Let us say that a someone is Collingwood paradoxical to the extent that it is widely acknowledged that she is not sufficiently acknowledged.*
Collingwood paradoxicality is intrinsically unstable, and can be the way-station either to greater or lesser acknowledgement. The Velvet Underground and the Stooges were Collingwood paradoxical for the decades when one used to constantly hear "they only sold a thousand albums, but everyone who bought one started a band." But at some point, for example, fans of REM decided that it was worthwhile to listen to the Velvet Underground alongside them.
Largely because it's so much more work to read philosophy than to listen to music, the direction in philosophy almost invariably tends to go the other way, with periods of Collingwood paradoxicality leading to greater obscurity. I think that Hans Vaihinger, Ernst Cassirer, Nelson Goodman, and Suzanne Langer probably all fit the bill here, going from immensely popular and influential, to Collingwood paradoxical, to largely unread (obviously with important exceptions, e.g. Friedman on Cassirer, etc.).
But maybe it goes the other direction. I think that Gilbert Simondon has been Collingwood paradoxical for decades now. Everyone is aware that he profoundly influenced philosophers such as Deleuze and Latour, but his works weren't translated into English. But now fans of Deleuze like Bryan Massumi are reading Simondon alongside Deleuze just as the REM fans starting putting the Velvet Underground on their playlist. And with forthcoming translations of two of his principle works I think this kind of reading is likely to increase.
Some people seem to be eternally stuck in a state of Collingwood paradoxicality. The Detroit rock band Death (seen to right) is one such example, as is Collingwood.
Am I missing anyone obvious who either is or was Collingwood paradoxical? Am I missing something about the general phenomena with respect to music or philosophy?
There is clearly also a reverse phenomena where a philosopher or band is widely acknowledged as being too well acknowledged. I don't want to name any names in philosophy here, so maybe we can call this phenomena "reverse Collingwood paradoxicality." I think that this is possibly even more unstable than Collingwood paradoxicality. It can happen to whole genres of music, such as Disco, or to particular musicians such as Phil Collins on their way to complete oblivion (and I'd like to personally thank the robot alien overlords running Clearchannel for taking "Sussudio" off of their tiny play-list, proving they don't completely hate their human servants).
To stay reverse Collingwood paradoxical for any length of time you have to have written really catchy melodies like ABBA (before the musical) and Billy Joel (and, for all my kvetching, here's hoping he gets something off Broadway at least). I predict that U2 will enter a long-twilight period of reverse Collingwood paradoxicality. Still acknowledged due to the catchiness of their melodies combined with their study-worthy production values and interesting guitarist, but acknowledged to be overacknowledged because of the frontman's painfully dated Jim-Morrisson-meets-Jesus schtick combined with his rude unwillingness to take off his sunglasses indoors and general financial and political ass-hattedness.
Maybe reverse Collingwood paradoxicality doesn't show up much in philosophy because of the time sink of getting up to speed on a philosopher's thought. I don't know. I mean, when you commit enough time to really have something intelligible to say about a philosopher, you're very likely subject to a kind of Stockholm Syndrome. If the philosopher isn't worthwhile you've wasted a lot of time and effort, which is a nearly impossible thing to face. On the other hand working at Kmart for three years with Phil Collins on the store loop-tape does not seem to have the same effect (thank you Jesus).
[Notes:
*I think I invented this terminology, but I'm pretty it was in reaction to a conversation about R.G. Collingwood's awesomeness with my colleauge Mary Sirridge (during Joseph Dartez' thesis defense), and that Sirridge made the initial claim about Collingwood himself.]
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