Kalle started following the work of Jason Kosnoski, University of Michigan - Flint, Political Science.
Kalle started following the work of Richard Shusterman, Florida Atlantic University, Humanities.
Kalle started following the work of Inkeri Koskinen, University of Helsinki, Department of History, Philosophy, Culture and Art Studies.
Post-Doc, Palmenia Centre for Continuing Education
About
I currently work as a postdoctoral researcher of aesthetics at the International Institute of Applied Aesthetics (IIAA), which is part of the University of Helsinki Palmenia Centre for Continuing Education and Research, Lahti Unit. My postdoc -project is called "Pragmatism, Aesthetic Experience, and Interpretation. Finding a Place for Art and Aesthetics in a Naturalistic World". I obtained my doctorate from the University of Helsinki (Aesthetics) in November 2009 with a thesis entitled "Reconsidering Relativism and Intentionalism in Interpretation. Donald Davidson, Hermeneutics, and Pragmatism". A modified and hopefully improved version of this work has just appeared from Lexington Books. http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Sear
(Please remember to recommend it to your local university library :))
Here's an abstract of my post doc project I made almost exactly a year ago (I'll update it when I have the time and energy):
This research project continues the revival pragmatist approaches have witnessed within philosophical aesthetics in recent years by raising certain key elements of different forms of pragmatism which have been largely overlooked in contemporary aesthetics. The project develops a pragmatist conception of aesthetics through an account of pragmatism which highlights its connections with philosophical naturalism and one of its chief aims is to explore the ways in which different forms of pragmatism try to incorporate humanism and the significance of art and literature within this philosophical framework. The goal of reconciling the naturalist and cultural aspects of human life is already central to the naturalistic humanism which characterizes Dewey’s later writings as a whole. In this respect, Dewey’s views are still highly relevant, for the question regarding the relationship between those two elements has perhaps never been as topical as it is today. Richard Rorty’s conception of literature may be seen as a contemporary extension to the core aims of Dewey’s later writings. The way Rorty’s approach to literature builds on his account of philosophical naturalism, particularly the non-reductive form of this position he finds in Donald Davidson’s holism, has gone largely unnoticed in the critical reception which Rorty has met with in contemporary aesthetics, as has the effect that Davidson’s theory of metaphor had on Rorty’s account of literature’s role in contemporary liberalist society. The more careful account of the philosophical underpinnings of Rorty’s views this project provides gives a new outlook on the relevance of Rorty’s pragmatism for aesthetics and establishes an alternative foundation for developing a pragmatist form of aesthetics to some recent versions, particularly to that of Richard Shusterman’s.
Another important aim of this project is to reassess the impact of Dewey’s aesthetic theory on certain fields and neighboring areas of aesthetics such as environmental and everyday aesthetics and philosophy of music education. A reading of Dewey’s aesthetic theory which highlights the position that Dewey attributes to the experiencer’s imagination in the later parts of his major work in aesthetics Art as Experience serves as a basis for these re-evaluations of Dewey’s relevance. By connecting this aspect of Dewey’s aesthetics with recent pragmatist-inspired moral philosophy where imagination has been attributed a vital role in proper moral deliberation, this part of the project enlarges the view of Dewey’s relevance for the aforementioned disciplines. One of the important threads of the project also elaborates the conception of interpretation I outlined in my PhD thesis by connecting the account developed in that work with pragmatist ideas of human conduct.
Besides trying to complete the book manuscript, I am currently working on an article on Scruton and Wagner tentatively entitled "Imagination, Leitmotifs, and Love in Wagner's The Valkyrie". After I have finished it, I begin working on two articles, the other one on pragmatism and culture, and the other on the pragmatist undercurrents of the music of John Adams. The titles at this point of time are: "Naturalism and Culture. Hermeneutics and Pragmatist Conceptions of Imagination and Metaphor" and "Contra Adorno. Aesthetic Experience and Community in John Adam's On the Transmigration of Souls".
