On Collingwood’s Concept Of Philosophy From The Terms "Overlap Of Classes" And "Scale Of Forms"

Abstract:Collingwood’s An Essay on Philosophical Method didn’t attract broad attention in the field of philosophy. Therein, unusually, he confronted the question of what the philosophy is. And in my concern, with his comparing the fundamental difference of science(exact science and empirical science) and philosophy repeatedly, and showing the distinction of philosophical concepts between non-philosophical concepts by all means, the concept of Philosophy is clear up.First of all, An Essay on Philosophical Method begins with an assumption that philosophical concepts is unlike the ones which are mutually exclusive in exact sciences or experience sciences, while there are being overlapped between philosophical concepts as a different kind of class. As to, then, explain what relationship exists between the overlapping concepts, Collingwood suggest that they would then come into existence of a scale of forms in which each concept differ both in nature and in degree and both opposed to each other meanwhile distinct of each other. According to Collingwood’s method or principle, the definition of a concept is not to identify the special attributes of this concept, but rather the characterization of the scale of forms from the lowest level to a reasonable and orderly high one. Similarly, a philosophical judgment is the organic entirety of affirmative judgments and negative judgments. And the universal judgment together with the particular judgment is also an organic entirety. Thus, in philosophical thoughts, the essence (as the universal judgment) and the existential (known as the particular judgment) cannot be separated. Further, he concluded that philosophical argument is neither deductive nor inductive, but a series of continuous effort of broadening and deepening the inherent knowledge. Then, the meaning of "philosophy" must be a systematic in the sense of a scale of forms.Secondly, alongside my effort of in shed of the "method" of "On the philosophical method", I would articulate that the significance of the distinction between the two joints of "the overlapping of class" in terms of understanding Collingwood’s thought, namely, a conversion from "the distinction between philosophical concept and non-philosophical concept" to "the dynamic grasping of philosophical phase of philosophical concept and non-philosophical concept ", which seems more important than the principle of the overlapping of class. Qua this "aspect changing"(Wittgenstein’s words), philosophy will extend (actually retroact) from a determinate knowledge into a sort of philosophical insight. Just the "as-structure "(Heidegger’s words) belonging to this insight is peculiar "logical structure" of philosophical concept.Finally,when the western philosophy influenced by the fashion of analytic philosophy and phenomenology, Collingwood remained aloof from the world. But his all-round accomplishments and particular insight of philosophy should not be simply ignored by the sincere truth-seeker.