ABSTRACT
My first encounter with Collingwood was, very much by chance, through the pages of An Essay on Philosophical Method (EPM). I was so struck by the elegance of the prose and the insights into the nature of the method and task of philosophy contained within it, that I could not understand how such a book could possibly have escaped my attention until then. To this day, I keep wondering why such a jewel of philosophical reflection has received so little attention. My admiration for EPM is, to some extent, reflected in the present book, as it has coloured my approach to Collingwood’s work as a whole. Often, it was Collingwood’s account of the subject matter, method and task of philosophical inquiry, as outlined in EPM, that guided me through the reading of his later philosophy. It was Collingwood’s claims concerning the nature of philosophical concepts and distinctions, and how they differ from empirical concepts and classifications, which made my understanding of both An Essay on Metaphysics (EM) and The Idea of History (IH) so much easier.
