Hidden footnotes: J.A. Smith, R.G. Collingwood and Croce’s conception of history

Abstract

This article examines the role J.A. Smith played in introducing Croce’s conception of history into British philosophy. In particular, it examines his influence on R.G. Collingwood’s incorporation of the Italian idealist conception of history into his own philosophy. The contentions that Smith was a key popularizer of Italian idealist ideas into Britain and that he helped to shape Collingwood’s intellectual developed is not new. Yet these interrelated topics have not been explored in any great depth. Collingwood’s own reticence over his intellectual debt to Smith, a lack of interest in Smith and an unfamiliarity with his philosophy have all contributed to this neglect. This article seeks to redress this neglect through analysing how Smith nurtured Collingwood’s adoption of a Crocean conception of history. To achieve its aim, this article first analyses Smith’s own reception of Croce’s conception of history. From this, it presents a contextualist analysis of Collingwood’s development of a Crocean conception of history and the role Smith played in its adoption. Finally, this article examines why, despite Smith’s influence over his intellectual development, Collingwood failed to acknowledge the intellectual debt he owed to Smith.

Keywords:

• J.A. Smith
• British Idealism
• Italian Idealism
• R.G. Collingwood
• historiography
• Benedetto Croce
• inter-war years
• intellectual heritage

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to the anonymous reviewers, whose comments have improved this article. I would also like to thank Ms Sophie Barr for all her help with this article.

Notes

1. Peters, History as Thought and Action, i.

2. Peters, History as Thought and Action, 1.

3. Mure, “Benedetto Croce at Oxford,” 330.

4. Peters, History as Thought and Action, 124–8.

5. Peters, History as Thought and Action, 125.

6. Peters, History as Thought and Action, 125–6.

7. Peters, History as Thought and Action, 125–6.

8. Peters, History as Thought and Action, 127.

9. Metz, A Hundred Years of British Philosophy, 319–21; Passmore, A Hundred Years of Philosophy, 299–302.

10. Boucher, “Introduction” in Boucher The Scottish Idealists: Selected Philosophical, 5.

11. Paylor, “J. A. Smith, Human Imperfection and the Strange Afterlife of British Idealism,” 771–87.

12. Paylor, “J. A. Smith, Human Imperfection and the Strange Afterlife of British Idealism,” 785–6.

13. Boucher, The Social and Political Thought of R.G. Collingwood, 14; Connelly, Metaphysics, Method and Politics, 115; Patrick, The Magdalen Metaphysicals, 54.

14. Boucher, The Social and Political Thought of R.G. Collingwood, 14.

15. Inglis, History Man, 77.

16. Boucher, The Scottish Idealists.

17. Mander, British Idealism, 538–9.

18. Patrick, The Magdalen Metaphysicals, 45–95.

19. Eliot, “Letter to J. H. Woods.”

20. Ross, “Biography of J.A. Smith.”

21. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 229.

22. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 229.

23. Wenly, “Some Lights on the British Idealistic Movement in the Nineteenth Century,” 446.

24. Paton, “Fifty Years of Philosophy,” 341.

25. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 230.

26. Smith, “On Proving the Existence of God;” “On Religious Sympathy.”

27. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 229.

28. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 229.

29. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 228.

30. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 230–1.

31. Mure, “Bennetto Croce at Oxford,” 330.

32. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 235.

33. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 233.

34. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 237. See Croce, “La Storia della Natura e la Storia.”

35. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 240.

36. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 237.

37. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 241.

38. Smith, “The Contribution of Greece and Rome,” 69.

39. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 239. See Croce, “L'umanità della storia.”

40. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 235.

41. Smith, “The Contribution of Greece and Rome,” 72.

42. Smith, “The Contribution of Greece and Rome,” 71.

43. Smith, Knowing and Acting, 25.

44. Smith, Knowing and Acting, 10.

45. Smith, Knowing and Acting, 10.

46. Smith, Knowing and Acting, 6.

47. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 235. See Croce, “Intorno alla Storia Della Storiografia.”

48. Smith, Knowing and Acting, 8.

49. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 235.

50. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 235.

51. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 236.

52. Smith, Knowing and Acting.

53. Bosanquet, Three Lectures on Aesthetic, v; Harris, “Introduction,” 9.

54. Smith, “On Feeling,” 49–75.

55. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 233.

56. Smith, The Nature of Art; “Preface” in Croce, An Autobiography; “Benedetto Croce.”

57. Smith, “A Note of Carritt’s Account of Croce;” “Croce’s Theory of Art,” “Lecture of Croce and Contemporary Italian Idealism;” “The Aesthetics of Croce;” The Heritage of Idealism; Letter from Smith to Carritt (19 May 1933); Letter from Smith to Prichard (date unknown).

58. D'Oro and Connelly, “Robin George Collingwood.”

59. Collingwood, An Autobiography, 17.

60. Collingwood, An Autobiography, 17.

61. D'Oro and Connelly, “Robin George Collingwood.”

62. Collingwood, An Autobiography, 22.

63. Collingwood, An Autobiography, 22.

64. Collingwood, An Autobiography, 22.

65. Carritt, “Croce and His Aesthetic,” 452–64.

66. Connelly, Johnson and Leach, R.G. Collingwood, 15.

67. Patrick, “Is ‘The Theory of History’ (1914) Collingwood's First Essay on the Philosophy of History?,” 2.

68. Connelly, Johnson and Leach, R. G. Collingwood, 15.

69. Croce, The Philosophy of Giambattista Vico; Smith, “Review of H. Wildon Carr’s The Philosophy of Benedetto Croce,” 505.

70. Carritt, “Croce and His Aesthetic,” 452–64.

71. Smith, Knowing and Acting, 12.

72. Collingwood, “Notes on Endpaper to his Copy of Religion and Philosophy.”

73. Collingwood, Religion and Philosophy, 37–55.

74. Collingwood, Religion and Philosophy, 39.

75. Collingwood, Religion and Philosophy, 39.

76. Collingwood, Religion and Philosophy, 51.

77. Collingwood, Religion and Philosophy, 41.

78. Collingwood, Religion and Philosophy, 44.

79. Collingwood, Religion and Philosophy, 37.

80. Collingwood, Religion and Philosophy, 39.

81. Collingwood, Religion and Philosophy, 41.

82. Collingwood, Religion and Philosophy, 36.42.

83. Collingwood, Religion and Philosophy, 42.

84. Collingwood, The New Leviathan, 10.13–10.18.

85. Collingwood, Religion and Philosophy, 49.

86. Collingwood, Religion and Philosophy, 48.

87. Collingwood, Religion and Philosophy, 51.

88. Collingwood, Religion and Philosophy, 51.

89. Collingwood, Religion and Philosophy, 48.

90. Collingwood, Religion and Philosophy, 138.

91. Collingwood, Religion and Philosophy, 44.

92. Collingwood, Religion and Philosophy, 43.

93. Collingwood, Religion and Philosophy, 110.

94. Collingwood, An Autobiography, 44.

95. Collingwood, “Notes on Endpaper to his Copy of Religion and Philosophy.”

96. Smith, The Nature of Spirit and its Life.

97. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 233.

98. Now housed in the Collingwood Collection of the Bodleian, Oxford University.

99. Collingwood, An Autobiography, 44.

100. Collingwood, An Essay on Metaphysics, 34.

101. Collingwood, “Letter to Guido de Ruggiero (Mar 20 1921).”

102. Patrick, “Is ‘The Theory of History’ (1914) Collingwood's First Essay on the Philosophy of History?,” 2.

103. Collingwood, “Letter to Guido de Ruggiero (Nov. 4, 1920).”

104. Smith, “Preface” in Croce, An Autobiography, 1–18.

105. For example, Collingwood, “Letter to Smith (Nov 18 1932);” Smith, “Letter to Robin George Collingwood (Oct 1933);” Collingwood “Letter to J.A. Smith (Dec 16 1933).”

106. Collingwood, An Autobiography, 18.

107. Collingwood, “Letter to Benedetto Croce (May 29 1921).”

108. Collingwood, Speculum Mentis, 239–46.

109. Collingwood, Speculum Mentis, 239–46.

110. Collingwood, “Letter to Guido de Ruggiero (Nov. 16, 1924).”

111. Collingwood, The Historical Imagination, 5.

112. Muirhead, “Review of An Autobiography by R.G. Collingwood,” 90.

113. Harris, “Introduction” in Gentile, Genesis and Structure of Society, 14–15.

114. Boucher, The Social and Political Thought of R.G. Collingwood, 19.

115. Boucher, The Social and Political Thought of R.G. Collingwood, 19.

116. Boucher, The Social and Political Thought of R.G. Collingwood, 19.

117. Boucher, The Social and Political Thought of R.G. Collingwood, 19.

118. Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 232.

119. Patrick, The Magdalen Metaphysicals, 54.

120. Patrick, The Magdalen Metaphysicals, 54.

121. Underhill, Collingwood and Inge, "Can the New Idealism Dispense with Mysticism?," 148–84.

122. Collingwood, Speculum Mentis, 74, 76, 87.

123. Collingwood, An Autobiography, 18–19.

124. Grafton, The Footnote, 227–8.

125. Collingwood, “Letter to Benedetto Croce (Aug 20 1938).”

126. McCallum, Robin George Collingwood, 4.

127. Ryle, The Concept of Mind, xi.

128. Smith, Knowing and Acting, i.

129. Smith, The Nature of Art, 7.

130. Patrick, The Magdalen Metaphysicals, 70.

131. Mure, “Benedetto Croce at Oxford,” 330.

132. Matheson, The Life of Hastings Rashdall, 221.

133. Smith, Knowing and Acting; Smith, “Philosophy as the Development of the Notion and Reality of Self-Consciousness,” 225–44.

134. Collingwood, An Essay on Philosophical Method, 14.

135. Collingwood, An Autobiography, 17–18.

136. Later published: Prichard, Duty and Ignorance of Fact.

137. Patrick, “The Theory of History,” 4.

138. Collingwood, “Letter to Smith (Jun 27 1932).”

139. Collingwood, “Letter to Smith (9 October 1939).”

140. Smith, “Letter to Collingwood (Oct 1933).”