Touch, and the Limits of the Rational Museum or Can Matter Think?
Touch, and the Limits of the Rational Museum or Can Matter Think?
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触摸，以及理性博物馆或物质思考的局限性？
DOI：
10.2752/174589308x331323
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发表时间：
2008
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
F. Candlin
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
F. Candlin
像许多其他博物馆一样，大英博物馆的启蒙画廊也为游客提供搬运物品。由于启蒙运动的科学观念和理性思维都是基于从多感官体验到客观视觉的转变，这些触觉物体的引入可以被解读为前现代时代的错误。相反，本文对汉斯·斯隆的收集方法和约翰·洛克的经验主义哲学进行了深入分析，以询问是否有可能将触摸定位为启蒙运动理性项目的一部分。如果是这样，那么我们对经验主义、博物馆和游客的观念会发生怎样的变化呢？我认为，对于斯隆和洛克来说，触摸的功能是理性的，事实上，它可能是理性思维的基础。同时，仔细阅读洛克和孔迪拉克关于洛克的著作就会发现触摸同时开启了另一种，想象的，推测的和情感的方式来认识物质对象。至关重要的是，这些形式的认识并不与理性对立，而是理性项目的一部分。因此，这种对触摸的分析质疑了从多感官、非理性和前现代经验到视觉、理性和现代知识的公认过渡，质疑了经验主义的公认特征，并考虑了当代游客对博物馆物品的复杂理解。
ABSTRACT Like many other museums, the Enlightenment Gallery at the British Museum provides handling objects for visitors. As Enlightenment notions of science and rational thought have all been predicated upon a shift away from multisensory experience towards objective vision, the introduction of these tactile objects could be read as a premodern anachronism. In contrast, this paper uses a close analysis of the Hans Sloane's approach to collecting and John Locke's empirical philosophy to ask whether it is possible to locate touch as part of the Enlightenment rational project. If so, then how do our conceptions of empiricism, museums and visitors change? I argue that for Sloane and Locke touch functions in rational terms, indeed it may be the basis of rational thought. At the same time, a careful reading of Locke and of Condillac's work on Locke shows that touch simultaneously opens up other, imaginative, speculative and emotional ways of knowing material objects. Crucially, these forms of knowing are not in opposition to rationality but form part of the rational project. Thus, this analysis of touch disputes the accepted transition from multisensory, non-rational and premodern experience to visual, rational and modern knowledge, questions accepted characterizations of empiricism and also considers contemporary visitors' complex understandings of museum objects.