WC-Cult · Philosophy as Cultural Self-Knowledge: R. G. Collingwood, Peter Winch and the Human Sciences

Philosophy as Cultural Self-Knowledge: R. G. Collingwood, Peter Winch and the Human Sciences

During the twentieth century, the idea of philosophy and the human sciences generally as the pursuit of cultural self-knowledge found powerful proponents in two leading philosophers of history and the social sciences: R.G. Collingwood (1889–1943) and Peter Winch (1926–1997). Theirs remains a minority view – an important reason being the fact that the debate, according to the project hypothesis, really turns on the tacit question of the nature of philosophy as a whole. Is philosophy one of the sciences, making discoveries of the world and its nature; or is it (as Collingwood and Winch maintained) a second-order inquiry, investigating the conceptual conditions of meaningful thinking? The aim was to confront these two thinkers and tease out their underlying visions of philosophy. The present project has reopened questions about (1) the place of philosophy among the sciences, as well as (2) issues concerning the very nature of philosophical inquiry and (3) its impact on civil society and its challenges. Up to now, the relation between Collingwood and Winch has remained almost completely unexplored. The relationship between philosophy and human historicity, which was a key issue for both, presently remains underdeveloped in the analytic tradition. The research has taken advantage of extensive manuscript material available at the Centre for Ethics as Study in Human Value (CE) at the University of Pardubice (UPa). The CE has the unique combination of full access to relevant Peter Winch manuscripts and a team of scholars knowledgeable in the tradition to which Winch belonged. The project furthermore included a visits to the Collingwood Archives at Oxford and Winch Archives at King’s College London, and interaction with scholars of Collingwood and British Idealism. The scholarship will enhance the CE’s reputation as the ‘go-to’ place for anyone doing research in the post-Wittgensteinian tradition. It will help the Investigator (ER) establish his reputation as a global expert and to expand his research network towards scholars on idealism. The input of the humanities and social sciences is vital in fostering a viable civil society. Informed public debate concerning the good life needs the kind of reflexive cultural self-understanding that they can offer. The view of the human sciences as a culturally sensitive exercise in self-examination provides a contrast to the frequent mobilisation of history and memory politics in the service of war agendas. The project has resulted in a new understanding of the commonalities between Winch and Collingwood, based on material that was previously either unknown or had not been scrutinised from this perspective. The project highlights the relevance of their visions of logic and epistemology to the practices of the human sciences.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union