TY - BOOK AU - Dray,William H TI - History as re-enactment: R.G. Collingwood's idea of history SN - 019824293X AV - D16.8 .D688 1995 U1 - 901 20 PY - 1995/// CY - New York, New York PB - Oxford University Press, Oxford University Press KW - Collingwood, R. G. KW - History KW - Philosophy N1 - It include bibliographical information and index; Includes bibliographical references (pages 328-336) and index; 1. History and Philosophy -- 2. Re-enactment and Understanding -- 3. Re-enactment and Laws -- 4. Intellect, Rationality, Feeling -- 5. The Physical and the Social -- 6. The Historical Imagination -- 7. The Ideality of History -- 8. The Perspectivity of History N2 - A central motif of R.G. Collingwood's philosophy of history is the idea that historical understanding requires a re-enactment of past experience. However, there have been sharp disagreements about the acceptability of this idea, and even its meaning. This book aims to advance the critical discussion in three ways: by analysing the idea itself further, concentrating especially upon the contrast which Collingwood drew between it and scientific understanding; by exploring the limits of its applicability to what historians ordinarily consider their proper subject-matter; and by clarifying the relationship between it and some other key Collingwoodian ideas, such as the place of imagination in historical inquiry, the sense in which history deals with the individual, the essential perspectivity of historical judgement, and the importance of narrative and periodization in historical thinking; Professor Dray defends Collingwood against a good deal of recent criticism, while pointing to ways in which his position requires revision or development. History as Re-enactment draws upon a wide range of Collingwood's published writings, and makes considerable use of his unpublished manuscripts. It is the most systematic study yet of this central doctrine of Collingwood's philosophy of history, and will stand as a landmark in Collingwood studies ER -