian depends on its location in time and space, its consistency and logical strength and its relation to evidence - in other words the framework chosen by the historian. This involves both the competence as well as subjectivity of the historian. The latter is reflected in the epoch the historian is situated in and the one he chooses for his field of enquiry, the questions he poses, the quantum of knowledge he brings to bear upon the question, the methods he uses, and the mentalite of the society of which he is a member.

 If historical knowledge was indeed distinct, what then constituted its domain?  This was another of the issues that Collingwood sought to answer. Whatever can be reenacted in the historian’s mind, he argued, can be the basis of historical knowledge.  Man is the only animal whose actions are constantly, Continuously and effectively determined by thought. All human actions therefore which have their origins that is the framework of thought are considered worthy of study. Thought that is the subject matter of historical study must however be universal and transcend the local, or its specific context. The immediate aspect of thought cannot be reenacted. Only that thought which can “sustain itself through a change of context and revive in a different one” (Collingwood, Idea of History, p. 297) can be reenacted and thus be amenable to historical study. Actions that are purposive, reflective acts also form the subject matter of history. Historical knowledge increases by the expansion of thought, by finding new ways of thought directed both at the set of old questions as well as questions that were not previously addressed.

On the other hand, he was critical of looking for patterns and laws in history which can be extrapolated to the past and be used for prediction in the future. Such tendencies had resulted from the desire of Positivist historians to make history conform to the natural sciences. Schematic history, historical stages etc. are outcomes of this kind. Any generalization to hold good can do so only under a specific given set of conditions.  They cannot ‘‘transcend” this social structure. But because these conditions are always changing a generalization based on these cannot hold good for any other period.

Related to this was Collingwood’s criticism of the positivist notions of progress. Both the notion of progress as a law of nature and of human historical process being subject to such a law of progress were decided by Collingwood as example  of “confused thinking”. Historical processes he reiterates are different from natural processes. Labelling of epochs dark, barbarous etc. at best shows the paucity of evidence and at worst the incompetence of the historian to reenact that period in his mind. The only notion of progress that Collingwood allowed was if new societies were able to deal with new questions and find solutions for them without losing grip over the solutions of older problems. Otherwise, each epoch must be judged by its own standards and its success or failures in addressing issues that were integral to that society.

Collingwood’s conception of history is that of the construct of the historian. The truth and falsity of this construct depend not in its comparison with a real past (which Collingwood said was inaccessible. But the login and consistency of the arguments and the framework of the historian. A fact is a fact only within the construction of the historian. It has no independent existence and whether it is true or not depends on how well it can be made to fit into the framework adopted by the historian.  One of the implications of this would be that once the logical and consistency problems of a historical argument are taken care of, it cannot be proved untrue. One could therefore have different versions of the same event which thought contradicting each other can co-exist as long as the internal structures of their argument are correct. E.H. Carr criticizes Collingwood’s conception as leading to a sceptical view of history. It not only loses its claim to objectivity but in being “spun from the historian’s mind” almost comes close to actively embracing multiple truths.

There are other problems with “truth” besides this. In such an approach as Collingwood’s, the conclusion is inherent in the framework, even in the questions that the historian sets out to work with. Can this not lead to an ahistorical reasoning backwards and ex-poste rationalizations? With the primacy given to the framework, only that evidence is chosen that fits into the framework. Material that lies at odds with the argument is ignored or discarded since the historian has the autonomy to decide on what constitutes evidence. But do constructs of such sort retain their validity for all time? Cannot new techniques and new evidence invalidate earlier constructs however cogent and consistent they happen to be?

The methodology of the historian according to Collingwood is to reenact the thought in his mind. It is true if the same logic is reproduced in the mind of the historian. The examples Collingwood cites of such reenactments are from mathematics (especially Euclid). But can the historian reenact the thoughts,    society or its institutions? Are not the ways of thinking also conditioned by the society of that individual ?  Here  I am talking about the mentalite of a society. Can a historian of another epoch and another society reenact such conditioned  thoughts or internalize the mentalite of a bygone era ?

Collingwood's approach can also easily lead to teleological interpretations of history. The present is used as a guide to examine and interpret the past and this in turn leads to the past being used to explain the present. For instance he says, "every present has a past of its own, and any imaginative reconstructon of the past aims at reconstructing the past of this present, the present in which the act of imagination  is going on, as here and now perceived" (Collingwood, Idea of History, p.247).

Collingwood does make a strong case for treating historical knowledge as a separate and legitimate sphere of its own. Collingwood is also successful in separating the subject matter of history from the natural sciences and in delineating the domain and spheres of historical inquiry. But while the conception of history may represent a more sophisticated approach from that of the early naivete of the Positivists, when one considers some of the implications of his approach, one cannot absolve it from its deficiencies and adopt it unreservedly.