of Art as Language: R. G. Collingwood
p As a number of Marxist philosophers have pointed out (Alexei Bogomolov, Mikhail Kissel, Maurice Cornforth) Robin George Collingwood (1889-1943), a famous English historian, philosopher and aesthetician, continued in English philosophy the line of absolute idealism of Bradley, Bosanquet and McTaggart, but approached the traditional problems of this school (in particular the problem of the “unity of experience”) with the tools of Crocean philosophy, which gives us grounds to view him as a neo-Hegelian.
p By his own admission and the testimony of many commentators, Collingwood was particularly strongly influenced by Croce in his aesthetic views. This influence is already seen in his early writings on the philosophical problems of art Speculum Mentis, 1924, and Outlines ot a Philosophy ot Art, 1925. [83•1
p Collingwood’s later aesthetic writings are marked by an even closer proximity to Croce, [83•2 which can be seen in his fundamental study. The Principles ot Art, written in 1937. 84 As John Hospers points out, after the appearance of The Principles oi Ait many commentators started regarding Croce’s and Collingwood’s views, for practical purposes, as a single theory (15). When sending Croce his book The Principles ot Art Collingwood wrote in a letter of April 20, 1938 that he was obliged to the Italian philosopher in all areas of thought and particularly in aesthetics. In certain places he modifies Croce’s Aesthetics and even enters into a polemic with it, but, argues Collingwood, even in these modifications he remains true to the spirit and principles to which, in his opinion, Croce gave “classical expression”. In all essential points the theory set out in The Principles ot Art belongs to Croce. “My central theme,” Collingwood writes in this letter, “is the identity of art and language, and my book is nothing but an exposition of that theme and some of its implications" (11, 315-16).
Collingwood is of course right. We cannot but agree with W. Johnston that “those who would picture Collingwood as a disciple of Croce are overlooking the points on which the two men differ" (16, 84). Collingwood tried to substitute new ideas for Croce’s misleading ones, at the same time remaining true to “the spirit and the principles" of Crocean aesthetics. What resulted from this will be seen from the ensuing description of his The Principles oi Art.
Notes
[83•1] The latter work constitutes, together with the articles: “Ruskin’s Philosophy" (1925), “Plato’s Philosophy of Art" (1925), “The Place of Art in Education" (1925-26), “Form and Content in Art" (1929), the content of the book Essays in the Philosophy of Art. This book only lacked Collingwood’s reviews of works on aesthetics, and the chapter “Aesthetic” written by him in The Mind, published by a group of authors in 1927.
[83•2] Collingwood translated into English Croce’s book The Philosophy of Ciambattista Vico, the article “Aesthetics” for the Encyclopaedia Britannica and his autobiography. Croce and his follower conducted a friendly correspondence.