Philosophy Travel & Tourism
Guy Crain, professor of philosophy at Rose State College, writes in with the following inquiry:
I’m wondering if there is a resource with collected information about philosophy-related travel/site-seeing. For instance, is it possible to visit John Stuart Mill’s birthplace? What libraries or museums (if any) have first editions of philosophical works on display? What art museums (if any) display original portraits of philosophers? I’m just wondering if you know if anyone has collected info about such things—sites [and artifacts] to see that are significant to the history of philosophy.
I don’t know of any such resource, do you?
It should not be that hard to crowd-source one into existence, though. What philosophy-related sites would be on it? (Check out this for an example.) What paintings or statues or other artifacts (desks? books?) relevant to the history of philosophy are available for public viewing, and where are they? Your suggestions, please.
(image: “Amsterdam” by Ed Fairburn)
Hard to know where to start. Athens would obviously be good for antiquity, but Paris I’m guessing will be one of the best all round. For philosopher portraits, there’s a whole set of ancient busts in the Greek antiquities galleries at the Louvre (including Chrysippus and Epicurus, in addition to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle), though you will find them obviously in Rome, Berlin, London, and of course Athens as well. Great things in Edinburgh too. Philosophers’ own houses are a different matter.
How to get to Wittgenstein’s grave: http://www.britishwittgensteinsociety.org/wittgensteins-grave
One should go walk the bridges of Konigsberg (preferably crossing each one only once, of course)!
And visit Norway where Wittgenstein lived in his little cabin.
Bentham’s body at UCL: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/who/autoicon
there are voltaire and rousseau house/museums in geneva; descartes’ house in amsterdam is marked as a historical site, as is marx’s house in london; heidegger’s cabin is still out there in the schwarzwald and students regularly hike by and peer in windows; the hotel where nietzsche stayed in sils-maria has a “nietzsche room” (see also DF Krell’s The Good European for a complete guide to Nietzsche’s preferred spots); montaigne’s family chateau is visitable outside of bordeaux, though it’s changed a lot since his day–his tower is still there, and there’s an original manuscript of the essais in the bordeaux public library; …
Various parts of Descartes are distributed around Paris: His coffin was buried in the Church St Genevieve; his tomb is in the church at St Germain des Pres. His skull is in the Musee de l’Homme.
You can also follow Spinoza around the Netherlands, or at least Rijnsberg and Den Hague: http://www.spinozahuis.com/main.php?obj_id=717076029 I think a house where he lived is also marked with a plaque in Amsterdam.
If you want to stay in the US, there is always Whitehall: http://www.whitehallmuseumhouse.org/
Oh! And you can visit the graves of famous French people at Pere Lachaise, virtually (including philosophers Auguste Comte, Maurice Merleau Ponty, and of course, Jim Morrison): http://www.pere-lachaise.com/perelachaise.php?lang=en
While those may be parts of Descartes’ body, are they really parts of Descartes?
http://nietzschehaus.ch/de/
Tracing Nietzsche’s steps in Turin: http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/11/02/turin-stroll/
The University of Vienna has an inscription to mark the spot where Moritz Schlick was murdered.
The flat of Auguste Comte, kept in its original state, can be visited quite easily (and you might also wanna give a look at the documentation center on the floor below); visits can also be organized for the Chapelle de l’Humanité, rue Payenne.
See http://www.augustecomte.org/spip.php?rubrique14
Rome has many philosophy-related sites:
1) Santa Sabina where Aquinas stayed
2) San Pietro in Vincoli for tomb of Nicholas of Cusa
3) Tomb of Karol Wojtyla in St. Peter’s Basilica
4) Galileo and the inquisition – Dominican residence at Santa Maria sopra Minerva
5) In nearby Ostia Antica, you can see where Augustine’s mother passed away, which is described in
Augustine’s Confessions
6) Statue of Marcus Aurelius in Piazza Del Campidoglio
I posted a note about some of the Viennese cafes that were frequented by members of the Vienna Circle: http://praymont.blogspot.co.at/2008/08/cafes-arkaden-and-josephinum.html
Richard Zach corrected a mistake that I had made in identifying the cafe where Godel first announced his incompleteness result: http://www.ucalgary.ca/rzach/blog/2014/07/godels-vienna-finding-cafe-reichsrat.html
I also posted something about Lviv and its Scottish Cafe, where many Polish logicians and philosophers did their work: http://praymont.blogspot.ca/2013/03/city-of-lions-lemberg-lwow-and-lviv.html
Three places I’ve been: The Philosophenweg in Heidelberg; David Hume’s grave (which has this huge monstrosity of a gravemarker erected by his wife, which I’m sure would make him turn in his grave if he knew about it) in Edinburgh; and the house Spinoza lived in outside of Leiden.
Would love to see this happen…
My name is Anneke Koremans and I am a writer, photographer, home-made philosopher and tour guide in Cathar Country, France. Coincidentally, I am creating as we speak a unique, philosophical & historical tour through Greece, planned for May 2019; the mailing list is already active and we should know by 1st November if we have a green light for this tour. More info: https://greeceexperiencetours.blogspot.com. We’d love to have you! 🙂 xox