This article gathers, and in some cases quotes and examines, popular articles about R. G. Collingwood (1889–1943).
By articles, I mean not blog posts like mine and others’, but essays by professionals in publications that have editors.
By popular, I mean written not for other professionals, but for the laity.
My subject is the Chronicles of Narnia of C. S. Lewis (1898–1963). I consider this heptad of books (published 1950–6) as constituting (1) literature (2) for children (3) that I continue to enjoy in my sixth decade, having started in my first.
By literature, I mean a work of art whose medium is prose. Prose may also be a work of craft, intended to fulfil some purpose. This purpose could be to serve a market for fantasy or children’s books. Art as such has no purpose that can be specified in advance.
Writing for children may take certain liberties that annoy adults.
As with any post in this blog, I write out of my own personal interest. As a child, I read other fantasies, such as those of Lloyd Alexander, John Christopher, Ursula LeGuin, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Only the works of C. S. Lewis have stayed with me. This essay may be considered as an exploration of why, or least an example of how.
Note added, October 5, 2023. At the end of this post, from sunny days in the first spring of the Covid pandemic, I take up Anacreon’s poem “The Thracian Filly,” translated as “To a Colt” in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Anacreon was from Teos, whose ruins I have visited. Thoreau may not be sensitive to the sexual connotations of the poem. First I review Thoreau’s book, noting in particular:
Other books discussed or mentioned (and in my physical library) are
Executive summary (added July 28, 2020): I read an article praising so-called deep reading, one of whose exponents is Henry Kissinger. The world is apparently being corrupted by people who do not read deeply; and this includes ourselves, if we allow ourselves to be distracted by social media. I myself find the article corrupted by references to neuroscience, and I am sorry that the writer, Adam Garfinkle, does not tell us about his own experience of reading. His article comes recommended by George Will, whose tenure at the Washington Post can be blamed on my grandfather. I reminisce about him and about my own deep or at least long reading, in college and more recently. I take a hedonistic view of this reading.
Seeing a tweet condemning the superficiality of Twitter, I could not pass up the challenge. I read the linked essay, “What we lost when we stopped reading” (The Washington Post, April 17, 2020). That was by George Will, summarizing and recommending a longer essay, by Adam Garfinkle, “The Erosion of Deep Literacy” (National Affairs, number 43, spring 2020). I read that, yesterday evening and this morning (April 21, 2020).
To ease the strain of pandemic restrictions, I was recently called on to recommend a poem. I chose “The Undertaking” of John Donne. I want to say here why. Briefly:
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I also indulge myself here in reminiscences not obviously relevant to “The Undertaking.” They do conclude with my sitting down to read Donne for myself. (Note added November 3, 2025.)
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Diotima’s ladder, or stairway, is recounted by Socrates in Plato’s Symposium (211c, here in the translation of Jowett, which is the one I read at school, though it may not be the most faithful; the bullets and insertions from the Greek text are mine):
And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love (τὰ ἐρωτικά), is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps (οἳ ἐπαναβαθμοί) only, and from
- one going on to
- two, and from two to
- all fair forms (τὰ καλὰ σώματα), and from fair forms to
- fair practices (τὰ καλὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα), and from fair practices to
- fair notions (τὰ καλὰ μαθήματα), until from fair notions he arrives at
- the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is (ὃ ἔστι καλόν).
Two books that were my mother’s
Having been put to bed by Eurycleia at the end of Book I of the Odyssey, Telemachus gets up in the morning and has the people summoned to council, at the beginning of Book II.
There is no mention of a breakfast. Perhaps none is eaten. On the other hand, Telemachus probably relieves his bladder at least, and there is no mention of that either.
Telemachus straps on a ξίφος, but arrives at the assembly with a χάλκεον ἔγχος in hand. Wilson calls it a sword in either case; for Fitzgerald and Lattimore, the first weapon is a sword, but the second a spear and a bronze spear, respectively. Cunliffe’s lexicon supports the men; however, for Liddell and Scott, an ἔγχος can also be a sword, at least in Sophocles. For Beekes, ξίφος is Pre-Greek, and ἔγχος may be so. Continue reading
This essay was long when originally published; now, on November 30, 2019, I have made it longer, in an attempt to clarify some points.
The essay begins with two brief quotations, from Collingwood and Pirsig respectively, about what it takes to know people.
The Pirsig quote is from Lila, which is somewhat interesting as a novel, but naive about metaphysics; it might have benefited from an understanding of Collingwood’s Essay on Metaphysics.
A recent article by Ray Monk in Prospect seems to justify my interest in Collingwood; eventually I have a look at the article.
Ideas that come up along the way include the following.
For C. S. Lewis, the reality of moral truth shows there is something beyond the scope of natural science.
I say the same for mathematical truth.
Truths we learn as children are open to question. In their educational childhoods, mathematicians have often learned wrongly the techniques of induction and recursion.
The philosophical thesis of physicalism is of doubtful value.
Mathematicians and philosophers who ape them (as in a particular definition of physicalism) use “iff” needlessly.
A pair of mathematicians who use “iff” needlessly seem also to misunderstand induction and recursion.
Their work is nonetheless admirable, like the famous expression of universal equality by the slave-driving Thomas Jefferson.
Mathematical truth is discovered and confirmed by thought.
Truth is a product of every kind of science; it is not an object of natural science.
The distinction between thinking and feeling is a theme of Collingwood.
In particular, thought is self-critical: it judges whether itself is going well.
Students of mathematics must learn their right to judge what is correct, along with their responsibility to reach agreement with others about what is correct. I say this.
Students of English must learn not only to judge their own work, but even that they can judge it. Pirsig says this.
For Monk, Collingwood’s demise has meant Ryle’s rise: unfortunately so since, for one thing, Ryle has no interest in the past.
In a metaphor developed by Matthew Arnold, Collingwood and Pirsig are two of my touchstones.
Thoreau is another. He affects indifference to the past, but his real views are more subtle.
According to Monk, Collingwood could have been a professional violinist; Ryle had “no ear for tunes.”
For Collingwood, Victoria’s memorial to Albert was hideous; for Pirsig, Victorian America was the same.
Again according to Monk, some persons might mistake Collingwood for Wittgenstein.
My method of gathering together ideas, as outlined above, resembles Pirsig’s method, described in Lila, of collecting ideas on index cards.
Our problems are not vague, but precise.
When Donald Trump won the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, which opinion polls had said he would lose, I wrote a post here called “How To Learn about People.” I thought for example that just calling people up and asking whom they would vote for was not a great way to learn about them, even if all you wanted to know was whom they would vote for. Why should people tell you the truth?
Note added September 9, 2024: In “Potential (Iliad Book XIII)” and “Femininity (Iliad Book XIV),” I wondered whether an editor would remove Books XII and XIII (or at least the latter) for featuring neither Agamemnon (wounded in Book XI) nor Achilles (still on strike, despite the pleas in Book IX). An editor might remove or trim Books XX and XXI too, for being “only” about a warrior gone berserk. After Achilles has
that could be enough, even for an epic. I continue to wonder about the function of the ensuing two books. Do they show how words of contrition may not represent a real change of heart? As well as Aeneas and his genealogy, the books give us Polydorus and Lycaon, sons of Laothoë, daughter of Altes; killed by Achilles, the boys will be missed by their father, Priam, in Book XXII. This book is a relief, not because Achilles gives anybody any relief; that will come in Book XIV.
Andromache draws a hot bath, for Hector to slip into when he comes home from the war. Actually she has her maids heat the water, while she herself weaves flowers into a tapestry.
Mouth of stream forming border between Balıkesir and İzmir
Jove allowed the gods to aid whom they would, in the previous book of the Iliad; now, in Book XXI, they fight with one another. The god of fire attacks a river god; the god of war, the goddess of wisdom. This calls into question the notion of gods as personifications of abstract concepts.
The Wikipedia article “Superhero” traces the word itself to “at least 1917,” giving “such folkloric heroes as Robin Hood” as “Antecedents of the archetype.” I don’t know why Achilles should not be considered as an antecedent. According to the opening description,
A superhero is a type of heroic stock character, usually possessing supernatural or superhuman powers, who is dedicated to fighting the evil of their universe, protecting the public, and usually battling super-villains.
Achilles has superhuman powers; he has supernatural powers, when aided by the gods; and now in Book XX of the Iliad, as far as the Greeks are concerned, he is fighting the evil of their universe. However, the Trojans are not evil in Homer’s universe. There is no Manichaean principle of evil, and much less is Achilles personally devoted to fighting it.
Nonetheless, Book XX would seem to be a battle of the superheroes.
The scene from where I read as the sun went down
Polytropy 