R. G. Collingwood's Philosophy of History

Philosophy ◽  
1947 ◽  
Vol 22 (82) ◽  
pp. 153-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. H. Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Interim Report ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
Philosophical Thinking ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Major Work ◽  
Present Book ◽  
The Subject

Philosophy of history is not a subject which has hitherto attracted much attention in this country. Preoccupation with the methods and achievements of the natural sciences, and distaste for the sort of rationale of history as a whole which Hegel and others offered under the title in the early nineteenth century, have served to make most British philosophers accord its problems only the most casual recognition. It is therefore all the more interesting to find an English writer of unusual powers both of argument and expression, who was himself an historian of distinction in his special field, devoting a large part of his philosophical thinking to the problems of historical knowledge and their wider implications. Unfortunately, R. G. Collingwood was not able to begin the major work on philosophy of history, to writing which, as we are told in the introduction to the present book, he had looked forward for twenty-five years, until his powers were seriously affected by bad health, and he did not live to complete it. But though the full results of his thinking on the subject are lost, we are now able, thanks to the skilful work of his friend Professor T. M. Knox, to study what is in effect an extensive interim report on it. Professor Knox has produced The Idea of History largely on the basis of lectures which Collingwood prepared in 1936, supplemented by two essays already published which date from the same period and a certain amount of material from the unfinished Principles of History written in 1939.

Commentary: A Stroll in the Piazza and a Night at the Opera

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 621-628
Author(s):  
Mary Ann Smart
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Engagement ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Discourse ◽  
Music Journalism ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Giacomo Leopardi

Giacomo Leopardi was convinced that the willingness of Italians to wallow passively in operatic spectacle was an important reason for Italy's lack of a civil society based on debate and the exchange of opinions. Despite recent proposals that opera and opera going constituted signiªcant means of social engagement and contributed to regional and/or national identity, the preoccupations of early nineteenth-century music journalism suggest that opera existed outside the mainstream of both political and aesthetic debate, and was not yet the subject of a truly vibrant national discourse.

Romantic Periodicals in the Twenty-First Century

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
British Romanticism ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Periodical Studies ◽  
Digital Resources ◽  
Literary Periodicals ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Twenty First Century

While the twenty-first century has brought a wealth of new digital resources for researching late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century serials, the subfield of Romantic periodical studies has remained largely inchoate. This collection sets out to begin tackling this problem, offering a basic groundwork for a branch of periodical studies that is distinctive to the concerns, contexts and media of Britain’s Romantic age. Featuring eleven chapters by leading experts on the subject, it showcases the range of methodological, conceptual and literary-historical insights to be drawn from just one of the era’s landmark literary periodicals, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. Drawing in particular on the trove of newly digitised content, specific essays model how careful analyses of the incisive and often inflammatory commentary, criticism and original literature from Blackwood’s first two decades (1817–37) might inform and expand many of the most vibrant contemporary discussions surrounding British Romanticism.

Creation, Fall and Political Order — Prussian Conservatism and the Old Testament

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-181
Author(s):  
Laura C. Achtelstetter
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Religious Wars

Abstract This article examines differences within the theological basis of early nineteenth-century Prussian conservatism. By exploring the usage of the Old Testament in the writings of conservative thought leaders Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg, Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach, and Friedrich Julius Stahl, this article contributes to scholarship of both traditions of biblical interpretation and that of the relation of theology and political theory. The focus of this article centers on three concepts of the Old Testament and their implementation in conservative political doctrine. I will discuss Hengstenberg’s concept of biblical historicity and unity of Scripture, Gerlach’s use of the Old Testament as the source of a role model for just religious wars and a theocratic concept of law, as well as Stahl’s bible-based political philosophy of history and the resulting model of political order. Thus, the basis for different, resulting concepts of church, state, and nation that were merged into an overall religion-based political conservative doctrine in pre-1848 Prussia are analyzed.

A Latin Epitaph of the Early Nineteenth Century

1936 ◽  
Vol 5 (14) ◽  
pp. 121-122
Author(s):  
D. A. Macnaughton
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Rural Area ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Parish Church ◽  
Precise Meaning ◽  
High Esteem ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Impact

This epitaph is on a tombstone in the churchyard of Kenmore, Perthshire, a little village on the shores of Loch Tay, close to the point at which the river leaves the parent lake. In the early nineteenth century Kenmore had some importance as the market of a wide rural area and as containing the parish church and parish school. The epitaph is the work of the son, William Armstrong, who succeeded to his father's post and died in 1879. Purists might perhaps take exception to the post-classical authority of puritate, but it will be generally allowed that as the composition of the Headmaster of a rural parish school its Latinity is as remarkable as its pietas. It is to be regretted that the author left no pupil to pay him a fitting tribute in the same tongue. But among his alumni there were many who remembered his teaching with admiring gratitude. Of these was one of the principal farmers of the district who told me years ago that he held Latin in high esteem as the subject which, as he put it, ‘opened his head’. His precise meaning eluded me until in later years I reflected that Highland farmers have a gift of imagination and a command of terse and figurative expression. Clearly what he implied was that, just as, when Hephaestus split the skull of Zeus, Athene sprung out in full panoply, so the impact of the lene tormentum of Latin on his own brain let wisdom loose.

Some Trends in Scholarship 1868–1968, in the field of Modern History

1969 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 159-184
Author(s):  
Herbert Butterfield
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
General Practice ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Historical Consciousness ◽  
Modern History ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
The Subject

Because of paradoxes which lie in the very nature of historical knowledge, our branch of scholarship was two centuries late in accomplishing the equivalent of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. Only in the nineteenth century was it possible to establish, and to put into general practice, those techniques of discovery and verification which enable the student really to feel his feet. And only after this could the subject itself take the leap into that course of ever-accelerating development which the scientist had achieved at an earlier date. In the 1850's the young Acton was entranced by the tremendous awakening of the historical consciousness that had occurred in Germany. He was exultant because history had come to preside over so many branches of thought and activity. But the experience that really changed his outlook, and was to hold the prior place in his memory, was a later one—the result of that wider opening of the archives which took place in the region of the year 1860. This was the key that seemed to unlock the last drawer, making men feel that, now at last, they could really get down to the study of history. We may wonder whether anybody will ever again have quite the exhilaration of those who had the run of the newlyopened archives. A quick hunt through the papers would at least give them a story to tell, and they might hope soon to expose the things which governments or churches had managed to hide in days when significant secrets could be kept.

Henry Bence-Jones, M. D. , F. R. S. (1813-1873)

1973 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-56 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Diagnosis And Treatment ◽  
Animal Tissues ◽  
Physical Sciences ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Scientific Principles ◽  
Chemical Knowledge ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
To Receive

Many leading nineteenth-century physicians recognized the need to reduce the empirical element in medicine and to base both diagnosis and treatment more firmly upon scientific principles. In an age when chemistry was a rapidly developing science it seemed that animal chemistry, dealing with the materials and functions of living organisms, might well offer the best solution to the problem. Thus the development of the subject for medical purposes became one of the main objectives of animal chemists, although from hindsight it is clear that neither the techniques nor the chemical knowledge available were at all adequate for solving the complex problems involved. Yet chemists like Fourcroy and Berzelius tried to understand the chemistry of life and their results seemed to support the widely held view that a knowledge of the composition of animal tissues, together with an understanding of the natural functions in health, would aid medical diagnosis and treatment by exposing the faults present in disease. In early nineteenth-century England there was a lively interest in this subject (I) and some physicians became very successful in applying chemical principles to medicine, but despite the evident value of animal chemistry the novelty of the subject caused medical schools to be reluctant to introduce it into their curricula. Medical students continued to receive instruction in the classics but the physical sciences were frequently neglected.

The Concept of Man as Presupposed by the Historical Studies

1970 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 14-31
Author(s):  
P. L. Gardiner
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Historical Thinking ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
General Context ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
Philosophical Inquiry ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Historical Thought

I should like to begin by removing a misconception to which the title of this lecture may possibly give rise. My concern is not with general propositions regarding certain fairly well-attested human characteristics of the kind to which historians may, from time to time, advert in the course of their work or to which they may appeal in support of the account provided of some particular event or occurrence. I am not myself an historian, and for me to make ex cathedra pronouncements on such topics as these might well seem to constitute an unjustifiable intrusion upon a field about which I am not qualified professionally to speak. My subject lies within the sphere of philosophy of history rather than of history proper; it belongs, in other words, to a branch of philosophical inquiry, and as such relates, not to empirical facts and events of the sort to which the practising historian addresses himself, but to those assumptions, categories and modes of procedure that are, or are believed to be, intrinsic to historical thought and discourse. In this general context I wish to discuss two approaches to the problem of elucidating the character of historical knowledge and explanation. Both of the approaches I have in mind have achieved a considerable measure of support at the present time; they have also been widely understood as offering profoundly divergent — indeed, diametrically opposed — views of what is central to the structure of historical thinking and to the type of activity upon which the historian is essentially engaged. It has on occasions been suggested that what — amongst other things — divides adherents to the views in question is the fact that they are committed to radically different conceptions of the subject-matter of the historical studies; that is to say, of human beings and their activities. In the light of this fundamental disagreement, it is argued, many of the more intractable controversies that have arisen concerning the concepts and interpretative schemes in terms of which it is possible or legitimate to treat the human past become readily intelligible. In what follows I want to examine this claim. First, however, let me give a brief, and necessarily somewhat crude, outline of the two positions I have referred to, starting with one that is often described as ‘positivist’.

The Distant Past as Mirror and Metaphor

2020 ◽  
pp. 108-134
Author(s):  
Diana R. Hallman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Historical Novel ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Grand Opera

Historical settings—especially those from the medieval and early modern periods—were central to the aesthetic of grand operas of the 1830s and 1840s. This historical aesthetic is clearly evident in the four works that are the subject of this chapter: La Reine de Chypre, Charles VI, La Juive and Les Huguenots. The enormous popularity of these historical settings reflected a more general fascination with the distant past among early nineteenth-century Europeans, a fascination that was also manifest in genres such as the historical novel. But the music and drama of grand opera also mirrored contemporary events, reflecting the tensions that were shaping the rapidly changing social and political dynamics of the present.

Samuel Palmer, John Martin, and John Sell Cotman

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 40-57
Author(s):  
Kathleen Stuart
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Spiritual Meaning ◽  
Romantic Era ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Interpretive Process

Abstract This article considers how a viewer identifies spiritual meaning in landscape images of the Romantic era as well as the role of artists’ statements about their work in a viewer’s interpretive process. It examines landscapes by Samuel Palmer and John Martin, two early nineteenth-century British artists known for the spiritual content of their work, and the connection between the work and their published statements about it. The article also considers the “secular” landscapes by their contemporary John Sell Cotman for the work’s possible spiritual meaning despite the absence of published comments by the artist on the subject.

Thomas Chalmers, David Nasmith, and the Origins of the City Mission Movement

2004 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-46
Author(s):  
Ian J. Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Lay Leadership ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Urban Mission ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Mission Movement ◽  
The City

The development of important models for urban mission took place in early nineteenth-century Glasgow. Thomas Chalmers’ work is widely known, but that of David Nasmith has been the subject of less study. This article explores the ideas shared by Chalmers and Nasmith, and their influence on the development of the city mission movement. Areas of common ground included the need for extensive domestic visitation, the mobilisation of the laity including a middle- class lay leadership, efficient organisation, emphasis on education, and discerning provision of charity. In the long term Chalmers struggled to recruit and retain sufficient volunteers to sustain his parochial urban mission scheme. However, Nasmith’s pan-evangelical scheme succeeded in attracting a steady stream of lay recruits to work as city missioners, as well as mission directors. Through their agency a significant attempt was made to reach those amongst the urban masses who had little or no church connection.

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