This is the thirtieth installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that gives a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. This post is by Kaisa Kärki (Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Helsinki) and Matias Slavov (Postdoctoral Fellow, Tampere University)!
Thank you for Thomas Wallgren for checking the details of this post.
The Republic of Finland is a country in Northern Europe levelling up with Alaska. It is a parliamentary representative democracy known for its progressive taxation system and welfare policies. Finland is also known for its status as the happiest country in the world, and has been noticed for being led by young women. Even though Finland is often categorized as a “Scandinavian” country, the correct label is “Nordic”. Finland became a member of the European Union in 1995 and accepted the Euro as its currency in the late 1990s.
The population of Finland is around 5.5 million, officially speaking Finnish, Swedish, and Sámi – the language of the native population in northern Finland. Most Finns speak Finnish as their mother language; the Swedish speaking minority is about five per cent of the population. Finnish is unlike the North Germanic languages spoken in the Nordic countries, though this Simpsons clip (from 1:18 to 1:27) conflates Swedish and Finnish accents. Finnish, together with Hungarian, and Estonian, are Uralic languages. For an English speaker Finnish is categorized as very difficult to learn.
Children in Finland begin school at age seven and continue their education until they are 18 years of age. Until recently, secondary education after the first nine years of comprehensive school was voluntarily. After finishing 9th grade adolescents typically choose either a vocational school or an upper secondary school known as a gymnasium. The latter prepares the students for university and includes two mandatory philosophy courses.
University education – including Bachelor level, Master level, and PhD studies – is free of charge, and the state provides students with financial aid, which consists of study a grant, a housing supplement, cheap meals at student restaurants, and a partly compensated, tax-deducible government guaranteed student loan. Still, more than half of students work while studying, as Finland is an expensive country to live in. In Finland most university students gain a Master’s degree, which usually consists of 120 ECTs. The Master’s degree is preceded by a Bachelor’s degree of 180 ECTs including at least one extensive minor of 40 ECTs.
Following the completion of a Master’s degree, it is possible to apply for a PhD researcher status. This process requires a suitable research plan and finding appropriate supervisors from the university. PhD research is typically supported with external funding. In Finland, just like in several other Nordic countries, there is a wide range of private foundations that especially support research in the humanities and the social sciences, interdisciplinary research, and independence of researchers – including setting up one’s own research group. Foundations such as Kone Foundation and The Finnish Cultural Foundation also fund PhD research. Some departments offer fixed-term doctoral researcher positions. A PhD candidate may also work in a project lead by a more senior scholar. Today, the term “doctoral researcher” is preferred over “graduate student”.
Six universities in Finland offer philosophy as a degree major: University of Helsinki, University of Turku, Åbo Akademi University, Tampere University, Aalto University and University of Jyväskylä. These universities also grant PhDs in philosophy. Philosophy can be studied as a minor at the University of Oulu, the University of Lapland, the University of Eastern Finland, and the University of Vaasa. Professional philosophers can also be found from Aesthetics, Jurisprudence, and Systematic Theology as well as several interdisciplinary research centers such as the Center of Excellence EuroStorie.
In Finland, as well as in several other Nordic universities, theoretical and practical philosophy are often separated. At the University of Helsinki, they are also in different faculties; Theoretical Philosophy with Philosophy in Swedish in the Faculty of Arts, and Practical Philosophy in the Faculty of Social Sciences. Theoretical philosophy is considered to contain logic, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and history of philosophy, whereas practical philosophy includes ethics, social and political philosophy, and philosophy of the social sciences.
Teaching is usually held in Finnish or English or in Swedish in Swedish speaking departments. Both undergraduate and graduate students can apply for the Erasmus exchange program or a Fulbright grant, both of which enable students to study abroad for a semester or two.
A monograph is perhaps the most common format of a doctoral dissertation in philosophy, although many PhD students write a collection of articles. Dissertations are generally written in English, although some are completed in Finnish or Swedish. To be granted the PhD, the applicant must attend a public defense. This is called “väitöstilaisuus”, which roughly translates as “occasion of debate”. The opponent, typically a professor from abroad, reads the dissertation in advance and then poses a range of critical questions. If the applicant effectively answers the questions, the opponent will recommend approval for the applicant to become a doctor. A funny hat is involved in the process. Usually, the candidate will organize a banquet called a “karonkka”. This is held right after the defense in honor of the opponent.
After completing the doctoral degree, graduates can apply for postdoctoral funding or a position provided they want to continue in the academia. Many go abroad for a year or two – until recently mobility to another country after finishing the PhD was mandatory for receiving postdoctoral funding from the Academy of Finland, and it is still greatly encouraged. Junior faculty positions, such as assistant professorships, are not common in philosophy in Finland, so postdocs need to establish a research profile so they could later apply for senior level positions. To that end, one must be successful in acquiring grants and producing international publications. The title of docent can be awarded to a candidate who advances from a junior scholar to a more advanced postdoctoral researcher. In practice, docents should have publications that are equal to two doctoral dissertations. The most sought-after and competitive grants for postdocs are provided by the Academy of Finland and the European Research Council.
Perhaps internationally the most famous Finnish philosophers are Georg Henrik von Wright (1916–2003) and Jaakko Hintikka (1929–2015). von Wright was Ludwig Wittgenstein’s successor at Cambridge University, and contributed to philosophical logic, philosophy of action, and philosophy of science. von Wright is also well-known in the Nordic countries for his popular essays on ecological problems and the critique of techno-scientific progress. He was also one of Wittgenstein's closest friends. Helsinki currently hosts The von Wright and Wittgenstein Archives (WWA) which contain much of von Wright’s correspondence and personal library, including most of his published and unpublished writings, and an extensive Wittgenstein library. Hintikka contributed to mathematical and philosophical logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, epistemology, and the history of philosophy. Both von Wright and Hintikka were featured in the series Library of Living Philosophers. An important figure from early 20th Finnish philosophy was the Academician of Science Eino Kaila (1890-1958). Kaila visited the Vienna circle from the 1920s, and introduced what might broadly be called analytic philosophy to Finland. The first female philosophy professor in the Nordic countries was Raili Kauppi (1920-1995) who contributed to logic, especially intensional logic, and to Leibniz scholarship.
Recent Comments