Historical Consciousness in Reverse

Tentative thoughts.

For the historian, the past is a story of necessity. As Collingwood argues in 'Goodness, Rightness, Utility', "the historical consciousness is consciousness of a necessity which cannot be stated analytically in terms of reasons and consequences. When the historian has formed his view of the French Revolution as a complex of situations or actions in the past, he sees that this complex as a whole was a complex in which every detail had to be what it was" (In The New Leviathan, 477).

On this view, a historian is a person who understands an action as the necessary outcome of a unique individual acting in a unique situation in which they could not have acted another way.

Does this mean that historical actors were not free? If the actions of the past were necessary, how can we say that they were really choosing to do what they did?

For Collingwood, somehow, this view of the past does not compromise the concept of free action. Agency is kept fully intact.

In fact, Collingwood believes that our actions will be most free, most authentic, if we view ourselves as unique people acting in unique situations who can not act any other way.

If we are willing to accept that we must act as we must act, then our actions will be free and authentic.

In other words, if we take the historical consciousness (action as necessary), and reverse it, applying it to the present and the future, then we are left viewing our actions as necessary outcomes of our unique personality in our unique situation. Collingwood calls this view of action 'duty', and claims that it is historical thought's practical counterpart.

To me, this only implies one thing: Right action will emerge from a clear understanding of ourselves and our situation.

This might seem mundane, but I think it is in contrast to pervasive ideas about right action. Modernity, I think, emphasizes the importance of rational planning. We like to chart our lives on lists, +/- charts, graphs, and in clear rational language.

In short, we value clear plans far more than clear self-knowledge.

My task, then, is to show that right action emerges from clear self-knowledge, and that planning is indeed superfluous.

This is not something I've absorbed into my heart, but something I really do want to learn.

I'm not sure what the questions are that I need to ask. But some of them are these: Why do we favor planning over understanding (John Gray in Enlightenment's Wake)? How is it that right action emerges from understanding alone? How is it that the mind is able to do without knowing what it is doing (i.e. how does action emerge from understanding despite the absence of an explicit plan)? How does one gain an understanding of oneself, and how does that understanding lead to right action (historical ontology and meditation)?

I'm eager to write this essay.

It hits me somewhere deep in my heart.