Collingwood's The Idea of History: A Reader's Guide by Peter Johnson

 

Collingwood in summary and in-depth

A preliminary observation: reading R.G. Collingwood is not a chore; in fact, it's a pleasure. Collingwood made a point of making his work accessible, and he succeeded. He addressed the issue of writing style in his Essay on Philosophical Method, where he argues that philosophy needn't--shouldn't--be difficult to read and fathom. Now, having read all of his major works at least once, I can attest to his writing acumen. But, make no mistake, what Collingwood writes requires close attention and a determined effort on the part of the reader to match Collingwood's mind. And he wrote a lot. The Oxford paperback copy of The Idea of History (rev. ed.) runs to 496 pages of text. In such a case, a guide can prove quite useful; someone who identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the book's arguments in a succinct and organized manner. Peter Johnson's Collingwood's The Idea of History: A Reader's Guide does just this, and by doing so, he provides an indispensable guide for anyone wanting a better grasp of Collingwood's thought about history as a discipline. 

Johnson's book only addresses Collingwood's The Idea of History and related texts in the revised edition of IH (OUP, 1993), not the entire body and development of Collingwood's thought. Johnson's text is relatively short at 196 pages, which includes a glossary of terms. Collingwood's terms, like "re-enactment," "encapsulation," and "inside/outside," for instance, are not terribly difficult to comprehend, but Collingwood deploys these terms in very specific ways, so the glossary proves useful. Indeed, the glossary defines its terms by quoting Collingwood directly. Johnson also provides a very detailed bibliography ("Reading Guide") of secondary works, both in general and relating to specific topics. This work was published in 2013, so the bibliography and reference to secondary works are reasonably up-to-date and quite thorough. 

The best aspect of this book, among its many merits, come from Johnson's splendid job of laying out Collingwood's main ideas with deftness and economy. He mixes quotes from Collingwood with his own concise summaries and comments about Collingwood's arguments. He also addresses criticisms of Collingwood's positions with the same sense of thoroughness and with an admirable degree of impartiality. Johnson (who's written an early book on Collingwood) is obviously an admirer, but he also sees the weaknesses or points of contention raised by other qualified readers. Collingwood, a careful and precise thinker, doesn't need a great deal of help in defense, although his inability to oversee the publication of IH (published posthumously) and his other ideas about history in the manner in which he planned, did leave some uncertainties and ambiguities about his positions, although the discovery and release of previously unpublished works, such as Collingwood's draft of The Principles of History (1999), have done much to alleviate this problem. 

The only slight criticism I have of Johnson's work is that he doesn't address Collingwood's use of res gestae, which I believe is necessary to fully understand--or at least not misunderstand--Collingwood's contention that "all history is the history of thought." It seems that some readers of Collingwood, including some otherwise perceptive and sympathetic, come to the conclusion that "all history is the history of thought" means that history is only a matter of intellectual history or the history of ideas. But this is not so, as Collingwood's use of res gestae demonstrates. Older lawyers (like me) will recognize the term res gestae is a part of the phrase the "res gestae exception to the rule against hearsay." The literal translation is "thing done." In short, Collingwood acknowledges that "things done" reflect the thought of the actor and therefore provide evidence of the actor's thought. "Thought" as Collingwood uses it in IH isn't limited to formal thinking, concepts, or such, but the everyday workings of the human mind as it attempts to solve problems and take action. Collingwood first references res gestae in IH here: 

What kind of things does history find out? I answer, res gestae: actions of human beings that have been done in the past. Although this answer raises all kinds of further questions many of which are controversial, still, however they may be answered, the answers do not discredit the proposition that history is the science of res gestae, the attempt to answer questions about human actions done in the past.

Collingwood, R. G.. The Idea of History. Albion Press. Kindle Edition. 

In short, res gestae are those thoughts that humans have turned into actions. Thus, the scope of human history as Collingwood defines it consists of those thoughts that have been turned into actions as established by evidence available in the present. The wishes, daydreams, private, unrecorded thoughts, sensations, perceptions, and emotions that leave no mark in the world (via some res gestae) are not a part of history as Collingwood defines it because these unrecorded or unacted upon thoughts leave no traces in the present, although such states of mind certainly existed in the past. Johnson spends some time addressing Collingwood's exclusion of emotions from history, as emotions serve as the fuel of human action. However, Collingwood is not quite as dogmatic and abrupt in his distinction between "thought" and "emotions" as he may seem in IH. In his Principles of Art Collingwood considers the emotions more thoroughly and with, I think, a greater appreciation of the sliding scale in the mind between emotion and thought that binds them together in some measure. 

In sum, Peter Johnson has written his own "indispensable" guide to Collingwood's The Idea of History, one of the seminal works--perhaps the seminal work--about history written in the twentieth century. To return to the beginning, there's no compelling reason not to read Collingwood's book, but then to experience it again with the aid of an accomplished and informed guide is a genuine boon. I appreciate Collingwood's masterpiece even more after having considered it again with Johnson's guidance. 

sng

12 August 2020