Philosophy and Nostalgia

This chapter looks at the relationship between philosophy and nostalgia. Despite being an area of widespread interest within culture, politics, and academia, philosophical research on nostalgia is slim. This is surprising given the conceptual richness of nostalgia. The aim of this chapter is to present a broad overview of the relationship between philosophy and nostalgia, with a specific focus on phenomenology. This chapter begins by considering Kant’s remarks on the temporality of nostalgia before turning to canonical thinkers within the phenomenological tradition such as Heidegger and Levinas centralise and rebuke nostalgia, respectively. Engaging with phenomenological thinkers after Levinas and Heidegger, the mid part of this chapter considers how thinkers such as Edward Casey and James Hart developed and enriched the understanding of nostalgia by attending to the emotion’s salient attributes. In the final part of this chapter, I consider some criticisms of nostalgia but also phenomenology in thinkers such as Jacques Derrida and Jean-François Lyotard. This chapter ends by looking at future directions for research on nostalgia, especially within phenomenology where the study of nostalgia is most active.