Opening the mail on the way out to work, I found Collingwood's Speculum Mentis stuck into the mailbox. All the way from England it came. Picked it up, emptied my bag of ebook reader and notebooks, stuffed the package into it instead. There was to be a 2-hour break in between two tutoring sessions, and this was going to be devoted to this book.
Collingwood's work turned out to be far richer than anything I have expected. He describes his main aim and motivation as follows:
What is wrong with us is precisely the detachment of these forms of experience - art, religion, and the rest - from one another; and our cure can only be their reunion in a complete and undivided life. Our task is to seek for that life, to build up the conception of an activity which is at once art, religion, science, and all the rest (2013, 36)
This however does not mean that we simply dilute each form - art, religion, etc. - or relativize them in such a way that will allow them to all fit into one box, so to speak. Collingwood gives a detailed account of how this was already more or less achieved in medieval times. For the medievals, art served religion, religion served philosophy, philosophy served art, and science served everything and vice versa. This harmony was based on a compromise on the part of each form of experience. Thus, for example, an artist would not insist on "art for art's sake" but rather confine his art to producing things which are within the acceptable limits of religion, science, etc. This kind of compromise was, as Collingwood writes, a sign of childishness. Medieval citizens were childish enough to be content with this harmony. They basically obeyed what was given to them as reasonable. Not so with modern people. Modernity allowed a person to become mature, in the Kantian sense that he no longer needed a master who told him what to believe and not to believe. A modern individual is therefore free to develop each form according to his or her own limitations. This meant that he did not make compromises, but instead experimented with art, religion, etc. This was carried out to such an extent that today each form can lay claim to an entire life of an individual. There can now be pure artists who have little to no education in science or religion. There can be scientists who have never read any kind of holy scripture, and there can be religious people who have no knowledge of the history of philosophy. This was made possible thanks to the modern liberation of the individual, but the implication was that each form was no longer able to immediately harmonize with the others. Instead, tension built up between these forms, and each form claimed dominion over the whole field of experience and life. It is in this context and situation that Collingwood is trying to effect a "reunion" of these forms. The stakes, at least as far as I can judge, appear to be quite high.
How will Speculum Mentis attempt at this "reunion"? The answer Collingwood gives is essentially that we must compare and evaluate each form and see which is able to include all others under itself. Now since Collingwood is writing as a philosopher, and since the book's table of contents already shows that philosophy comes last in the development, it is quite obvious that philosophy will be the winner here. One might be inclined to accuse Collingwood of a bias based on personal vanity or prejudice. But this is not the case, as Collingwood insists, because the investigation will be based on clear principles. The first is that every form of experience must be self-consistent. If an inconsistency arises out of a form, and if the only way to overcome it is to transition to another form, then it is clear that the first form alone cannot encompass the whole of experience. Therefore, in order to find out which form ought to be responsible for the "reunion" of all forms, Collingwood will describe, analyze, and criticize each form in order to reveal such inconsistencies.
The true form of knowledge is thus self-consistent, and it must prove its claim by demonstrating the necessary inconsistency of the other forms. It must, that is to say, not so much attack and demolish these forms as exhibit them demolishing themselves through the working of their own inconsistencies (45)
I would say that this is one of the clearest definition of dialectics. Collingwood rejects the idea that there can be some ultra-form of experience which intervenes into all others and stages a unification from without. Such a form will itself be one among the many elements. Therefore, it too will be viewed as an enemy from the point of view of the artist, the scientist, and so forth, which further implies that any claim to "reunion" made from such an external position only serves to satisfy the ego of the one who makes such a claim without really reaching out to those who occupy totally different worlds. It is only by patiently describing, with maximum sympathy and based on experience, each world from within, and pointing out this or that on the way, that one can really make a legitimate critical point which speaks to people to whom it is actually addressed. By refusing to postulate a mega-form or a metaphysical position over and against the objects to be examined, Collingwood is being a good critical thinker, and he has successfully justified the dialectical method as the most appropriate form of thought for his task.
Nonetheless, Collingwood also recognizes that he needs to decide which form is best suited as the beginning of his inquiry. While it might be the case that any beginning will do - since the interrelation of each form may be in such a way that every one is neither over nor under the others, but rather have reciprocal connections without clear hierarchical order - the case may also be otherwise. Collingwood does begin with art, or the aesthetic consciousness. But why?
Collingwood's justification for this is probably the most curious and eccentric insight of the second, concluding chapter of the introductory part. He claims that there is a general tendency in humans to immediately start with an aesthetic consciousness of things, where stories and pictures are seen as sources of truth. It is from this beginning that a very young child, for example, is led to the next stage, that of the religious, where he now becomes concerned with what he will or will not do next. After being thus preoccupied with action, and seeing action as the primary source of truth, the next stage, theoretical consciousness, comes forth. These stages are not so clear-cut, as Collingwood rightly remarks, but nonetheless they do help us to understand the way in which a child's mind might develop from childhood to maturity. And here comes the surprising conjecture:
Based on this sketch of a "general tendency" of "spiritual antitypes" developing in the life of a human being, Collingwood will begin his critical inquiry with aesthetic consciousness.
To be continued....
Nonetheless, Collingwood also recognizes that he needs to decide which form is best suited as the beginning of his inquiry. While it might be the case that any beginning will do - since the interrelation of each form may be in such a way that every one is neither over nor under the others, but rather have reciprocal connections without clear hierarchical order - the case may also be otherwise. Collingwood does begin with art, or the aesthetic consciousness. But why?
Collingwood's justification for this is probably the most curious and eccentric insight of the second, concluding chapter of the introductory part. He claims that there is a general tendency in humans to immediately start with an aesthetic consciousness of things, where stories and pictures are seen as sources of truth. It is from this beginning that a very young child, for example, is led to the next stage, that of the religious, where he now becomes concerned with what he will or will not do next. After being thus preoccupied with action, and seeing action as the primary source of truth, the next stage, theoretical consciousness, comes forth. These stages are not so clear-cut, as Collingwood rightly remarks, but nonetheless they do help us to understand the way in which a child's mind might develop from childhood to maturity. And here comes the surprising conjecture:
Childhood, adolescence, and maturity seem thus to correspond with art, religion, and science as their proper spiritual antitypes; and each phase splits up into the art, religion, and science of childhood, all tinged with the fancifulness of art, the art, religion and science of adolescence, all affected by the passionate and devotional character of religion, and the art, religion, and science of maturity, all consolidated by the reflectiveness and stability of thought (51)
Based on this sketch of a "general tendency" of "spiritual antitypes" developing in the life of a human being, Collingwood will begin his critical inquiry with aesthetic consciousness.
To be continued....
