Collingwood on Philosophical Methodology (eBook)

Karim Dharamsi is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Chair of General Education at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Canada. He has published articles in the philosophy of history, on the philosophy of R.G. Collingwood, Wittgenstein, Frege, the philosophy of education and liberal education. Giuseppina D'Oro is Reader in Philosophy at Keele University, UK. She is the author of Collingwood and the Metaphysics of Experience (2002). She co-edited, with James Connelly, Collingwood's An Essay on Philosophical Method (2005), with Constantine Sandis, Reasons and Causes: the Causalism/Anti-Causalism Debate in the Philosophy of Action (2013) and with Søren Overgaard, The Cambridge Companion to Philosophical Methodology (2017). Stephen Leach is Honorary Senior Fellow at Keele University, UK. He is the author of The Foundations of History: Collingwood’s Analysis of Historical Explanation (2009) and with James Connelly and Peter Johnson, R.G. Collingwood: A Research Companion (2015). With James Tartaglia, he has edited Consciousness and the Great Philosophers (2017) and The Meaning of Life and the Great Philosophers (2018). 

Contents 7
Notes on Contributors 9
Abbreviations for the Works of R.G. Collingwood 13
Chapter 1: Introduction: The Armchair and the Pickaxe 14
1 Bernard Williams: An Essay on Collingwood: [Republished from “The Sense of the Past” (2006)] 19
2 James Connelly: The Development of Collingwood’s Metaphilosophical Views 20
3 Jan van der Dussen: Collingwood on the Relationship Between Metaphysics and History 21
4 Vasso Kindi: Presuppositions and the Logic of Question and Answer 21
5 Elena Popa: Collingwood, Pragmatism, and Philosophy of Science 22
6 Giuseppina D’Oro: Why Epistemic Pluralism Does Not Entail Relativism—Collingwood’s Hinge Epistemology 23
7 Karim Dharamsi: Oscillation and Emancipation—Collingwood on History and Human Nature 23
8 Jonas Ahlskog: Collingwood and the Philosophy of History—The Metaphilosophical Dimension 24
9 Chinatsu Kobayashi and Mathieu Marion: The Later Collingwood On Method: Re-Enactment and Abduction 25
10 Stephen Leach: Collingwood and Archaeological Theory 25
Bibliography 26
Chapter 2: An Essay on Collingwood 28
1 Three Reasons for Talking About Collingwood 28
2 Style 30
3 The History of Philosophy 31
4 Recovering the Past 32
5 Metaphysics and Presuppositions 38
6 Collingwood and Wittgenstein 42
Chapter 3: The Development of Collingwood’s Metaphilosophical Views 48
1 Introduction 48
2 Reflecting on Realism 49
3 The Practice and Method of Philosophy 54
4 An Essay on Philosophical Method 67
5 An Essay on Philosophical Method and After 72
6 A Tale of Two Essays 75
7 Relativism and the Radical Conversion Hypothesis 77
8 Conclusion 85
Bibliography 86
Chapter 4: Collingwood on the Relationship Between Metaphysics and History 89
1 Introduction 89
2 Metaphysics in History: ‘Function of Metaphysics in Civilization’ 92
3 Metaphysics in History: An Essay on Metaphysics 98
4 An Essay on Metaphysics Under Discussion 104
5 Conclusion 113
Bibliography 119
Chapter 5: Presuppositions and the Logic of Question and Answer 122
Bibliography 139
Chapter 6: Collingwood, Pragmatism, and Philosophy of Science 142
1 Introduction: Collingwood’s Metaphilosophy 142
2 Collingwood and Pragmatism 146
3 Collingwood and Putnam on Realism and Anti-Realism 148
4 Collingwood and Price on Investigating Causal Concepts Through Human Practices 151
5 Collingwood’s Pragmatism 155
6 Conclusion: Collingwood and Pragmatist Approaches to Realism and Causation 157
Bibliography 159
Chapter 7: Why Epistemic Pluralism Does not Entail Relativism: Collingwood’s Hinge Epistemology 161
1 Introduction 161
2 Epistemic Pluralism and the Charge of Relativism 163
3 Collingwood’s Hinge Epistemology 164
3.1 Absolute Presuppositions as Hinges 165
3.2 Propositions and Presuppositions 165
3.3 The Absoluteness of Absolute Presuppositions 167
3.4 Philosophy’s Role 170
4 Epistemic Pluralism Is Neither Quietist nor Self-Undermining 173
5 Conclusion 182
Bibliography 184
Chapter 8: Oscillation and Emancipation: Collingwood on History and Human Nature 186
1 Introduction 186
2 Naturalism and Method 189
3 Quine’s Naturalized Epistemology 192
4 Idealized Naturalism 198
5 Collingwood’s Historical Human Nature 206
6 Concluding Remarks 210
Bibliography 214
Chapter 9: Collingwood and the Philosophy of History: The Metaphilosophical Dimension 217
1 Introduction 217
2 The Subject Matter of Collingwood’s Philosophy of History 218
3 The Fundamental Role of Collingwood’s Philosophy of History 221
4 The Philosophy of History and Philosophy 225
5 Conclusion 231
Bibliography 234
Chapter 10: The Later Collingwood on Method: Re-Enactment and Abduction 236
1 Collingwood and the Hempel-Dray Debate 238
2 The Logic of Abduction 244
3 Concluding Remarks 249
Bibliography 253
Chapter 11: Collingwood and Archaeological Theory 256
1 The Oversights of ‘Minute’ Philosophers 257
2 Collingwood in Archaeological Theory 259
3 Three Principles 263
4 Would Collingwood Have Approved of Archaeological Theory? 267
5 Concluding Remarks 268
Bibliography 271
Index 272