Collingwood and the Idea of Progress

Abstract

At the beginning of the chapter in his autobiography entitled The Need for a Philosophy of History Collingwood claims that two branches of philosophical inquiry need special attention. Besides epistemological problems related to historical knowledge he mentions in this connection problems, concerned with the nature of the historian's subject matter: the elucidation of terms like event, process, progress, civilization, and so forth (Aut, 77).1 Since Collingwood wrote these words, attention has been directed almost exclusively towards the epistemological aspects of history. It has become common to call this branch critical or analytical philosophy of history, as opposed to its counterpart. It is striking, though, that the subjects dealt with by the latter do not correspond to the ones Collingwood mentions under the heading problems. For the usual questions discussed by speculative philosophy of history concern the possible patterns, mechanisms, or purpose of history and not the type of concepts Collingwood cites as examples. One can only wonder why Collingwood's admonition has not been taken to heart and why philosophers of history, on the rare occasions they were dealing with the object of historical study, have confined themselves to the subjects mentioned before. For a conceptual analysis of the terms Collingwood mentions -and one could add to these concepts like contingency, unintended consequences, revolution, structure, culture, or nation would certainly be of interest for a better understanding of the past. Collingwood himself, however, had a keen interest in these metaphysical questions, and this is especially true of the concepts of process, progress, and civilization. Given the fact that they are also explicitly mentioned by Collingwood as examples of a special branch of the philosophy of history, it is surprising that they have almost completely escaped the notice of the many commentators on