SOURCE: "Philosophy and History: The Need for a Rapprochement," in Collingwood and the Reform of Metaphysics: A Study in the Philosophy of Mind, University of Toronto Press, 1970, pp. 3-34.

In the following excerpt, Rubinoff considers the relationship between Collingwood's views on history and philosophy.

1 the Priority of History in Twentieth-century Thought

In 1938, a few years before his death, Collingwood characterized his life work as "in the main an attempt to bring about a rapprochement between philosophy and history.' Indeed, his deep concern with history is evident from the very outset of his career. In 1919, for example, in his address to the Ruskin Centenary Conference, he argued that the main virtue of Ruskin's thought lay in its specifically historical character. In this essay, Collingwood characterized what he called "the historical habit of thought" as "the philosophy of the future"; it "aims at freedom and variety," and "its natural...