John Karabelas

This paper suggests that Collingwood's fairy tales writings can be read as a historical study on the origins of European religion. His interest in fairy tales belongs to a clear tradition, whose members include John Ruskin, Benedetto Croce and most importantly Giambattista Vico, that realised the potential of fairy tales as evidence for historical knowledge. In this context fairy tales should be understood as myths that are not symbols but truthful, poetically expressed, narrations of the lives and societies of past people. Furthermore the connection of certain of those myths with religion was also recognised as an important element. Collingwood in his fairy tales study extends and clarifies this line of inquiry. He interprets certain themes of fairy tales as myths, suggesting that the origins of European religion and society can be detected in the totemistic beliefs of the pre-Neolithic people

British idealism is usually regarded as having been, in the main, indifferent to the problems of the philosophy of history. The interest in the philosophy of history found in German, and later in Italian, idealism was allegedly not shared by the early generations of the British idealists. At best they are regarded as unwitting precursors of things to come, some of their reflections paving the way for subsequent advances in historical thinking. The British idealists, however, were not as economical with their historical pronouncements as commonly believed. A more careful examination of their general writings and lesser known contributions reveals a more complex picture. One of stronger historical consciousness, knowledge of the philosophical developments in history, interest in its problems, and active involvement with historical scholarship. Further study will certainly illuminate the details of the entire character of British idealism with regard to its historical concerns.

In the fairy tales writings that R.G. Collingwood wrote in the mid-1930s there is a brief passage where he contrasts taboo -a type of magic according to his classification- and the law. The comparison is instructive in that he, essentially, attempted to present a case for a less rationalistic law, one that would be free from the vagaries and negative effect of utilitarianism. His aim was to restore the concept of the law and the rule of law as necessary aspects of civilisation. Where justice should be considered not as a means to an end but as having an intrinsic value of its own. At the same time his description of taboo, as a system that regulates human conduct, asserts strongly the presence of such elements in other, 'primitive' societies that may alert the more modern ones to a different, almost forgotten manner of expressing a civilised life.