The story of this research group began on the day in 2006 when Dr Philip Tonner knocked on Dr Victoria Harrison’s office door at the University of Glasgow and, with an expectant look, uttered the words ‘Are you interested in museums?’. The question took Victoria aback. While she had always loved visiting museums, it hadn’t yet occurred to her to be interested in them. That changed after 15 minutes chatting with the brilliant Dr Tonner. She could suddenly see multiple pathways connecting her love of museums with her expertise as a professional philosopher.
That first unexpected conversation led to a new research direction and a successful grant application. In 2008-2009, Philip and Victoria were funded by the UK’s Higher Education Academy, Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies to run a project entitled ‘Abstracta in Concreta: Engaging Museum Collections in Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Research’. As the title of the project indicates, the focus was on the interface between, on the one hand, the abstract ideas and concepts concerning research students of Philosophy and Religious Studies and, on the other hand, the concrete artefacts housed in museum collections. The key idea motivating the project was that museum collections represent an under-used resource of potentially great benefit to many research students within Philosophy and Religious Studies. The goal was to provide these students with the tools necessary to engage critically with museum collections. Through lectures, discussions, and demonstrations participants explored how the, often abstract, concerns of Philosophy and Religious Studies can be approached through the concreta of the objects found in museum collections.
Working on the project brought us into contact both with curators and museum-based researchers, as well as with academics in a range of disciplines across both the natural sciences and the humanities. It revealed that, while many practitioners of other disciplines already engaged with the objects in museum collections in multiple ways, this was something relatively new for philosophers. This realization led to concentrated work mapping the terrain of what we came to see as an emerging sub-discipline within Philosophy: The Philosophy of Museums.
Another grant in 2013, this time from the UK’s Royal Institute of Philosophy, funded a major international conference on ‘Philosophy and Museums: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Ontology’. The goal of this conference was to bring together leading senior philosophers whose work had potential application to the new field of Philosophy of Museums, inviting them to produce original work to kickstart scholarship in this new field. Several early career scholars were also invited to contribute. A memorable event was held that consolidated the Philosophy of Museums as a viable area within Philosophy. The conference also resulted in an edited book published by Cambridge University Press in 2016 entitled Philosophy and Museums: Essays on the Philosophy of Museums. This was the first volume of its kind.
Further collaboration with museum professionals followed this event. As did further publications and grants. In 2020, Victoria Harrison and Philip Tonner co-authored an annotated bibliography for Oxford University Press on the ‘Philosophy of Museums’. This was a significant undertaking because it meant that what had been an emerging sub-field within Philosophy was now a mature area of research and study.
Encouraged by these successes, in 2020, Nicole Lao and Jan Kahambing, were recruited as PhD researchers to constitute a Philosophy of Museums research group in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Macau. This research group is unique in its concentration on the philosophical dimensions of museums, museum practices, and museums objects. Nicole brought to the group an interest in heritage and a background in Classics, while Jan brought curatorial experience and an interest in post-humanism. The aim of the research group is to build on the foundations of the now-established field of Philosophy of Museums, while incorporating cognate areas of expertise and interest. The research team welcomes collaboration with other scholars doing philosophical work that is directly relevant to museums, museum objects, curatorial practices, and heritage.
Philosophy of museums 