1 I have used the following abbreviations for Collingwood's, R. G. writings: A: An Autobiography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978)Google Scholar. EM: An Essay on Metaphysics (rev. ed.) with The Nature of Metaphysical Study, Function of Metaphysics in Civilization, Notes for an Essay on Logic, edited and with an Introduction by Rex Martin. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).Google ScholarEPM: An Essay on Philosophical Method (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933)Google Scholar. FMC: “The Function of Metaphysics in Civilization.” Unpublished manuscript, 1937-38. (Selected as appendix in EM, pp. 379–421.)Google ScholarIHV: The Idea of History, edited by Knox, T. M.. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946)Google Scholar. IHv: The Idea of History. Rev. ed., with Lectures 1926-1928, edited and with an Introduction by Jan van der Dussen. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993)Google Scholar. IN: The Idea of Nature, edited by Knox, T. M.. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1945)Google Scholar. MM: “Method and Metaphysics.” Unpublished manuscript, 1935Google Scholar. NMS: “The Nature of Metaphysical Study.” Unpublished manuscript, 1934. (Selected as appendix in EM, pp. 356–78.)Google ScholarPHCR: “The Philosophy of the Christian Religion.” Unpublished manuscript, 1920. RI: “Realism and Idealism.” Unpublished manuscript, 1936. SM: Speculum Mentis or the Map of Knowledge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924)Google Scholar.

2 A, p. 44; cfr.: “For one thing it will convince the metaphysician, if it is honestly done, that there are no ‘eternal’ or ‘crucial’ or ‘central’ problems in metaphysics. It will rid him of the parish-pump idea that the metaphysical problems of his own generation or, more likely, the one next before his own are the problems that all metaphysicians have been worrying about ever since the world began” (EM, p. 72); “The metaphysicians who believe in eternal problems are bad historians, or they would not believe in eternal problems. Being bad historians they do not know what the problems of the great classical metaphysicians were. They read into them the problems of their own time, or rather the time just before their own” (EM, p. 86).

3 “But if the ‘realism’ of my youth is dead, it has left not only a heritage of general prejudice against philosophy as such, but a partial heir. Its propositional logic . . . has inspired a school of thought which is continuing the work of jettisoning whatever can be recognized as positive doctrine by reviving the old positivistic attack on metaphysics” (A, p. 52).

4 EPM, p. 195Google Scholar.

5 IH, pp. vii–xxiii;Google ScholarTomlin, E. W. F., Collingwood, R. G (London: Longmans, Green, 1953), pp. 34–35;Google Scholar and , A.Donagan, , The Later Philosophy of R. G. Collingwood (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), pp. 251–84Google Scholar.

6 The term “radical-conversion-hypothesis” was coined by Lionel Rubinoff in his “Collingwood and the Radical Conversion Hypothesis,” Dialogue, 5 (1966): 71–83Google Scholar.

7 “An Essay on Philosophical Method I wrote during a long illness in 1932. It is my best book in matter; in style, I may call it my only book, for it is the only one I ever had the time to finish as well as I knew how, instead of leaving it in a more or less rough state” (A, p. 118).

8 It is also important that, from 1992 onwards, a number of manuscripts have been published in the revised editions of Collingwood's works. See An Essay on Metaphysics (rev. ed.) with The Nature of Metaphysical Study, Function of Metaphysics in Civilization, Notes for an Essay on Logic; The Idea of History, rev. ed. with Lectures 1926–1928Google Scholar.

9 For more information concerning the untenability of the radical-conversion hypothesis, see my “Collingwood's Metaphysics: Not a Science of Pure Being, but Still a Science of Being,” International Philosophical Quarterly (June 1998): 153–74Google Scholar.

10 Harris, E. E., “Collingwood on Eternal Problems,” The Philosophical Quarterly, 10 (1951): 228–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Bertoldi, E. F., “Collingwood and Eternal Philosophical Problems,” Dialogue, 24 (1985): 387–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Harris, , “Collingwood on Eternal Problems,” p. 235.Google Scholar

13 Ibid. Cfr.: “The denial of eternal problems in this sense, then, would make nonsense of the whole history of philosophy and would render contemporary thought completely unintelligible” (p. 241).

14 Ibid. p. 234.

15 Ibid. pp. 239-40.

16 Bertoldi, , “Collingwood and Eternal Philosophical Problems,” p. 388Google Scholar.

17 Ibid. p. 390

18 Ibid. p. 397.

19 PHCR, p. 12.

20 Ibid., p. 12.

21 EM, p. 73.

22 This manuscript was selected only in part (pp. 13-31 of the total 31 pages) as an appendix to the revised edition of An Essay on Metaphysics, pp. 356–78Google Scholar.

23 EM (The Nature of Metaphysical Study), p. 14Google Scholar.

24 Ibid., pp. 14-15, cf. EM, pp. 357–58Google Scholar.

25 NMS, p. 15;Google Scholar cf. EM, p. 358Google Scholar.

26 Bertoldi, , “Collingwood and Eternal Philosophical Problems,” p. 397Google Scholar.

27 “Among Oxford philosophers of the 1920s and 30s, R. G. Collingwood had the reputation of being a lone wolf” (S. Toulmin in his Introduction to An Autobiography, p. x).

28 Ryle, G., “Mr. Collingwood and the Ontological Argument,” Mind, AA (1935): 137–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 The first chapter, The Elimination of Metaphysics, is devoted to the destruction of the possibility of metaphysical knowledge. This chapter appears, at least to some degree, to have spurred the writing of EM.

30 The only way in which metaphysical propositions are verifiable is in a historical way: see FMC, p. 45;Google Scholar cfr. EM, pp. 408–409Google Scholar.

31 EM, p. 163. This argument heavily relies on Connelly, J., “Metaphysics and Method: A Necessary Unity in the Philosophy of R. G.Collingwood,” Srona, antropologia e scienze del linguaggio, 5 (1990): 33–156Google Scholar, especially pp. 82-83.

32 “Mr. President, when you did me the honour of inviting me to read a paper to this society you did me the further honour of telling me that, in your opinion, the society would like to hear how the ideas on philosophical method which I stated in a book some time ago could be applied to metaphysical problems” (MM, p. 1).

33 Ibid., p. 1. This issue is worked out more thoroughly in my “Collingwood's Metaphysics,” pp. 161-65.

34 This manuscript is incomplete: only pp. 29-52 are left. It was selected by Rex Martin as an appendix to the revised edition of EM, pp. 379–421Google Scholar.

35 FMC, pp. 51–52;Google Scholar cfr. EM, p. 420Google Scholar.

36 Both references to Alexander and Kant are explored in IN, pp. 162–63Google Scholar.

37 RI, pp. 99–100Google Scholar.

38 Ibid., p. 102.

39 FMC, p. 52.

40 RI, p. 104.

41 A, p. 66.

42 For a more thorough treatment of this issue, see my “Collingwood's Metaphysics,” pp. 165–70.

43 Bertoldi, , “Collingwood and Eternal Philosophical Problems,” p. 397Google Scholar.