Abstract

Chapter One focuses upon R. G. Collingwood's theory of the reconstruction of the outside of historical events through the interpretation of evidence. This chapter explores four phases of historical interpretation pertinent to the establishment of the facts that constitute the outside of an historical event. The role of historical realism in the development of Collingwood's position of historical idealism is outlined. The chapter then moves to a consideration of the relationship between the thought that constitutes the inside of an historical event and the re-constructed outside that represents its expression. It is seen that re-enacted, self-reflective thought serves as the explanation of the outward, once perceptible historical event. The chapter concludes with the charge that Collingwood has not adequately illuminated the relationship between historical interpretation and the re-enacted historical thought that it establishes. ;Chapter Two highlights the role of direct observation and selection in the positivistic model of historical thought. Positivistic history, as reflected in the works of E. H. Carr and Karl Popper, is revealed to be reliant on both eye-witness testimony and memory. Since historical fact is no longer available to empirical inspection, the positivistic historian depends upon the recollections of eye-witnesses as recorded in memoirs or elicited by questioning. The chapter then investigates the positivistic model of historical explanation and its dependence on universal laws. The positivists attempt to classify historical events according to kind, and then to establish laws that govern the relationships between these types through inductive thought. The role and validity of induction in this model of historical explanation is explored in the works of Popper. ;Chapter Three explores Collingwood's understanding of positivistic history as founded upon two false abstractions. Collingwood indicts the positivists of basing their historical model upon the illegitimate abstractions of pure sensation and the past as past. We see that both abstractions are for Collingwood united within real unities that combine them with their opposites. This chapter also examines Collingwood's attack upon induction as the basis of positivistic history, and we see interesting parallels between his views and those of Popper. Finally, the chapter uncovers the absolute presuppositions upon which positivism is based. ;Chapter Four penetrates Collingwood's exposition of positivistic mental science. Collingwood describes this science as the attempt to establish uniformities among the events of human history. By allowing for the limited application of these uniformities to delineated historical periods, Collingwood damages his own model of historical explanation, based on the re-enactment of thought. Chapter Four also examines Collingwood's identification of history with metaphysics, the science of absolute presuppositions. Since Collingwood maintains that absolute presuppositions are subject to change, the very foundations of historical thought and of metaphysics are transitory and bound by historical change itself