R.G.Collingwood's Theory Of Re-Enactment And Its Influence On Historical Understanding

The England philosopher and historian R.GCollingwood maintained that precise historical knowledge come from the re-enactment of historian mind. Many scholars criticized idealism about his attitude; as a result, they ignored the essence under it. On the basis of gathering many works and articles by R.GCollingwood , the author reorganized the logic thinking and content of his theory of re-enactment and analyzed deeply the influence on the analytic philosophy of history, and criticized it by the development of the modern social sciences and Humanities and the view of Marxism.By opposing positivism and the influence on philosophy of life of Dlithey and Croce, Collingwood established the theory of re-enactment on the basis of his logic of question and answer. His theory approached the definite way of historical knowledge, and criticized the false history called scissors and paste history which based on the "solid" historical event that did not connect with subject of historical understanding. It proposed that true history consisted of thought under historical event.The task of historian is to find thought, that is to say, to find the "question/problem" of event in historian mind. Meantime historical relics and remains in the face of historian are only "questions". Only by reenacting the "question/problem", historian can return to the living aspect of history in the historian mind. The activity is not only wild guess, absurd thinking and free feeling, but also make use of historical evidence as knot and button; it complete with historian selection, construction, and criticism.R.GCollingwood criticized the abstract of speculative philosophy of history...