Perhaps a silly title. It might change.
But here is what I have so far.
This writing might also be silly and will likely be edited and changed.
But here it is:
1. Introduction: Historical Morality and The Science of Human Affairs
2. The European Enlightenment and Modern Regularian Morality, and Nihilism
- Nature and Rules (feedback between practical and theoretical reason).
3. Anti-Regularian Morality
- MacIntyre, Gray, Zen, Aesthetics (myself as well as Schiller and Spivak) Duty and transition to history
4. Historical Morality as Anti-Regularian Morality
5. Historical Morality and The Science of Human Affairs
- It appears as though the science of human affairs would be the method behind both historical morality and historical civilization
I. Introduction: Collingwood, Historical Morality, Historical Civilization, and The Science of Human Affairs
At the time of his death, Collingwood had made it clear that he intended his intellectual career to culminate with The Principles of History, which he “for 25 years at least, looked forward to writing as [his] chief work” (The Principles of History, 3n). In that book, which he unfortunately never completed, Collingwood hoped to bring about a rapprochement between history and philosophy, synthesizing them “in a new study transcending and incorporating both” (The New Leviathan, xxi). This synthesis of history and philosophy, moreover, was to be a union of theory and practice. It was a type of study that would provide both a foundation for morality and a method of (political) education. Collingwood called these things historical morality and historical civilization, respectively.
These concepts of morality and civilization were the main thrusts of his argument about the importance historical thinking. This comes out most clearly in his note from September 2nd, 1939, ‘Scheme for a book: ‘The Principles of History’. It is worth quoting the note at length:
"The main idea [of book III] is that history is the negation of the traditional distinction between theory and practice. That distinction depends on taking, as our typical case of knowledge, the contemplation of nature, where the object is presupposed. In history the object is enacted and is therefore not an object at all. If this is worked out carefully, then should follow without difficulty a characterization of an historical morality and an historical civilization, contrasting with our ‘scientific’ one. Where ‘science’ = of or belonging to natural science. A scientific morality will start from the idea of human nature as a thing to be conquered or obeyed: a[n] historical one will deny that there is such a thing, and will resolve what we are into what we do. A scientific society will turn on the idea of mastering people (by money or war or the like) or alternatively serving them (philanthropy), A[n] historical society will turn on the idea of understanding them." (The Principles of History, 246).
In this sketch for book III, the final, unwritten chapter, we see the main aspects of Collingwood’s philosophy of history. His thought is not merely a matter of methodology and the proper writing of history. It is about the development of a novel form of morality that will translate into a new type of civilization, a new type of historically minded political elite and citizenry.
Collingwood, however, never completed The Principles of History, and it isn’t clear how he would have developed these ideas. How precisely was a historical morality or a historical civilization to come about? What are the historical methods by which individuals could become such a thing? How is historical morality and the historical civilization to be embodied and expressed? How does one learn to embody and express such a thing? Because Collingwood did not live to complete his work, I feel that I must try to answer these questions for myself. In this essay I want to try and work out these ideas of historical morality and civilization by connecting them with Collingwood’s other work and other thinkers. In particular, I want to draw on his claim that history was ‘the science of human affairs’, that is, the method by which people “could learn to deal with human situations as skilfully as natural science had taught them to deal with situations in the world of Nature...” (An Autobiography, 115). I believe that this idea of history as the science of human affairs holds the key to understanding the possibility of a historical morality and civilization. For historical morality/civilization are both things that need to be learned, processes that need to be taught, and the science of human affairs is the method by which we can be taught to embrace historical morality/civilization.
This is what this essay is all about. I want to analyze Collingwood’s writings on history and politics in order to elaborate the idea of a historical morality and a historical civilization. I’ll be paying special attention to the idea that history is the science of human affairs which leads to historical morality and civilization. The science of human affairs is the method in which the end of morality and civilization are contained.
I am not pursuing Collingwood’s philosophy just for the fun of it, however. Rather, his thought serves as an antidote to the major problems in contemporary political and moral philosophy. For contemporary political and moral philosophy are hindered, above all, by there emphasis on the importance of rules and doctrine. Finding an anti-regularian morality, that is, one that finds its primary justification outside the realm of rules, is a major task for contemporary philosophy. Collingwood’s concept of historical morality, I will argue in this essay, is the strongest non-regularian philosophy yet developed.
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