History as Re-enactment

This treatise defends a central tenet in the theory of history put forward by R.G. Collingwood, an important philosopher of history. It critically analyzes the idea of re-enactment, explores the limits of its applicability, and determines its relationship to Collingwood's other theories.

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A central motif of R G Collingwood's philosophy of history is the idea that historical understanding requires a re-enactment of past experience. However, there have been sharp disagreements about the acceptability of this idea, and even its meaning. This book aims to advance the critical discussion in three ways: by analysing the idea itself further, concentrating especially upon the contrast which Collingwood drew between it and scientific understanding; by exploring the limits of its applicability to what historians ordinarily consider their proper subject matter; and by clarifying the relationship between it and some other key Collingwoodian ideas, such as the place of imagination in historical judgement, and the importance of narrative and periodization in historical thinking. Professor Dray defendes Collingwood against a good deal of recent critism, while pointing ways in which his position requires revision or development.

History as Re-enactment draws upon a wide range of Collingwood's published writings, and makes considerable use of his unpublished manuscripts. It is the most systematic study yet of this central doctrine of Collingwood's philosophy of history, and will stand as a landmark in Collingwood studies.