Causation has always been a philosophically controversial subject matter. While David Hume’s empiricist account of causation has been the dominant influence in analytic philosophy and science during modern times, a minority view has instead connected causation essentially to agency and manipulation. A related approach has for the first time gained widespread popularity in recent years, due to new powerful theories of causal inference in science that are based in a technical notion of intervention, and James Woodward’s closely connected interventionist theory (...) of causation in philosophy. This monograph assesses five manipulationist or interventionist theories of causation, viewed as theories that purport to tell us what causation is by providing us with the meaning of causal claims. It is shown that they cannot do this, as the conditions on causation that they impose are too weak, mainly due to ineliminable circularities in their definitions of causal terms. It is then argued that a subset of Woodward’s theory can nevertheless contribute crucially to an explanation of the unique role that manipulation has in our acquisition of causal knowledge. This explanation differs from the common regularist explanation of the epistemic utility of manipulation and experiment, and it is taken to confirm several important manipulationist intuitions. However, the success of the explanation depends on (this subset of) interventionism not itself being understood as a theory of causation, but as a theory of intervention. (shrink)

This paper argues that there are notable similarities between Collingwood’s method of investigating absolute presuppositions and contemporary strands of pragmatism, focusing on two areas - the critique of realism and causation. It is first argued that there are methodological similarities between Collingwood’s argument against realism and his Kantian-inspired critique of metaphysics, and Putnam’s critique of externalism. Regarding causation, it is argued that Collingwood’s view and Price’s pragmatist approach have a common method – investigating causation in the context of specific human (...) practices. Both authors place causation in the framework of scientific inquiry as opposed to making it the subject of the inquiry itself. Thus, Collingwood’s work proves to be in line with current metaphilosophical debates, particularly in the philosophy of science. (shrink)

This paper discusses methodological similarities between Collingwood's approach to causation and contemporary manipulability-based views. Firstly, I argue that on both approaches there is a preoccupation with the origin of causal concepts which further connects to the aim of establishing the priority of a certain concept/sense of causation as more fundamental. The significant difference lies in Collingwood's focus on the logical and historical priority (Collingwood's sense I) while in more recent theories the focus has been on psychology (i.e., on different philosophical (...) concepts of causation tested in psychological setting-- Woodward, Waskan, Gijsbers & de Bruin). Secondly, I argue that on both Collingwood's views and contemporary approaches (especially Menzies & Price, Price, but also Woodward) there is an important connection between causation and the agent's perspective. This can be subsumed under what Collingwood identifies as the main presupposition underlying causal thought: the relation between the agent's perceived situation and the agent's desired situation/ goal. More broadly, the recent views on causation under discussion share Collingwood's aim of elucidating the problem of causation through investigating causal knowledge and thus can be integrated with his wider project of addressing metaphysical issues through the means of epistemology. (shrink)

This is the most comprehensive book ever published on philosophical methodology. A team of thirty-eight of the world's leading philosophers present original essays on various aspects of how philosophy should be and is done. The first part is devoted to broad traditions and approaches to philosophical methodology. The entries in the second part address topics in philosophical methodology, such as intuitions, conceptual analysis, and transcendental arguments. The third part of the book is devoted to essays about the interconnections between philosophy (...) and neighbouring fields, including those of mathematics, psychology, literature and film, and neuroscience. (shrink)

The ontological proof became something of a signature argument for the British Idealist movement and this paper examines how and why that was so. Beginning with an account of Hegel's understanding of the argument, it looks at how the thesis was picked up, developed and criticized by the Cairds, Bradley, Pringle-Pattison and others. The importance of Bradley's reading in particular is stressed. Lastly, consideration is given to Collingwood's lifelong interest in the proof and it is argued that his attention is (...) best understood as a direct continuation of theirs. In view of the fact that recent commentators have tried to draw a sharp line between Collingwood's approach to metaphysics and ontology and that of his predecessors, the establishment of this connection calls for a measure of reassessment on both sides. (shrink)

Understanding and explanation are usually considered in the context of continental philosophy in Ukraine, based on Wilhelm Dilthey’s distinction between understanding and explanation as the opposite methods for humanities and natural science respectively as well as relying heavily on hermeneutical philosophy of Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer when it comes to understanding. However, this is not an exclusive feature of continental philosophy, and this article aims to show that the terms are actively used in English-speaking philosophy. This is done by (...) focusing on philosophy of history and philosophy of science which are the areas that actively use such terms. Considering the number of works within these areas helps to outline the general situation in the English-speaking philosophy and demonstrates that the opposition of explanation and understanding is quite artificial now. The first part of the article regards the two-sidedness of the English-speaking philosophy of history, which means that history seeks to be both science and art. The second part of the article analyses understanding and explanation as they are used in philosophy of science. Particularly, it has been shown that such a classic of analytical philosophy as Georg von Wright considered understanding of the humanities to be a continuation of a teleological explanation as well as explanation within natural science to be a different type of explanation: a causal one. It is also shown that a contemporary researcher Kareem Khalifa introduces an important term ‘explanatory understanding’ which appears in the case of a correct scientific explanation within natural science. Based on the materials involved, the author of the article demonstrates that both areas of contemporary English-language philosophy view explanation and understanding not as antipodes but as co-dependent notions.Manuscript received 10.08.2020. (shrink)

Collingwood’s ‘art-proper’ definition has been controversial. Wollheim argues that his Theory of Imagination assumes that the nature of the artwork exists solely in the mind, committing him to the Ideal Theory. Consequently, when Collingwood states that the audience is essential for the artist and the artwork, he is being inconsistent. In contrast, Ridley claims that Collingwood’s Expression Theory saves him from Wollheim’s accusations; hence he is consistent and does not support the Ideal Theory. I demonstrate that Collingwood both adheres to (...) the Ideal Theory and is consistent in his art theory. I show that imagination is the sufficient condition of art and expression is the process of art’s coming into existence. I argue that Collingwood is consistent in his theory because the audience and the externalization of the work are needed for an appreciation and understanding of the artwork as either good or bad, as either a work of a corrupt consciousness or not. Hence, an account of the role of externalization is a contribution to the epistemology, not the ontology, of art. (shrink)

In spite of the evident centrality of philosophical 'realism' in Collingwood's autobiographical account of his own intellectual development, his critique of 'realism' has hardly been investigated as a central theme in his philosophy. Collingwood's arguments against contemporary 'realism' and his stated move beyond 'idealism' have mostly been treated as a minor question subordinate to other questions. By contrast, I have tried in this thesis to reconstruct Collingwood's philosophy as a critical development of the realism/idealism dispute of his day, focusing on (...) his less known early published and unpublished philosophical writings. This has enabled me to clarify his unique definition of 'realism' in terms of a dualistic framework, and understand his philosophy as an attempt to overcome such dualisms in the realms of philosophy. This approach ultimately highlighted the aim of Collingwood's reform of philosophy as the better understanding of the human mind and action. By employing the 'historical' and 'internal' method of analysis, I firstly illustrated how the idea of 'dualism' became an issue in the realism/idealism dispute as it emerged in early twentieth-century British philosophy. This was followed by a biographical sketch in which I demonstrated that Collingwood's educational background was perfectly equipped to refute the 'realist' philosophy in the dispute. Historically contextualising thus, I chronologically restored the formation of his critique of 'realism' as his attempts to synthesise dualisms in logic, ontology, epistemology, and ethics during the period between Religion and Philosophy and An Essay on Philosophical Method. Finally, I argued that Collingwood's critique of 'realism' crystallised in his notion of duty, which embodied his characterisation of philosophy as both 'normative' and 'descriptive'. Throughout, I presented a systematic and sustained picture of Collingwood's early philosophy, identifying and unfolding the fertile implications of his critique of 'realism' for his principal concern with the human mind and action. (shrink)

The concept of empathy in history education involves students in the attempt to think within the context of historical agents’ particular predicaments. Tracing the concept’s philosophical heritage to R. G. Collingwood’s philosophy of history and ‘re-enactment doctrine’, this article argues that our efforts in history classrooms to understand historical agents by their own standards are constrained by a tension that arises out of the need to disconnect ourselves from a present that provides the very means for understanding the past. Though (...) rather than serving to undermine the concept, it is proposed that the moderate hermeneutics of H.-G. Gadamer, through a positive conception of prejudice, tradition and temporal distance, transforms the factors typically seen as inhibitors to empathy’s operation into those that potentially enable it. The article aspires to shed new light on what is at play when history students engage in the intellectually demanding task of empathizing in history. (shrink)