Total imagination and ontology in R. G. Collingwood

In The Principles of Art, R. G. Collingwood pursues, on the one hand, a ‘definition’ of art, and, on the other, a ‘metaphysics’.1 The Principles is divided into three Books. Book I is devoted mostly to craft, while Book II pertains largely to metaphysics. The fact that Book II is twice the size of Book III, where the discussion of ‘art proper’ takes place, is proof enough that the metaphysical part of the Principles is not a mere excursus. Collingwood’s ontology is indispensable for understanding his aesthetics, and vice versa. The crucial link is the imagination. What Collingwood calls ‘total imaginative experience’ is described in the Principles as the sine qua non of both thought and sensibility. The aim of this article is to examine the ontological import of Collingwood’s conception of the total imagination.2 This task involves linking the discussion of aesthetics in The Principles of Art to Collingwood’s other books. The criticism that the Principles ignores the materialization of the artwork is mistaken as, according to Collingwood, it is superfluous to prove their existence. This position stems from Collingwood’s understanding of the relation between realism and scepticism, and is thus linked to his metaphysics. I show how this evolves out of Collingwood’s conception of thinking as a search and of experience as a circle of the self and reality. Collingwood’s total imagination facilitates access to the circle because it is prior both to sensation and thought. Thus, the total imagination is distinct from the sensible and the creative imaginations. An examination of the manuscript ‘Realism and Idealism’ shows that the total imagination makes it possible to move beyond epistemology and into an ontology of reality. Further, the total imagination reveals the importance of art to ontology. A comparison between Collingwood and the philosophy of Heidegger and Gadamer shows that Collingwood’s ontology overcomes the idealist demand for autonomy and moves towards an hermeneutics