Science as the Third Form of Experience

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Collingwood’s description of science is especially interesting. For him science represents an enormous step forward over art and religion. In science, for the first time, thought becomes aware of its nature as an act of assertion. That is, for the first time, the thinker distinguishes between thought and the language which expresses it. Whereas in religion, the language in which an assertion is expressed is identified with truth itself, in science thought frees itself from regarding language as truth, recognizing thought, not language, as truth. In so doing, science makes language a servant of thought and no longer its master. This emancipation leads to distinction between literal and metaphorical use of language. Collingwood holds that all language is symbolic, in other words, metaphorical; language never is its own meaning, but always points to some “meaning” beyond itself, in the mind of its user. He says that when a user is not aware of the metaphorical character of all language, he identifies language with its meaning, and this Collingwood, in a seeming paradox, calls a metaphorical (or poetic) use of language. But when the user becomes aware of the metaphorical character of all language, then he is in a position to triumph over language. He may then attempt to use it “literally” to designate or stipulate whatever he wishes it to mean.