History as Thought and Action: The Philosophies of Croce, Gentile, de Ruggiero and Collingwood

672 Pages·2011·2.067 MB·English

by  Rik Peters

Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
Introduction: The Dead Past? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1 . The Early Development of Croce and Gentile (1893–1903) . . . .22
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
Croce’s Historical Project and its Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . .25
‘History Subsumed Under the Concept of Art’ (1893) . . . . . . .28
Gentile’s Early Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34
Gentile’s Criticism of Croce’s Concept of History . . . . . . . . .38
Gentile’s ‘The Concept of History’ (1899) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40
The Controversy between Croce and Gentile about
Metaphysical Philosophy of History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43
History in Croce’s Aesthetics as Science of Expression and
General Linguistic (1902) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48
History at the End of Gentile’s Early Development . . . . . . . . .55
2 . Croce’s Middle Development and His System (1903–1917) . . . .60
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60
History in the Outlines of Logic as Science of the Pure Concept
(1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62
What is Living and What is Dead in the Philosophy of Hegel (1907) 70
Gentile’s Criticism of Croce’s Interpretation of Hegel . . . . . . .75
The Further Development of the Philosophy of the Spirit:
Philosophy of the Practical (1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77
Logic as Science of the Pure Concept (1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . .84
Theory and History of Historiography (1912–1917) . . . . . . . . .98
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
3 . Gentile’s Middle Development and His System (1903–1923) . . . 107
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
The Birth of Actualism: ‘The Act of Thought as Pure Act’ (1912) 109
‘The Method of Immanence’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
The System: Theory and Practice (1912–23) . . . . . . . . . . . 119
The System: Philosophy and History (1916–23) . . . . . . . . . 122
Croce’s Criticism of Gentile’s Identity of Philosophy and History 128
The Ethics of Knowing: System of Logic (1917–23) . . . . . . . . 131
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
4 . Guido de Ruggiero’s Early Development (1911–1918) . . . . . . 142
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
La filosofia contemporanea (Modern Philosophy) (1912) . . . . . 143
De Ruggiero’s Criticism of Croce and Gentile . . . . . . . . . . 150
‘Science as Absolute Experience’ (1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Morality and History (1912–14) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Problems of Moral Life (1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
De Ruggiero’s Philosophy of History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
‘La pensée italienne et la guerre’ (1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
5 . Collingwood’s Early Development (1889–1917) . . . . . . . . . . 186
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Oxford and Italian Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
The Philosophy of Giambattista Vico (1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Collingwood’s Commentaries on Croce’s Philosophy of the Spirit
(1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Religion and Philosophy (1912–14) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
‘The Devil’ and Evil: Two Steps Forward . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
The Moment of Kairos: The Albert Memorial Meditations
(1915–16) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Collingwood’s First Criticism of Croce’s Theory and History of
Historiography (1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Truth and Contradiction (1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
6 . Croce, Gentile, and de Ruggiero in the 1920s . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Croce’s New Essays on Aesthetics (1918–20) . . . . . . . . . . . 259
Gentile’s Criticism of Croce’s New Essays and His Own
Contribution to Aesthetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
De Ruggiero’s Criticism of Croce and Gentile and His Own
Contribution to Aesthetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
Croce’s Criticism of de Ruggiero’s Aesthetics . . . . . . . . . . . 282
The Rise of Fascism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
The Involvement of Croce, Gentile, and de Ruggiero in the
Rise of Fascism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Gentile’s Moral and Political Philosophy in the 1920s . . . . . . 297
Philosophy of History in Gentile’s Fascist Works . . . . . . . . . 300
Gentile’s Fascist Historiography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Croce’s Moral and Political Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
The Value of History in Croce’s Moral and Political Philosophy 307
Croce’s Historiography: The Tetralogy (1925–32) . . . . . . . . 309
De Ruggiero’s Moral and Political Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . 311
The Value of History in the Liberal State . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
De Ruggiero’s Revision of Idealism: La via più ardua . . . . . . 318
De Ruggiero’s Historiography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
7 . Collingwood’s Middle Development (1918–1930) . . . . . . . . . 332
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
Collingwood’s Settlement with Croce (1920) . . . . . . . . . . . 337
The Sketch: ‘Libellus de Generatione’ (1920) . . . . . . . . . . . 345
The Dissolution of Realism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
The Myth of Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
Philosophy and History in the World of Becoming . . . . . . . 366
Painting Out the Sketch 1920–1924 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
The First Painting: Speculum Mentis (1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
‘The Nature and Aims of a Philosophy of History’ (1924) . . . . 405
The Ideality of History (1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
‘Lectures on the Philosophy of History’ (1926) . . . . . . . . . . 410
‘Preliminary Discussion’ (1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
‘Outlines of a Philosophy of History’ (1928) . . . . . . . . . . . 418
The Final Step: The Encapsulation Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . 428
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
8 . The Later Development of the Italians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
Gentile’s Philosophy of Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
Gentile’s Later Philosophy of History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
The Transcending of Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460
History and Action: Genesis and Structure of Society (1944) . . 464
Croce’s Final Position: History as Thought and Action (1938) . . 469
De Ruggiero’s Return to Reason (1933–1940) . . . . . . . . . . 474
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480
9 . Collingwood’s Later Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
The Preface to the Series: An Essay on Philosophical Method (1933) 486
Preparing the Series: Nature and Mind (1933–36) . . . . . . . . 505
The Idea of Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516
Preparing the Series: History (1935–37) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 522
The Foundations of the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524
The Programme: ‘Human Nature and Human History’ (1936) 529
The History of the Idea of History (1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537
The Presuppositions of History: Three Epilegomena (1936) . . 539
10 . Collingwood’s System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560
The Principles of Art (1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567
Collingwood’s Theory of Understanding . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
The Principles of History (1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579
An Essay on Metaphysics (1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595
The New Leviathan (1942) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 610
Conclusion: The Living Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 622
Also available . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 659
History as Thought and Action
The Philosophies of Croce, Gentile,
de Ruggiero, and Collingwood
Rik Peters
imprint-academic .com
2013 digital version by Andrews UK Limited
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Copyright © Rik Peters, 2013
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted .
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any
form without permission, except for the quotation of
brief passages in criticism and discussion .
Originally published in the UK by Imprint Academic,
PO Box 200, Exeter EX5 5YX, UK
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To the Memory of
H.S. Harris (1926–2007)
and
W.H. Dray (1921–2009)
Preface
The reason for publishing History as Thought and Action is that the
intellectual and practical legacy of Croce, Gentile, de Ruggiero,
and Collingwood was made clear to me in my work after finishing
my dissertation on these thinkers in 1998 . After my doctorate, and
as I began my University teaching, I started a consulting practice;
which I called Q&A after de Ruggiero’s and Collingwood’s logic of
question and answer . In my consulting practice, I provided training
and mentoring for politicians, civil servants, and professional
managers in profit and non-profit organisations . Immediately,
I discovered that many of the policy and management issues
could be elucidated with the help of methods used in the study of
philosophy and history and I used my lectures on the philosophy
of history at various universities in the Netherlands and my
dissertation to define the problems . In this way I discovered the
practical importance of historical thinking in society . After some
years, Croce’s La storia come pensiero e come azione (History as
Thought and Action) was no longer a book title for me, but one
of the principles upon which I trained people to become more
effective in their organisations . Likewise, de Ruggiero’s ethics of
historicism became a guideline for organisation development and
Collingwood’s notion of absolute presuppositions acquired a very
practical significance in the many Socratic dialogues I led . On the
function of dialogues in organisations I wrote a book in 2003 .1
In the same year, I received an appointment at the University of
Groningen which provided the ideal milieu for further working
out my ideas on the relationship between history as thought and
action in the Centre of Metahistory and in the Course Learning
Histories and Organisations .
[1] Rik Peters and Peter van der Geer, In plaats van praten. Debat en
dialoog bij veranderprocessen, Utrecht, Het Spectrum, 2004 (Instead of
Talking. Debate and Dialogue in Change Processes) .
This book owes a debt of thanks to many individuals . I thank
Teresa Smith for permitting me to cite Collingwood’s manuscripts
in my dissertation; all citations reappear in this book . I thank
Clementina Gily Reda, a leading authority on Italian philosophy,
who never stopped asking me to write this book . I present it
to her as a tribute to the long and rich, but unduly neglected,
tradition of Italian philosophy . I thank David Boucher for
suggesting publishing this book with Imprint Academic, and for
his encouragement to finish it . I thank William H . Rieckmann,
who gave me many good ideas on Collingwood’s development .
In Groningen, Frank Ankersmit reminded me time and again
to work on this book, inspiring me with his thought provoking
criticism . Toon de Baets support helped me to continue the work
and Dirk Jan Wolffram’s repeated advice to ‘go for it’ got me
through the final stages . I thank Christian Garrard for revising
the English in the manuscript and Christiaan Caspers for his
advice on the translation of the Greek words . Above all, I thank
Jaap den Hollander who read the entire manuscript and gave me
an important clue to understanding Collingwood’s system .
Finally, I thank Anne, Pieter-Bart, Saskia, and Clara for their
unmitigated support over the years . Thanks to them, I discovered
that ‘amare’ is more important than ‘intendere’ .
A note on citations, translations, abbreviations, and footnotes
All citations are made between single inverted commas . If not
otherwise stated, all translations from the Italian have been made
by the author . For the special scope of this book the translations
are as literal as possible, even if this sometimes leads to deviations
from English usage .
All works are fully annotated on the first occurrence . If
necessary, the year of completion by the author will also be
mentioned in the text, so that differences may occur between the
date of completion and the date of publication .