James Connelly and Giuseppina D'Oro present a new edition of R. G. Collingwood's classic work of 1933, supplementing the original text with important related writings from Collingwood's manuscripts which appear here for the first time. The editors also contribute a substantial new introduction. The volume will be welcomed by all historians of twentieth-century philosophy.

This treatise on aesthetics begins by showing that the word "art" is used as a name not only for "art proper" but also for certain things which are "art falsely so called." These are craft or skill, magic, and amusement, each of which, by confusion with art proper, generates a false aesthetic theory. In the course of attacking these theories the author criticizes various psychological theories of art, offers a new theory of magic, and reinterprets Plato's so-called "attack on art," (...) showing that it has been entirely misunderstood. Finally, he draws important inferences concerning the position of art in human society. (shrink)

This is the long-awaited publication of a set of writings by the British philosopher, historian, and archaeologist R.G. Collingwood (1889-1943) on critical, anthropological, and cultural themes only hinted at in his previously available work. At the core are six essays on folktale and magic in which Collingwood applies the principles of his philosophy of history to problems in the long-term evolution of human society and culture. The volume opens with three substantial introductory essays by the editors, authorities in their various (...) fields, who provide their explanatory and contextual notes to guide the reader through the texts. The Philosophy of Enchantment highlights the broad range of Collingwood's intellectual engagements, their integration, and their relevance to current areas of debate in the fields of philosophy, cultural studies, social and literary history, and anthropology. (shrink)

Quel bon vent, quel joli vent, ma vie m’appelle, ma vie m’attend French folk song 1. Presentists and Growing Block theorists appeal to ‘powerful intuitions’ when they defend their respective conceptions of time . Eternalists are prepared to go some length towards ‘reconciling’ the view from nowhen with at least some of these intuitions, or try to explain them away . Unaided intuitions may in fact underdetermine any particular metaphysical choice. One set of intuitions about time seems to have been (...) neglected, though, in spite of its power. These intuitions are the mirror image of those supporting the Growing Block theory , and they are modelled on a pre-reflective understanding of our own life. According to the intuitions, only the future and the present are real; the past isn’t. The present is the constantly eroding edge of the future, which thus shrinks incessantly. There is less and less future as the present proceeds. The obvious intuitive model of this view of time is our life; from which every day eats up a little bit. Smaller scale models are available in everyday life. As you are reading this text, you have less and less to read. You know it. You know that at some point you’ll finish, or stop, reading it. But a model is not enough to make a grand philosophical claim, and indeed the very existence of the model is the ground for a negative claim: a picture, it may be said, is holding you captive. The Future Shrinker has two tasks. The first is to show that the intuitive picture supporting the claim is robust and does not make implausible epistemological claims. The second task is to show that her theory is at least compatible with scientific lore, and at best a good way …. (shrink)

This paper presents evidence and arguments against an interpretation of david Hume's idea of history which insists that he held to a static conception of human nature. This interpretation presumes that hume lacks a genuine historical perspective, and that consequently his notion of historiography contains a fallacy (viz., Of the universal man). It is shown here that this interpretation overlooks an important distinction between methodological and substantive uniformity in hume's discussion of human nature and action. When this distinction is appreciated, (...) the above criticisms appear misrepresentative of hume's ideas of history, human nature, and their connection. A different interpretation of these concepts is then developed. (shrink)

This is the third edition, with updated notes and appendices, of Cicero's speech defending Caelius Rufus. It gives an insight into the political events of the period, and also helps to reconstruct the 'social background' of Catullus. It is of particular interest to the literary historian.

This paper and its predecessor () are about the question: 'Are the events in the entire universe encoded in and predictable from any of its parts?' To approach a positive answer in classical physics, the following result is proved and commented on: in Newton's theory of gravitation, the entire trajectory of a particle can be predicted given any segment of it, regardless of how the other particles are moving-provided that there is only a finite number of particles and that their (...) speeds remain bounded. (It is this condition, together with a set of parameters characterising the motion of the other particles, which enables us to estimate the effect of the other particles on the trajectory of the given particle.) The extension of this result to other theories, in particular to special relativity, is discussed. (shrink)