Critical Analysis of Collingwood’s Conception of History

 Critical Analysis of Collingwood’s Conception of History

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R. G. Collingwoods’s thoughts and reflections about history, the philosophy of history, the use of historical imagination and evidence. The methodology and the subject of historical Inquiry are given in the book, “The Idea of History”, which is a posthumously compiled collection of his lectures on these issues. Drawing mainly from this work, in this blog I hope to lay out the broad themes of what constituted Collingwood’s conception of history. An attempt will also be made to analyse some of the implications that follow from Collingwood’s arguments.

Among the important issues that occupied Collingwoods’s attention was the need to carve out a separate sphere for historical knowledge, distinct from theology, mathematics and the natural sciences. Such a separation of spheres was necessary since history concerned itself with issues and questions that none of the others considered or addressed themselves to. As a distinct branch of knowledge a philosophy of history is also required, because one must take into account not only interpretations about the past also how we interpret the past: why we do it the way we do it. It is a second order thought, concerned not only with interpreting an event but also the thought behind interpreting the event.

Even as he seeks an independent space for historical knowledge, the similarities with other sciences are pointed out. Collingwood argues that, “History is a kind of research or enquiry” (Collingwood, Idea of History, p. 9). It proceeds by our asking questions and try to find answers to the questions we ask. It arises not only out of ignorance but also more importantly, a realization of ignorance. Since science is a mode of enquiry, history too is a science. The object of history is to answer questions posed about human actions in the past. It’s method involve the use and interpretation of evidence, sources, documents etc. to find answers to the questions that are posed. And its objective is human self knowledge…. It teaches us what man has done and what man is” (Collingwood, Idea of History, p. 91).  

At the same time history is distinct from the natural sciences. It is a special kind of science and a body of knowledge. It is organized differently from the natural sciences. The latter studies the processes of becoming and change in fixed types, how they evolve into these specific forms and change after that. In history there are no fixed forms or types, which are themselves not undergoing processes of becoming or change all the time. The past in history is a living past unlike the past in natural sciences which dies when one type or form replaces another. This past is kept alive by historical thought. Here Collingwood criticizes the Positivist notion of history as the study of the dead past that can be generalized, classified and laws derived from it. This arises, he says, from a false analogy of historical processes with natural processes which practitioners of the Positivist school confused.

History is the study of human affairs. The historian is concerned with the study of human actions which involves the conjoining of an actual act and thought that goes behind it. The attempt to human self knowledge through a process analogous to the natural sciences was, to Collinwood, a false attempt and one doomed to failure. The methodology to be adopted was not one of the natural sciences but the historical method. The enquiry of the thought that goes behind an event ….is…what…distinguishes the historian from the natural scientist. The event is explained one the thought is explained. And thereafter to Collingwood, “all history is the history of thought” (Collingwood, Idea of History, p. 215).

What did Collingwood mean by this historian unlike the natural scientist, cannot directly or empirically perceive the past. At best it is mediated through inference. Nor can be depend on testimony to add to knowledge. To know the past, therefore, the historian must reenact the past in his own mind. He must try to discern the thoughts behind the events. He must try to retarace the same process or path of thought whose outside manifestation is the event. The historian in effect tries to put himself into the shoes of the historical agent and tries to discover by thinking for himself why did the agent acted in the manner he did.

This reenactment is an active process on the part of the historian who brings to bear upon it all his powers of reasoning and knowledge that is already acquired. This process of historical thinking is a “critical thinking”. While, by its very process it seems subjective. Collingwood argues that objectivity could not be denied to it for when “one is aware that one is performing an act of knowing” (Collingwood, Idea of History, p. 291)  the act is also objective i.e. the awareness of one’s subjectivity qualifies it to be objective.

Related to this reenactment of the past experience in the mind of the historian, was the importance he placed on the autonomy of the historian. The autonomous role envisaged for the historian comes out especially with regard to the questions he poses and the evidence he uses. The historical method of acquiring knowledge follows the Baconian practice of framing the question first and devising methods to obtain an answer for it. In this method the scientific historian “tortures” the evidence to say what he wants it to say. The questions he asks must be methodical and in the right sequence. They must also be “answerable” and to answer the questions he asks, the historian makes use of evidence.

Collingwood makes a distinction between source, testimony and authority on the one hand and evidence on other. The former does not involve the exercise of any autonomy on the part of the historian while the latter does. Collingwood positivist (which he calls “common…. sence theory of history”) notions that historians should accept the fact as stated by the authority and that they could not construct their own interpretation. Collingwood denies the independent existence of a fact outside the construct of the historian.