SOURCE: "Collingwood on Corrupt Consciousness," in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. XL, No. 4, Summer, 1982, pp. 395-400.

In the following essay, Black examines Collingwood's concept of "corrupt consciousness ' and its relationship to his theory of art.

Taken at face value, Collingwood's theory of art seems to focus on an analysis of feeling. The work of art, in Collingwood's eyes, explicates the elements of sensibility by placing them in a self-conscious order. Such a theory of feeling is indeed fundamental to Collingwood's aesthetic; but he has an accompanying intent the purport of which is not fully revealed in his analysis of feeling. This second theory, which might be called a theory of the synthesis of feeling, is linked to the birth of perception itself. In his discussion of corrupt consciousness, Collingwood introduces what I believe to be a novel form of intelligibility. He suggests that the...