Speculum Mentis, or, The Map of Knowledge

by R.G. Collingwood (Creator)

R.G. Collingwood's groundbreaking work of philosophy provides a fresh perspective on the nature of human knowledge. Drawing on a wide range of disciplines, including history, philosophy, and psychology, Collingwood presents a vision of knowledge as a dynamic and ever-changing process rather than a fixed and static entity. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1924

About the author

Robin 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.

Reviews

[Brett · Rating 4 out of 5]

My kind of book! One of the hardest thing to do is see errors in thinking. Overall this book gives a great discussion about forms of thinking namely art, religion, science, history, and philosophy, what are the inherent errors, and further, how each has its place in the development of a human, or humanity, and how one form of thinking can lead to the other in a kind of cycle.

Also there was a great insight into the metaphorical nature of religious thinking completely missed by both the religious and the rationalists that oppose them.

In the end the goal is that the mind should know itself.

Quote near end:
In an immediate and direct way, the mind can never know itself it can only know itself through the mediation of an external world, know that what it sees in the external world is its own reflection.

Another quote:
We did not assume that any one form of experience could be accepted as already, in its main lines, wholly free from error. Led by this principle, we found that the real world was implied, but not asserted, in art; asserted, but not thought out, in religion; thought out, but only subject to fictitious assumptions, in science; and therefore in all these we found an ostensible object—the work of art, God, the material universe—which was confessedly a figment and not the real object. The real object is the mind itself, as we now know.

This book will excercise your mind!

Note 1: I was happy to have read "The Idea of History" by R. G. Collingwood first, even though it was published later. It gave the background for talking about history, and thinking, only briefly touched upon in this book.


Note 2: there are errors in the Kindle version of the book from the OCR scanning that have not been caught by the editing. However it is still very readable

[John Russon · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books of philosophy ever written. The deceptively easy writing style will take you through many of the hardest thoughts in philosophy without you even noticing it. Also true of his Principles of Art.

[An Te · Rating 3 out of 5]

Profound and thoughtful but a rehash of his thoughts. A lesser read book of his.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book that tries too hard - and Carnap wrote something equivalent, nevertheless even if RG has overextended himself, as my maths teacher would say, the working out of the problem (even if the result is wrong) is often very legitimate. We can learn from this - Collingwood did.

[Citesc · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a whole is a good book and has insightful ideas!

[Ian Carmichael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written, tantalising contents. Excellent epistemolgy.