Values of Liberalism

One of the great British scholars of the twentieth century, R. G. Collingwood is chiefly remembered today as the author of three books: The Idea of History, The Idea of Nature, and The Principles of Art. All are remarkable works of philosophical inquiry. Yet Collingwood was also a historian, the author, with J. N. L. Myres, of Roman Britain and the English Settlements; and in the argument he was advancing all his life, the two vocations were deeply connected. Thought has a history: it is always an attempt to answer certain questions which themselves are posed in the language of a certain time and place. It follows that all ideas grow out of human needs. Ideas, however, are not therefore reducible to an express...