Abstract

During his lifetime at Oxford, the English philosopher, R. G. Collingwood , published a number of books both in history and in philosophy, including An Autobiography , in which he offered a self-interpretation of his intellectual development. This dissertation is an attempt to measure the degree to which the Autobiography can successfully serve as an interpretation of the whole of Collingwood's published philosophy. ;In Part I the problem of interpreting Collingwood's philosophy is surveyed, and it is shown that the main problems to which Collingwood's interpreters address themselves are those which Collingwood also discusses in the Autobiography. These problems cluster around four major themes: the realism-idealism controversy, question-and-answer logic, the philosophy of history, and philosophical rapprochement. ;In Part II the early writings are examined on each of these issues. After exhibiting an early tolerance of realism, Collingwood's anti-realism surfaced in Speculum Mentis, along with a commitment to absolute idealism. While there is no evidence of a systematic Q-A logic in his early writings, the epistemic functions of questioning and asserting are clearly present and indicate an incomplete resolution of problems on logic and methodology. Similarly the philosophy of history and the notion of rapprochement identity show a steady development, but leave serious ambiguities unresolved. ;In Part III the later writings are surveyed on each of these same issues, and it is shown that Collingwood's anti-realism not only remained constant, but hardened--which led to certain difficulties in his analysis of perception. Q-A logic, rather than being an alternative to formal logic, actually functions as an interpretative methodology, while the dialectical logic of the Essay on Philosophical Method becomes the criteriology of rapprochement completion in all his later works. In the final chapter of Part III the unity of the autobiographical themes is reconstructed and used to overcome the obstacles to a reformed metaphysics as an historical science