The purpose of Hadrian's Wall according to Collingwood: An illustration of the logic of question and answer

Abstract

In his autobiography, Collingwood illustrates what he calls “the logic of question and answer” with several examples, one of which is his solution to the question of the purpose of the wall that the Romans built roughly between present-day England and Scotland under Hadrian and later emperors. The purpose of this paper is to present an annotated translation of Collingwood’s article in which he sets out that solution. By carefully analyzing his argumentation, it is possible to show how the logic of question and answer works in detail. Given the place that Collingwood's works occupy in the curriculum of undergraduate students of history in this country, this way of explaining the logic of question and answer seems to be the most suitable for students to gain access to a powerful heuristic and hermeneutic tool both to better understand historians’ arguments and to better construct their own.