SOURCE: "On Collingwood's Philosophy of History," in Review of Metaphysics, Vol. V, No. 4, June, 1952, pp. 559-86.

In the following essay, Strauss studies the relationship between philosophy and history in Collingwood's works.

(i)

R. G. Collingwood's The Idea of History "is an essay in the philosophy of history." Philosophy of history, as Collingwood understood it, is of very recent origin. It emerged as a sequel to the rise of "scientific history" which took place in the latter part of the nineteenth century (254). If one assumes that "scientific history" is the highest or final form of man's concern with his past, the understanding of what the "scientific historian" does, or epistemology of history, may become of philosophic interest. And if the older or traditional branches of philosophy cannot make intelligible the "new historical technique" or solve the problems "created by the existence of organized and systematized historical research"; if, in...