Posts
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Interview in Paatos (w/ Kristina Rolin and Jaakko Kuorikoski)
The philosophical magazine Paatos published an interview with three philosophers of science, Kristina Rolin, Jaakko Kuorikoski and me. The format is interesting - Jere Hallikainen, the author, added some links and references but otherwise the transcript follows the discussion very closely. Thanks Jere!
Turns out that surprisingly many philosophers started out as engineers. Or aspiring professional musicians!
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Visiting CMU in October-November 2024
In October-November 2024 I will be visiting the Center for Formal Epistemology and the Institute for Complex Social Dynamics at Carnegie Mellon University (hosted by Kevin Zollman). Really looking forward to this!
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On the idea of Bildung university
This week I gave a short presentation on the idea of Bildung university (‘sivistysyliopisto’ in Finnish). The notion of Bildung doesn’t quite translate to English but we have a word for it in Finnish, ‘sivistys’. Here Bildung university refers to the modern concept of research university from early 19th century, first embodied by the University of Berlin (founded in 1810).
It’s a lofty ideal and many of the ideas behind it come from German enlightenment and neohumanism: Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Schleiermacher - and Humboldt. Although it seems like a politically implausible picture of autonomous universities and academic freedom, incompatible with current managerialist trends in higher education, the Bildung university model has been remarkably resilient, and successful. Despite various pressures and mutations along the way, it still lies at the heart of our best research universities, not only in continental Europe but also in the US, where the German model was exported during the 19th century.
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Interview - Science, uncertainty and trust
Amanda Häkkinen (TSV) interviewed me about my research for a series on open science. We talked about scientific problem solving, Heidegger, uncertainty and trust. And other things. Here, (in Finnish).
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AI as a mirror for human intelligence
Inspired by dinner debates around New Year’s (2023), Renne Pesonen and I wrote an essay (in Finnish) on large language models.
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