Philosophical concepts, for Collingwood, are necessarily instantiated in forms of judgement or inference, not contingently instantiated in empirical classes of objects.

The question concerning the relation between Collingwood’s two metaphilosophical treatises and whether the conception of the role of philosophical analysis articulated in An Essay on Metaphysics is continuous with that described in An Essay on Philosophical Method is further complicated by the fact that An Essay on Philosophical Method contains a defence of the ontological argument that appears to be at odds with Collingwood’s later claim that metaphysics is a logical, not an ontological inquiry