Philosophy as The Articulation of Absolute Presuppositions

This article aims to show that the articulation of Absolute Presuppositions is an important task not only for metaphysics but for all departments of philosophy. Moreover, it does not displace other approaches within metaphysics and philosophy in general, such as Collingwood's promotion of Scales of Forms in Essay on Philosophical Method, but builds upon them. In doing so, it also shows that it is not a turn on Collingwood's part to historicism, as Donagan, Knox and Krausz have thought, but an important stage on the journey begun at Collingwood's decisive turns in 1927 and 1928 to a fiduciary philosophy and to understanding history from within. In this way it is part of the alternative both to the failed 'foundational', 'critical' and 'justificatory' approaches, and also to the despair at that failure which has resulted in relativism and post-modernism. And it is therefore a part of the rapprochement between philosophy and history, which he did achieve but did not fully articulate. Nevertheless, his account of presuppositions and Absolute Presuppositions in Essay on Metaphysics does need some amendments and revisions.