Museums and the Nostalgic Self

Abstract

AbstractThe first part of this essay asks: What is the function, purpose and value of a museum? Has any museologist or philosopher given a credible account of philosophical problems associated with museums? Is there any set of properties shared by the diverse entities called museums? Overgeneralization is the principal problem here. The essay then examines a central kind of museum experience; one that invokes and relies upon nostalgia. I argue that the attraction of museums are varied but are best explained affectively and in terms of the orectic (appetitive, desiderative, wishing) rather than cognitively conatively (willing, deciding). Although this need not be taken as conflicting with the idea that museums are focused on scholarship, it is more consonant with the claim that exhibitions are central. Museums may at times both pique and satisfy our curiosity. However it is a mistake to see ‘curiosity’ as merely, or even primarily, a matter of cognition.