The New Leviathan: Or Man, Society, Civilization and Barbarism [Paperback]

R. G. Collingwood (Author), David Boucher (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0198238800 | ISBN-13: 978-0198238805 | Edition: Revised

The New Leviathan, originally published in 1942, a few months before the author's death, is the book which R. G. Collingwood chose to write in preference to completing his life's work on the philosophy of history. It was a reaction to the Second World War and the threat which Nazism and Fascism constituted to civilization. The book draws upon many years of work in moral and political philosophy and attempts to establish the multiple and complex connections between the levels of consciousness, society, civilization, and barbarism. Collingwood argues that traditional social contract theory has failed to account for the continuing existence of the non-social community and its relation to the social community in the body politic. He is also critical of the tendency within ethics to confound right and duty. The publication of additional manuscript material in this revised edition demonstrates in more detail how Collingwood was determined to show that right and duty occupy different levels of rational practical consciousness. The additional material also contains Collingwood's unequivocal rejection of relativism.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In his respectful and informative introduction David Boucher shows how The New Leviathan and the additional material appended to it fit in with Collingwood's thought as a whole."--History of Political Thought

About the Author

R. G. Collingwood was Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy in the University of Oxford from 1935 to 1941.

Product Details

• Paperback: 592 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; Revised edition (April 29, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198238800
• ISBN-13: 978-0198238805
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,558,567 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Profound Analysis of History, Society and Civilization, February 25, 2004

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Reference Librarian (Kentucky) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The New Leviathan: Or Man, Society, Civilization and Barbarism (Paperback)

The terse style of this book, written in numbered paragraphs, accents the rigorous thought and analysis. This is the epitome of 40 years of prolific work in all the subject areas covered, by one of the most original minds of the past century. The short history of philosophy should go -- Plato -- Kant -- Collingwood.

The book is an apology (in the classic sense of that term) for Civilization. Here is an example of his style and what you can expect:

New Leviathan 37.18: "The will to civilization is the will to earn one's own self-respect and the respect of the other members of one's own community; and this is done (36.93) by the sheer exercise of will, joining with these others to do something about the situation in which you find yourselves."

Very rewarding reading. Highly recommended.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Collinwood New Leviathan, February 5, 2009

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George S. Crockett (Franklin, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The New Leviathan: Or Man, Society, Civilization and Barbarism (Paperback)

The author's purpose for this book is to update Hobbs's Leviathan which "is the world's greatest store of political wisdom," in the author's opinion.
This is one of those books which needs to be read through the first time expecting not to understand a whole lot, then read through one or more additional times for understanding.
From page 1:
"What is Man? Before beginning to answer the question, we must know why it is asked. It is asked because we are beginning an inquiry into civilization, and the revolt against it which is the most conspicuous thing going on at the present time. Civilization is a condition of communities; so to understand what civilization is we must first understand what a community is. A community is a condition of men, in which are included women and children; so to understand what a community is we must first understand what men are. This gives us the scheme of the present book: Part I, an inquiry into man; Part II, an inquiry into communities; Part III, an inquiry into civilizations; and Part IV, an inquiry into revolts against civilization."
Vast expanses of this book were just a sea of words to me, but with an occasional island of a sentence or paragraph or longer passage that made sense, maybe even was very pregnant with knowledge and insight, until I got to chapter XXVI, page 192, "Democracy and Aristocracy." There more chapters than not begin to make more sense than not. A pearl of wisdom: The French Revolution sought to bestow political power on the bourgeoisie and to destroy political power that was not pro-bourgeoisie (198-199). And in those portions that I thought I understood, I did find plenty to disagree with (perhaps, in some cases at least, because I did not understand). For example, "the abolition of poverty entails the abolition of riches" (327). My own opinion is that riches accrued through politics and robbery certainly contribute to poverty but riches accrued through work and organization reduce poverty; and on p. 206: "Reverting to the distinction between aristocracy and democracy, we observe that the principle of aristocracy is the principle of force, whereby the more powerful rules the less powerful in virtue of his superior power; the principle of democracy is the principle of self-government, whereby a society rules itself." To which I say, malarkey. Democracy is just power accrued by a different means, nor need aristocracy be, any less than democracy, a self-government whereby a society rules itself, nor democracy any more a self-government than aristocracy.
A key term for readers of this book to understand is "dialectical" which can mean discussion by people holding two opposed positions intending to settle on one position-each discussant to see the errors in his position and the strengths in the opposing position until they come together in one position, or nearly so.
"Being civilized means living, so far as possible, dialectically, that is, in constant endeavour to convert every occasion of non-agreement into an occasion of agreement. A degree of force is inevitable in human life; but being civilized means cutting it down, and becoming more civilized means cutting it down still further" (326).
Collingwood says that civilization has three attributes: 1) civility to members of one's own community, p. 291-292, 2) intelligent exploitation of nature, p. 292-294 & 301-304, and 3) civility to members of other communities, p. 294-295. On page 332 is the most important thing in the book, Law and order mean strength. Men who respect the rule of law are by daily exercise building up the strength of their own wills; becoming more and more capable of mastering themselves and other men and the world of nature. They are becoming daily more and more able to control their own desires and passions and to crush all oppositon to the carrying-out of their intentions. They are becoming day by day less liable to be bullied or threatened or cajoled or frightened into courses they would not adopt of their own free will by men who would drive them into doing things in the only way in which men can drive others into doing things; by arousing in them passions or desires or appetites they cannot control."
Chapter XXXVII, "Civilization As Education," is brilliant. Civilization is being civil, the skill of being civil is the result of education, and education is mostly had (and best had when the parents do it rightly, or better, don't do it poorly) from keeping company with parents (308-317). It would be excellent for a principles of civilization course (were there such a thing). And more on this:
In the case of the family, the agent in this process [civilizing the community] is the parental society, and the name of the process is education....To take the education of children out of their parents' hands and put it in the hands of the king (or, as we nowadays say, `the state') demonstrates a charming loyalty to the king and trust in his omnipotence; but it is taking a job away from those who can do it and handing it over to those who cannot. This dodge for the avoidance of responsibility is very common to-day and is becoming commoner. I shall call it `Passing the Baby' (338).
On the community standard of civilization:
"A community among which the peace is adequately kept by converting occasions of non-agreement into occasions of agreement and thus averting quarrels before they happen is called a well mannered community. I will ask the reader to think how a tradition of good manners comes to exist in a community. For myself, the most beautiful manners I have met with are in countries where men carry knives and, if anybody gives them a nasty word or a nasty look stick them into him. I have also been deeply impressed by the good manners I have found all my life in English public-houses, where I have never had a cross word or a cross look myself and never seen or heard one addressed to anybody else. I wish I could say as much for what is called polite society. English manners are the product of English fisticuffs. They are not so polished as manners in Crete or Spain; but fists are not so polished as knives. But in each case the tradition of good manners is the outcome of a tradition that in one way or antoher men keep their own peace. A tradition of this sort, once established, is easy to maintain. No man need use his fists in a modern English public-house, or even look as if he could. Unless he is exceptionally clever with them, he had better not try. It is not (as might be thought by confirmed baby-passers) that the chucker-out keeps men polite, any more than the policeman keeps them honest. They keep themselves polite and honest. They have been civilized up to that point; and being civilized they value their civilization and keep themselves by their own free will up to the standard they now recognize" (338-339).
On civilization in general: "...there is no such thing as civilization....there are only innumerable and variously distant approximations to it, a kaleidoscope of patterns all more or less akin to the ideal..." (347-348).
Chapter XLI, "What Barbarism Is," is introduced thus: "I distinguish two ways of being uncivilized. I call them savagery and barbarism, and distinguish them as follows. Savagery is a negative idea. It means not being civilized, and that is all. In practice, I need hardly say, there is no such thing as absolute savagery; there is only relative savagery, that is, being civilized up to a certain point and no more. By barbarism I mean hostility towards civilization; the effort, conscious or unconscious, to become less civilized than you are, either in general or in some special way, and, so far as in you lies, to promote a similar change in others" (342).
And further into chapter XLI, "What ensures the defeat of barbarism is not so much the enormous diversity of existing civilizations, too numerous for any conqueror to dream of overcoming; it is the literally infinite possibility of varying the nature of the thing called civilizaiton, leaving it recognizable in this diversity; a possibility which will be exploited as soon as success in a barbarian attack stimulates the inventive powers of civilization to look for new channels of development. For example, under the destructive energy of barbarism's first onslaught it may seem dreadful that the monuments of civilization in brick and mortar, in paint and canvas, in human customs and institutions, should be destroyed. But these things are not civilization itself, they are only examples of what it can do. What made them once can make them again; their destruction is a challenge to such remaking; it can be an ineffective challenge only if the creative power is already dead. It may seem dreadful if the same fate has overcome the means of subsistence for a whole conutry-side; but few countries, if any, and perhaps no civilized countries are fertile by nature; it is civilization that has made them fertile in the past; and civilization, working by degrees, as civilization always works, can make them fertile again" (348).
"The defeat of barbarism...is always certain in the long run" because "there must always be partisans of civilization who are ready to go on defending it, whatever happens, until its cause is victorious" (348). These partisans do not come from weak families; they come from families such as are described in chapter XXXVII: two-parent families who educate their children at home whether or not they send the children to state schools. This education may be as with barbarism, conscious or unconscious, but either way, it takes place in strong families. Parents who are more into whether a divorce will make them feel better, than they are into feeling for their children, do not give the sort of education that produces partisans of civilization; parents who are more into sexual... Read more ›

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars R. G. Collingwood, February 25, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The New Leviathan: Or Man, Society, Civilization and Barbarism (Paperback)

This is the book you want to read about Politics, Human Relations and Civilization by one of the great philosophers of our time.

Highly Recommended.