Collingwood and Weber vs. Mink: History after the Cognitive Turn

Journal of the Philosophy of History 5 (2):230-260 (2011)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Louis Mink wrote a classic study of R. G. Collingwood that led to his most important contribution to the philosophy of history, his account of narrative. Central to this account was the non-detachability thesis, that facts became historical facts through incorporation into narratives, and the thesis that narratives were not comparable to the facts or to one another. His book on Collingwood was critical of Collingwood's idea that there were facts in history that we get through self-knowledge but which are nevertheless objective, his account of re-enactment, and his notion of absolute presuppositions. It is illuminating to compare Collingwood to Weber with respect to these puzzling arguments, for the same issues arise there in different form. Recent work in social neuroscience on mirroring allows a different approach to these puzzles: mirror system “knowledge“ of others and simulation fit, respectively, with Weber's idea of direct observational understanding and Collingwood's re-enactment account. This account allows for the detaching of historical facts about thoughts and action from narrative

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Metaphysics, History and the Unpublished Manuscripts.John Luckman - 1991 - International Studies in Philosophy 23 (3):27-45.
From norms to uses and back again.Karim Dharamsi - 2008 - Journal of the Philosophy of History 2 (2):167-184.
The vicissitude of completeness: Gadamer's criticism of Collingwood.Dimitrios Vardoulakis - 2004 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 12 (1):3 – 19.
The idea of history.Robin George Collingwood - 1961 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by der Dussen & J. W..
The social and political thought of R.G. Collingwood.David Boucher - 1989 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
The Idea of History. Revised Edition.Robin G. Collingwood - 1993 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Jan van der Dussen.
The 'object' of historical knowledge.Patrick Gardiner - 1952 - Philosophy 27 (102):211-220.
R.G. Collingwood: an introduction.Peter Johnson - 1998 - Dulles, Va.: Thoemmes.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-07-16

Downloads
50 (#281,070)

6 months
1 (#1,027,696)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Stephen Turner
University of South Florida

Citations of this work

Where explanation ends: Understanding as the place the spade turns in the social sciences.Stephen Turner - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 44 (3):532-538.
Descriptive Accuracy in History: The Case of Narrative Explanations.Leonidas Tsilipakos - 2020 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 50 (4):283-312.

Add more citations

References found in this work

On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme.Donald Davidson - 1973 - Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 47:5-20.
On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme.Donald Davidson - 1974 - In Robert B. Talisse & Scott F. Aikin (eds.), The Pragmatism Reader: From Peirce Through the Present. Princeton University Press. pp. 286-298.
Interpretation and the Sciences of Man.Charles Taylor - 1971 - Review of Metaphysics 25 (1):3 - 51.
Interpretation and the Sciences of Man.Charles Taylor - 1971 - Review of Metaphysics 25 (1):3-51.

View all 7 references / Add more references