Abstract
Collingwood understands nature to be related integrally to mind. An explanation of the relationship between nature and mind is central to Collingwood’s philosophy. Collingwood conceives of mind as emerging within and acting upon the phenomena of nature. Collingwood’s writings that are devoted specifically to nature, notably The Idea of Nature and ‘Notes towards a Metaphysic’, the latter of which remains as yet unpublished in its entirety, invoke nature’s dependence on mind in distinct but related ways. The focus of this chapter is upon Collingwood’s explorations of nature, as mind is serially examined in all chapters, because the mind informs all the reflective activities undertaken and examined by Collingwood. Mind is nonetheless discussed because the relationship of nature to mind is a salient feature of Collingwood’s understanding of nature. For Collingwood, mind is implicated in the study of nature in two ways that harmonize with two styles of rethinking that are undertaken by Collingwood, and which are distinguished in the Introduction to this work. On the one hand, Collingwood considers that nature is only to be understood by historic acts of mind, so that the idea of nature thereby entails an historical engagement with the development of historical thinking about nature. On the other hand, nature itself is to be understood as exhibiting patterns of rationality that are related to mind by their approximation to the intelligible relations of thought that are maintained and comprehended in human thought and practice.
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Notes
R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of Nature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965).
See R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of Nature, and R. G. Collingwood, ‘Notes towards a Metaphysic’, Dep. Collingwood, 18. [A series of five red notebooks, containing notes on metaphysics and now on microfilm in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Extracts from these notebooks have been published in R. G. Collingwood, The Principles of History and other writings in philosophy of history ed. W. H. Dray and W. J. van der Dussen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).]. Collingwood’s two alternative conclusions to the lectures on nature and mind have now been published in R. G. Collingwood, The Principles of History and other philosophical writings. In this chapter and elsewhere in this book, the longer alternative conclusion entitled ‘The Conclusion of 1934’ by W. H. Dray and W. J. van der Dussen in its published form is termed ‘The Cosmology Conclusion’. In doing so, I am following the usage of D. Boucher who offers a well-informed account of the three conclusions to the lectures on nature and mind in his, ‘The Principles of History and the Cosmology Conclusion to the Idea of Nature’, Collingwood Studies, 2, Perspectives, 1995.
Collingwood’s notion of the mind as activity is related to the view of mind as pure act that is espoused by Gentile. It should be noted, however, that Gentile’s standpoint in turn derives from Hegel, whose emphasis upon historical development derives from his recognition of the significance of action and development for the mind. For a discussion of the relationship between Gentile and Collingwood, see J. Connelly, ‘Art Thou the Man: Croce, Gentile or de Ruggeiro?’ and H. Harris, Croce, and Gentile in Collingwood’s New Leviathan, both of which are located in D. Boucher, J. Connelly and T. Madood (eds), Philosophy, History and Civilization — Interdisciplinary Perspectives on R. G. Collingwood (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1995).
R. G. Collingwood, Speculum Mentis or the Map of Knowledge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), p. 299.
A concise statement of Collingwood’s notion that the human sciences are criteriological is contained in R. G. Collingwood, The Principles of Art (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938) For a considered discussion of Collingwood’s notion of the criteriology of the human sciences, see D. Boucher, ‘Collingwood and Anthropology as a Historical Science’, History of Political Thought, Vol. xiii, Issue 2, Summer 2002.
R. G. Collingwood, The New Leviathan (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 278.
L. O. Mink, Mind, History and Dialectic (Bloomington and London, University of Indiana Press, 1969), p. 17.
A. Donagan, The Later Philosophy of R. G. Collingwood (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 156.
G. W. F. Hegel, Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature (trans. A. V. Miller) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), § 247 (Zusatz);
G. W. F. Hegel, Hegel: Werke Theorie Werkausgabe (eds E. Moldenhauer and K. M. Michel) (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970), Vol. 8.
R. G. Collingwood, An Essay on Metaphysics (Revised Edition; edited and with an Introduction by R. Martin) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).
Ibid. p. 122. For an extended discussion of the relations between the philosophies of Plato and Hegel, including their philosophies of nature, see G. K. Browning, Plato and Hegel: Two Modes of Philosophizing about Politics (New York and London: Garland Publishing Inc., 1991).
G. W. F. Hegel, Hegel’s Logic (trans. A. V. Miller) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), pp. 82–112;
G. W. F. Hegel, Hegel: Werke Theorie Werkausgabe (eds E. Moldenhauer and K. M. Michel) (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970), pp. 83–113.
R. G. Collingwood, ‘The Nature of Metaphysical Study’, Dep. Collingwood 18/2, 10. This consists of two unpublished lectures Collingwood gave by way of introduction to a series of lectures on metaphysics by various speakers in January 1934. These lectures by Collingwood treat metaphysics in a similar way to that developed in the ‘Notes towards a Metaphysic’. Most of these lectures are reproduced in R. G. Collingwood, An Essay on Metaphysics (Revised Edition; edited with an Introduction by R. Martin) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).
N. Rotentstreich, ‘Metaphysics and Historicism’, in M. Krausz (ed.), Critical Essays on the Philosophy of R. G. Collingwood (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972).
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© 2004 Gary K. Browning
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Browning, G.K. (2004). Nature and Mind. In: Rethinking R. G. Collingwood. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230005754_3
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