Abstract
IN this book Prof. Collingwood is trying not to redefine metaphysics but to define it truly. That is to say, he is setting himself the task of elucidating its essential nature—that by which it has had significance for every age in which it has flourished. His book is therefore an apology for metaphysics rather than for metaphysicians. Indeed, as is to be expected from its aim, it also provides an apology for what the author terms “progressive anti-metaphysics”; that is, the reaction experienced by living minds at any given time against the work produced by those professional thinkers who have the prescriptive right to be called metaphysicians, but who do not clearly understand their work.
An Essay on Metaphysics
By R. G. Collingwood. (Philosophical Essays, Vol. 2.) Pp. x + 354. (Oxford: Clarendon Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1940.) 18s. net.
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BALDWIN, B. An Essay on Metaphysics. Nature 147, 7–8 (1941). https://doi.org/10.1038/147007a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/147007a0
