On Museums

What do we learn from a museum? What knowledge is conveyed when you look at an object? Put a bunch of school children in the Egypt room at the British Museum… are they gaining any propositional knowledge about Ancient Egypt? Or are they actually gaining something more valuable, more visceral?

Inspired by a recent day out wandering around some of Oxford’s more random museums (Museum of the History of Science! The Weston Library! The Pitt Rivers!), our co-host proposes that a well-curated museum can epistemologically produce more than the sum of its parts through good presentation and the juxtaposition of different objects. Being confronted by an object is completely different to reading a book. It’s a vibe, it’s inspiring, it’s an aesthetic experience. The muse descends in a museum.

The Weston Library had an interesting exhibition on o ...