All history is art, because to tell a story is art, whereas to tell a true story is history: thus history is art, but a specification of art, art qua… - R. G. Collingwood

The word art has in ordinary usage three senses. First, it means the creation of objects or the pursuit of activities called works of art, by people called artists ; these works being distinguished from other objects and acts not merely as human products, but as products intended to be beautiful. Secondly, it means the creation of objects or the pursuit of activities called artificial as opposed to natural; that is to say objects created or activities pursued by human beings consciously free to control their natural impulses and to organize their life in a plan. Thirdly, it means that frame of mind which we call artistic, the frame of mind in which we are aware of beauty.

The chief business of twentieth-century philosopy is to reckon with twentieth-century history.

History is for human self-knowledge…the only clue to what man can do is what man has done. The value of history, then, is that it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is.