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An Essay on Metaphysics
An Essay on Metaphysics is one of the finest works of the great Oxford philosopher, historian, and archaeologist R. G. Collingwood (1889-1943). First published in 1940, it is a broad-ranging work in which Collingwood considers the nature of philosophy, especially of metaphysics. He puts forward his well-known doctrine of absolute presuppositions, expounds a logic of question and answer, and gives an original and influential account of causation. The book has been widely read and much discussed ever since. In this new edition the complete original text is accompanied by three previously unpublished essays by Collingwood which will be essential reading for any serious student of his thought: 'The Nature of Metaphysical Study' (1934), 'Function of Metaphysics in Civilization' (1938), and 'Notes for an Essay on Logic' (1939). These fascinating writings illuminate and amplify the ideas of the Essay, to which they are closely related. The distinguished philosopher and Collingwood scholar Rex Martin has established authoritative versions of these new texts, added a short set of notes on the Essay, and contributed a substantial introduction explaining the story of the composition of all these works, discussing their major themes, and setting them in the context of Collingwood's philosophy as a whole.
354 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1940
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About the author
R.G. Collingwood
75 books86 followersRobin George Collingwood was an English philosopher and historian. Collingwood was a fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, for some 15 years until becoming the Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at Magdalen College, Oxford.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 6, 2017
Collingwood's book on the nature of metaphysics is one of the best books I've read on the subject. The book's status as a rather neglected and obscure work makes little sense to me for reasons that will become obvious towards the end of this review. Let me first explain the main argument here. Collingwood's central aim is an articulation of a very radical thesis about the nature of metaphysics, suggesting that metaphysics is simply the study of the absolute presuppositions of inquiry. As such, metaphysics is not a normative discipline, but rather a descriptive, historical study of the absolute presuppositions of a given science. A metaphysician cannot evaluate or provide the presuppositions of inquiry; her work is simply to state such presuppositions in the outmost detail.
There are two issues of major importance in Collingwood's discussion: first, an attack on metaphysics is really an attack on science itself, since the latter is always based on particular theoretical, non-empirical assumptions. Hence, a positivistic, ahistorical treatment of science is completely misguided because the positivist conception of a metaphysics-free science is a fantasy. Secondly, the fact that absolute presuppositions lack truth-values entails that the foundations of any given science resist rational justification. Notice that Collingwood published his book in 1940, more than 20 years before Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. While Kuhn's and Collingwood's books cover similar themes in a surprisingly similar manner, it was only the former that gained widespread recognition and is today hailed as one of the most important books of the 20th century. This turn of events need not be understood as a cosmic injustice, but it should be evident that Collingwood's Essay on Metaphysics doesn't deserve its obscure status since it's a work of enormous insight and sophistication.
There are two issues of major importance in Collingwood's discussion: first, an attack on metaphysics is really an attack on science itself, since the latter is always based on particular theoretical, non-empirical assumptions. Hence, a positivistic, ahistorical treatment of science is completely misguided because the positivist conception of a metaphysics-free science is a fantasy. Secondly, the fact that absolute presuppositions lack truth-values entails that the foundations of any given science resist rational justification. Notice that Collingwood published his book in 1940, more than 20 years before Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. While Kuhn's and Collingwood's books cover similar themes in a surprisingly similar manner, it was only the former that gained widespread recognition and is today hailed as one of the most important books of the 20th century. This turn of events need not be understood as a cosmic injustice, but it should be evident that Collingwood's Essay on Metaphysics doesn't deserve its obscure status since it's a work of enormous insight and sophistication.
September 15, 2020
My "consideration" of this book is too long to fit here at the Goodreads site, so if you want to read it (and surely you do!), please go to my personal web site: https://sngthoughts.blogspot.com/2019...
February 22, 2012
I will go all Lady Gaga and say OMG - this essay puts the brilliant into brilliant, because it teaches one how to tackle systems of ideas- and is very helpful in mapping out questions to do with ontology and metaphysics. I love this book!
October 14, 2024
IS METAPHYSICS A “HISTORICAL QUESTION”?
Robin George Collingwood (1889-1943) was an English philosopher and historian, who wrote other books such as 'The Idea of History,' 'The Idea of Nature,' 'An Autobiography,' etc.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1939 book, “This is not so much a book of metaphysics as a book about metaphysics. What I have chiefly tried to do with it is neither to expound my own metaphysical ideas, nor to criticize the metaphysical ideas of other people; but to explain what metaphysics is, why it is necessary to the well-being and advancement of knowledge, and how it is to be pursued… I have offered to the reader’s attention a few examples of metaphysics itself, in order to show how metaphysical inquiry will be conducted if the principles laid down in the opening chapters are taken as sound.”
He explains, “I will try to state so much of this theory as seems necessary for my present purpose. For the sake of reference later on, I will state it… in numbered propositions… In expounding these propositions I shall not be trying to convince the reader of anything, but only to remind him of what he already knows perfectly well.” (Pg. 23)
He states, “All metaphysical questions are historical questions, and all metaphysical propositions are historical propositions. Every metaphysical question either is simply the question about absolute presuppositions were made on a certain occasion, or is capable of being resolved into a number of such questions together with a further question or further questions arising out of these.” (Pg. 48)
He adds, “Metaphysics has always been an historical science; but metaphysicians have not always been fully aware of the fact.” (Pg. 58) He continues, “The problems of metaphysics are historical problems; its methods are historical methods.” (Pg. 62) But he clarifies, “Metaphysics, aware of itself as an historical science, will abandon once for all the hope of being a ‘deductive’ or quasi-mathematical science.” (Pg. 67) And “the conception of metaphysics as a ‘deductive’ science is not only an error but a pernicious error, one with which a reformed metaphysics will have no truce.” (Pg. 76)
He asserts, “My suspicions are… about the status of psychology as the pseudo-science of thought which claims to usurp the field of logic and ethics in all their various branches, including political science, aesthetics, economics, and whatever other criteriological sciences there may be, and finally of metaphysics. In these fields I find it to be a fact that psychological inquiries have proved absolutely incapable of adding anything to our knowledge.” (Pg. 142)
He gives an example: “One need only accept Aristotle’s identification of theology with metaphysics to conclude that the Christian Church has always taught that metaphysics is an historical science. I do not say that it has taught all the implications of this principle. For example, it has not consistently taught that there can be no proof of God’s existence. Inconsistency on this point is easy to understand. The words are ambiguous.
"That God exists is not a proposition, it is a presupposition… It can be neither proved nor disproved. But a person accustomed to metaphysical thinking … will automatically … read ‘we believe (i.e. presuppose in all our thinking) that God exists.’ Here is something which … is either true or false… If ‘God exists’ means ‘somebody believes that God exists’…it is capable of proof. The proof must of course be an historical proof, and the evidence on which it is based will be certain ways in which this ‘somebody’ thinks.” (Pg. 188)
He adds, “once it is realized that Anselm’s [Ontological] proof [of God] is a metaphysical argument, and therefore an historical argument, it can no longer be regarded as a weakness that it should take its stand on historical evidence. What it proves is… that because our idea of God is an idea… we stand committed to belief in God’s existence.” (Pg. 190)
He points out, “a biological ‘mechanist,’ like any other scientist in the tradition of Galileo, is working on presuppositions that no experience can confirm and no experiment verify. When he says that the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics, he does not mean only that the pages of this book have been found to be written in this language… He means that the book of nature is quite certainly written in that language from end to end. It is an absolute ‘presupposition,’ in other words a matter of ‘faith.’ Galileo is deliberately applying to ‘nature’ the principle which Augustine laid down with regard to the Holy Scriptures…” (Pg. 255-256) He adds, “I do not know why the logical positivists have not thus pilloried as nonsensical the principle that mathematics is applicable to everything in nature… they let it pass, and to ease their consciences drop heavily upon the proposition ‘God exists’… If they knew a little more about the history of science, they would know that the belief in the possibility of applied mathematics is only one part of the belief in God.” (Pg. 256-257)
He concludes, “If so many philosophers have turned traitor to their calling, it is because they have failed to distinguish metaphysics from pseudo-metaphysics… This is my reason for offering to the public what might seem essentially like an academic essay… The fate of European science and European civilization is at stake. The gravity of the peril lies especially in the fact that so few recognize any peril to exist… I am only a professorial goose, consecrated with a cap and gown and fed at a college table; but cackling is my job, and cackle I will.” (Pg. 343)
This book will be of keen interest to anyone studying Collingwood, or contemporary metaphysics.
Robin George Collingwood (1889-1943) was an English philosopher and historian, who wrote other books such as 'The Idea of History,' 'The Idea of Nature,' 'An Autobiography,' etc.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1939 book, “This is not so much a book of metaphysics as a book about metaphysics. What I have chiefly tried to do with it is neither to expound my own metaphysical ideas, nor to criticize the metaphysical ideas of other people; but to explain what metaphysics is, why it is necessary to the well-being and advancement of knowledge, and how it is to be pursued… I have offered to the reader’s attention a few examples of metaphysics itself, in order to show how metaphysical inquiry will be conducted if the principles laid down in the opening chapters are taken as sound.”
He explains, “I will try to state so much of this theory as seems necessary for my present purpose. For the sake of reference later on, I will state it… in numbered propositions… In expounding these propositions I shall not be trying to convince the reader of anything, but only to remind him of what he already knows perfectly well.” (Pg. 23)
He states, “All metaphysical questions are historical questions, and all metaphysical propositions are historical propositions. Every metaphysical question either is simply the question about absolute presuppositions were made on a certain occasion, or is capable of being resolved into a number of such questions together with a further question or further questions arising out of these.” (Pg. 48)
He adds, “Metaphysics has always been an historical science; but metaphysicians have not always been fully aware of the fact.” (Pg. 58) He continues, “The problems of metaphysics are historical problems; its methods are historical methods.” (Pg. 62) But he clarifies, “Metaphysics, aware of itself as an historical science, will abandon once for all the hope of being a ‘deductive’ or quasi-mathematical science.” (Pg. 67) And “the conception of metaphysics as a ‘deductive’ science is not only an error but a pernicious error, one with which a reformed metaphysics will have no truce.” (Pg. 76)
He asserts, “My suspicions are… about the status of psychology as the pseudo-science of thought which claims to usurp the field of logic and ethics in all their various branches, including political science, aesthetics, economics, and whatever other criteriological sciences there may be, and finally of metaphysics. In these fields I find it to be a fact that psychological inquiries have proved absolutely incapable of adding anything to our knowledge.” (Pg. 142)
He gives an example: “One need only accept Aristotle’s identification of theology with metaphysics to conclude that the Christian Church has always taught that metaphysics is an historical science. I do not say that it has taught all the implications of this principle. For example, it has not consistently taught that there can be no proof of God’s existence. Inconsistency on this point is easy to understand. The words are ambiguous.
"That God exists is not a proposition, it is a presupposition… It can be neither proved nor disproved. But a person accustomed to metaphysical thinking … will automatically … read ‘we believe (i.e. presuppose in all our thinking) that God exists.’ Here is something which … is either true or false… If ‘God exists’ means ‘somebody believes that God exists’…it is capable of proof. The proof must of course be an historical proof, and the evidence on which it is based will be certain ways in which this ‘somebody’ thinks.” (Pg. 188)
He adds, “once it is realized that Anselm’s [Ontological] proof [of God] is a metaphysical argument, and therefore an historical argument, it can no longer be regarded as a weakness that it should take its stand on historical evidence. What it proves is… that because our idea of God is an idea… we stand committed to belief in God’s existence.” (Pg. 190)
He points out, “a biological ‘mechanist,’ like any other scientist in the tradition of Galileo, is working on presuppositions that no experience can confirm and no experiment verify. When he says that the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics, he does not mean only that the pages of this book have been found to be written in this language… He means that the book of nature is quite certainly written in that language from end to end. It is an absolute ‘presupposition,’ in other words a matter of ‘faith.’ Galileo is deliberately applying to ‘nature’ the principle which Augustine laid down with regard to the Holy Scriptures…” (Pg. 255-256) He adds, “I do not know why the logical positivists have not thus pilloried as nonsensical the principle that mathematics is applicable to everything in nature… they let it pass, and to ease their consciences drop heavily upon the proposition ‘God exists’… If they knew a little more about the history of science, they would know that the belief in the possibility of applied mathematics is only one part of the belief in God.” (Pg. 256-257)
He concludes, “If so many philosophers have turned traitor to their calling, it is because they have failed to distinguish metaphysics from pseudo-metaphysics… This is my reason for offering to the public what might seem essentially like an academic essay… The fate of European science and European civilization is at stake. The gravity of the peril lies especially in the fact that so few recognize any peril to exist… I am only a professorial goose, consecrated with a cap and gown and fed at a college table; but cackling is my job, and cackle I will.” (Pg. 343)
This book will be of keen interest to anyone studying Collingwood, or contemporary metaphysics.
August 31, 2023
It helped me remember and find again reasons why metaphysics is an important and worthy pursuit.
August 18, 2020
The whole enterprise of metaphysics is description of absolute presuppositions. Very plausible. And flexible enough to account for all worldviews. An insightful book.
December 7, 2025
A very underrated essay on Aristotle Metaphysics!! Highly recommended!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews