Why Collingwood Matters
A Defence of Humanistic Understanding
Published on 29. May 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
232 pages
978-1-350-42862-1 (ISBN)
Description
R.G. Collingwood (1889-1943) was an English philosopher, historian and practicing archaeologist. His work, particularly in the philosophy of action and history, has been profoundly influential in the 20th and 21st century. Although the importance of his work is indisputable, this is the first book to consider how and why it actually matters.
Giussepina D'oro considers the importance of Collingwood as a thinker who thinks kaleidoscopically and, unlike lots of contemporary philosophers, refuses to focus on narrow, technical interests but instead, observes the whole world of thought. Why Collingwood Matters revives Collingwood's conception of the role and character of philosophical analysis and shows how it informs his understanding of the mind, what it means to act, and what it means to understand the past historically. It also argues for the relevance of his metaphilosophical approach to the challenge posed by the Anthropocene and the global environmental crisis.
Both an elucidation of Collingwood's thought and a lively exploration of it's contemporary relevance, Why Collingwood Matters provides a much-needed examination of a 20th-century polymath.
Giussepina D'oro considers the importance of Collingwood as a thinker who thinks kaleidoscopically and, unlike lots of contemporary philosophers, refuses to focus on narrow, technical interests but instead, observes the whole world of thought. Why Collingwood Matters revives Collingwood's conception of the role and character of philosophical analysis and shows how it informs his understanding of the mind, what it means to act, and what it means to understand the past historically. It also argues for the relevance of his metaphilosophical approach to the challenge posed by the Anthropocene and the global environmental crisis.
Both an elucidation of Collingwood's thought and a lively exploration of it's contemporary relevance, Why Collingwood Matters provides a much-needed examination of a 20th-century polymath.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 13 mm
Weight
300 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-350-42862-1 (9781350428621)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
10/2023
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic
€31.99
Available for download
E-Book
10/2023
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic
€31.99
Available for download
Person
Giuseppina D'oro is Reader in Philosophy, Keele University, UK. She is the author of Collingwood and the Metaphysics of Experience (2014 2nd edition) and editor of The Cambridge Companion to Philosophical Methodology (2017), Collingwood on Methodology (2018). D'oro is also the co-editor of the new edition of R.G. Collingwood's Essay on Philosophical Method.
Content
1. Introduction
2. What does Philosophy do?
2.1 Questions and their Presuppositions
2.2 The Philosopher as a Logical Detective
2.3 Different Ways of Looking at the World
2.4 Nothing Wrong with Science, the Problem is Scientism
2.5 No Contest Between the Manifest and the Scientific Image
2.6 The Devil is in the Detail: Explanatory Pluralism, not Relativism
2.7 Why Philosophy Matters Even if it Bakes no Bread
3. Mind
3.1 The Telescopic View of the Mind and the Layered View of the Sciences
3.2 The Usual Non-Reductivist Suspects
3.3 The Bifurcated View of the Sciences and the Manifest Image of Mind
3.4 Working Within the Constraint that Philosophy Should Not Conflict with Science
3.5 Why Mind is Not Matter
4. Action
4.1 The Kantian Antinomy of Freedom and Determinism
4.2 Rationalizations and Causal Explanations
4.3 Anomalous Monism and Anti-Causalism
4.4 Why Actions are not Events
5. History
5.1 The Historical and the Natural Past
5.2 How to Understand Other Minds Historically
5.3 The Narrative Turn, Postmodernism and Re-enactment
5.4 Cultural Anthropology with Collingwood and Quine
5.5 Why the Past can be Known
6. The Nature/Culture Distinction
6.1 The Challenge of the Anthropocene
6.2 Just an Ideology for the Industrial Revolution?
6.3 Is the Nature/Culture Distinction Speciesist?
6.4 Historical and Chemical agents
6.5 Why Defending the Nature Culture/Distinction Matters to the Environmental Crisis
7. Conclusion: Why Collingwood Matters
Bibliography
Index
2. What does Philosophy do?
2.1 Questions and their Presuppositions
2.2 The Philosopher as a Logical Detective
2.3 Different Ways of Looking at the World
2.4 Nothing Wrong with Science, the Problem is Scientism
2.5 No Contest Between the Manifest and the Scientific Image
2.6 The Devil is in the Detail: Explanatory Pluralism, not Relativism
2.7 Why Philosophy Matters Even if it Bakes no Bread
3. Mind
3.1 The Telescopic View of the Mind and the Layered View of the Sciences
3.2 The Usual Non-Reductivist Suspects
3.3 The Bifurcated View of the Sciences and the Manifest Image of Mind
3.4 Working Within the Constraint that Philosophy Should Not Conflict with Science
3.5 Why Mind is Not Matter
4. Action
4.1 The Kantian Antinomy of Freedom and Determinism
4.2 Rationalizations and Causal Explanations
4.3 Anomalous Monism and Anti-Causalism
4.4 Why Actions are not Events
5. History
5.1 The Historical and the Natural Past
5.2 How to Understand Other Minds Historically
5.3 The Narrative Turn, Postmodernism and Re-enactment
5.4 Cultural Anthropology with Collingwood and Quine
5.5 Why the Past can be Known
6. The Nature/Culture Distinction
6.1 The Challenge of the Anthropocene
6.2 Just an Ideology for the Industrial Revolution?
6.3 Is the Nature/Culture Distinction Speciesist?
6.4 Historical and Chemical agents
6.5 Why Defending the Nature Culture/Distinction Matters to the Environmental Crisis
7. Conclusion: Why Collingwood Matters
Bibliography
Index