In fact, I'm working on an essay comparing their approaches to history and statecraft. The analysis will center around three major points. First, their shared conviction in the unpredictability of the human world and thus the inadequacy of prescriptive theories and doctrines. Second, their belief that the unpredictability of the human world could only be handled by human intelligence. And third, their idea that the best way to train the mind to handle the unpredictability of the world was to use historical study as a form of mental simulation that could give one an improved capacity for observation and improvisation in difficult situations.
Right now, however, I would simply like to draw your attention to another goal they shared: to invent a form of theory that would greatly reduce, if not fully negate, the distinction between theory and practice.
If you've read An Autobiography or The New Leviathan then you ought to know that one of Collingwood's life goals was to find a way to fuse theory and practice. Similarly, Clausewitz is adamant that his approach to the theory in On War will greatly reduce the conflict that exists between theory and practice.
They both accomplish this task by claiming that theory is fundamentally about the accurate observation of reality rather than the creation of rules or doctrines that can prescribe action. Both men formulated their views in response to the dominant approaches to theory in their time. Clausewitz's contemporaries were concerned with discovering the timeless features of war so that they could hopefully deduce rules that could form of a positive, prescriptive doctrine. Similarly, Collingwood's contemporaries placed their faith in mathematical, rule based understandings of reality. Neither Clausewitz nor Collingwood were persuaded by their contemporaries, and decided instead that difficult situations could only be handled by a form of intelligence that was able to grasp reality directly and make decisions without the aid of prescriptive rules.
Their theories, therefore, were aimed at improving one's capacity for the observation of reality. As Collingwood noted, "Rules of action kept action at a low potential, because they involved a certain blindness to the realities of the situation. If action was to be raised to a higher potential, the agent must open his eyes wider and see more clearly the situation in which he was acting" (An Autobiography, 106, my emphasis). Clausewitz similarly claims that "The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgement that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish by that test the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into, something that is alien to its nature" (Clausewitz, On War, 100). Clausewitz indeed refers to a kind of war here, but the emphasis is clearly on perceiving the uniqueness of a situation beyond categorization. Similarly, Clausewitz notes that those experienced with war have this capacity for seeing clearly into the particularity of their situation: "In war the experienced soldier reacts rather in the same way as the human eye does in the dark: the pupil expands to admit what little light there is, discerning objects by degrees, and finally seeing them distinctly. By contrast, the novice is plunged into the deepest night" (Ibid., 141).
That Clausewitz's theory is meant to used foremost as an aid to the observation of reality's uniqueness is further enforced by his writing in Book II of On War. He argues that "theory need not be a positive doctrine, a sort of manual for action" (Ibid., 162). It is rather "inquiry which is the most essential part of any theory, and which may quite appropriately claim the title. It is an analytical investigation leading to a close acquaintance with the subject; applied to experience – in our case, to military history – it leads to thorough familiarity with it. The closer it comes to this goal, the more it proceeds from the objective form of a science to the subjective form of a skill, the more effective it will provide in areas where the nature of the case admits no arbiter but talent. It will, in fact, become an active ingredient in talent.... Theory then becomes a guide to anyone who wants to learn about war from books; it will light his way, ease his progress, train his judgment, and help him to avoid pitfalls" (Ibid., 163). One, then, is never to separate theory and observation. Clausewitz's theoretical propositions shall be used only as an aid to the observation of history, leading to the familiarity and acquaintance that he describes. Do not mistake Clausewitz on this point, theory is never to be separated from the observation of reality. "Analysis and observation, theory and experience," Clausewitz wrote, "must never disdain or exclude each other; on the contrary, they support each other" (Ibid., 69).
Theory as inquiry, and not as doctrine, is thus meant to train an individual to observe the uniqueness of the situation that actually confronts them. Only if one is able to cast aside the generalizations that so often accompany our approach to reality will they be able to fully confront reality and call forth an appropriate action. Theory, as a set of general propositions, are valid only so far as they assist in the observation of reality. Theory, Clausewitz writes, "is meant to educate the mind of the future commander, or, more accurately, to guide him in his self-education, not to accompany him to the battlefield; just as a wise teacher guides and stimulates a young man's intellectual development, but is careful not to lead him by the hand for the rest of his life" (Ibid.). Clausewitz's theory, then, is not a set of doctrines and rules, but a set of concepts that are meant to be used as an aid to the accurate observation of reality.
The gulf between theory and practice is greatly reduced using this approach. When one is engaging in the theoretically informed observation of military history one is exercising the same mental faculties that one must exercise in the actual conduct of war. Such a theoretical inquiry is meant to strengthen one's ability to perceive the uniqueness of a situation, which is a domain independent capacity.
Collingwood formulated his rapprochement between theory and practice in strikingly similar terms. In The New Leviathan Collingwood speaks explicitly of the difference between practical and theoretical reason. Theoretical reason, he argues, is the means by which we explain the world around us, including both the natural and human world. Practical reason, on the other hand, is the means by which we explain our own behavior. Collingwood is adamant, moreover, that there is always a direct relationship between theoretical and practical reason, between the language we use to explain others and that we use to explain ourselves.
Collingwood regards history as a highly developed form of theoretical reason. When we explain the people around us through the lens of history, he argues, we view their actions in terms of particularity and necessity. "To think historically," he argues, "is to explore a world consisting of things other than myself, each of them an individual or unique agent, in an individual or unique situation, doing an individual or unique action which he has to do because, charactered and circumstanced as he is, he can do no other" (Collingwood, The New Leviathan, 18.52). To think historically is therefore to think in terms of uniqueness and particularity. The historian sees pas situations simply as they were, never reducing them to a classification.
History as a form of theoretical reason, Collingwood argues, finds its practical counterpart in what he calls 'duty'. To act dutifully is to engage with the present in the same way that a historian engages with the past: as a unique situation that calls for a unique action. Collingwood puts this clearly: "A man's duty on a given occasion is the act which for him is both possible and necessary: the act which at that moment character and circumstance combine to make it inevitable, if he has a free will, that he should freely will to do it" (Ibid., 17.8). History and duty are therefore corresponding forms of theoretical and practical reason because they both engage reality in terms of particularity rather than generality. Or as he put it, "The consciousness of duty is thus identical with the consciousness of historical consciousness" (Goodness, Rightness, Utility, in The New Leviathan, 477).
It is important to note that this distinction was Collingwood's response to what he saw as a predilection for rule based explanations in both theory and practice. He argued that modern Europe was dominated by the rule based functioning of natural science (theoretical reason) and rule based 'regularian' theories of moral and political action (practical reason) (See The New Leviathan, 18.4-18.45). It was his ambition to articulate a corresponding theoretical and practical reason that could overcome the limitations of rule based moral and political action. In other words, Collingwood wanted to champion history as a way of learning to observe the world in terms of particularity so that individuals could learn to treat their own lives in the same way and thus embrace a form of action that does not rely on rules.
We should immediately note Clausewitz's claim that "what genius does is the best rule" (On War, 157).
Collingwood believes that historical and dutiful thought are mutually reinforcing habits. "The more a man accustoms himself to thinking historically," he argues, "the more he will accustom himself to thinking what course of action it is his duty to do, as distinct from asking what it is expedient for him to do and what it is right for him to do; and the more he will accustom himself to thinking in the same way of other people's actions explaining them to himself not by saying 'this person did this action in pursuit of such and such an end' or 'in obedience to such and such a rule' but 'because it was his duty'" (The New Leviathan, 28.9). Collingwood's hope is that historical study will impart a domain independent skill for observing the particularities of our world. Dutiful action and historical study enforce one another by helping us continually open ourselves to the uniqueness of the world, 'expanding to admit what little light there is, discerning objects by degrees, and finally seeing them distinctly'. This capacity for individualized observation and action, Collingwood believed, was essential if humans are to learn to skillfully handle moral and political problems. In history and duty we thus see not only Collingwood's rapprochement of theory and practice, but an elaboration of his claim in the Autobiography that history is the science of human affairs, the method "from which men could learn to deal with human situations as skilfully as natural science had taught them to deal with situations in the world of Nature..." (An Autobiography, 115).
The link between Clausewitz and Collingwood is rich. I hope I've persuaded you that their approaches to the rapprochement of theory and practice were remarkably similar. I only hoped to pursue that limited aim here. There is much more for me to explore in the relationship between these two excellent thinkers.
The most pressing question I have is where Collingwood's claims about history as a form of mental reenactment. Lie in all of this. I'm almost certain that reenactment is at the heart of his concept of the science of human affairs. Yet I'm struck by such a question.
Why didn't Collingwood speak of reenactment in The New Leviathan? How could he possibly formulate his ideas on history and duty while completely leaving out the concept of reenactment, the thing he most strongly identifies with history with in An Autobiography and The Idea of History?
I intend to pursue those questions in the essay I'm working on.
No comments:
Post a Comment