Publishing Projects on Recognition

The first Centre of Excellence gathering during the fall term was held on Tuesday 29 September. This time, the whole CoE met together, and there were no separate team meetings. Three different book projects on the themes of recognition and identity politics were presented and discussed in the Faculty Hall.

Elina Hellqvist presenting

In the first talk by Maijastina Kahlos and myself, an international book project with the working title Reflections on Recognition: Contemporary and Historical Studies was discussed. Along with a host of international contributors, the volume also includes a group of writers from the CoE. There will be a conference organized around this book project at the University of Helsinki in May 26-28 2016. The book will be edited and the conference organized by Kahlos, Ritva Palmén, and myself.

The second presentation by Elina Hellqvist and Minna Hietamäki dealt with a Finnish book that has, at the time of writing this, just come out from the press. In addition to Hellqvist and Hietamäki, the editors of the volume on Religion and Identity Politics (original title: Uskonto ja identiteettipolitiikka) include also Panu Pihkala. This book published by the Finnish Theological Literature Society (STKS) is based on both Risto Saarinen's Academy of Finland project and his Centre of Excellence, also funded by the Academy. [A link to the report on the symposium can be found here.]

The third presentation was given by Ritva Palmén and Heikki Haara, who are editing another Finnish volume on recognition. This book has its origins in the teaching modules provided by various members of the CoE under the Master's Degree Programme Religion, Conflict and Dialogue [link here]. Its team of authors is strengthened by an addition of further important contributors. During the discussions, one of the topics that came up was the challenge of translating theoretical terminology from German and English into ordinary-language Finnish.

Saarinen and Pihlström to Academia Europaea

Professors Risto Saarinen, the Director of our Centre of Excellence, and Sami Pihlström, the Leader of our CoE Team 3, have been invited to membership in the Academia Europaea. The meeting of the Council of the Academy was held in Darmstadt on 6 September 2015.

The object of Academia Europaea is the advancement and propagation of excellence in scholarship in the humanities, law, the economic, social, and political sciences, mathematics, medicine, and all branches of natural and technological sciences anywhere in the world for the public benefit and for the advancement of the education of the public of all ages in the aforesaid subjects in Europe.

Academia Europaea is a European, non-governmental association acting as an Academy. The members are scientists and scholars who collectively aim to promote learning, education and research. Founded in 1988, with about 3000 members which includes leading experts from the physical sciences and technology, biological sciences and medicine, mathematics, the letters and humanities, social and cognitive sciences, economics and the law.

Pragmatism in Paris

The Second European Pragmatism Conference was organized in Paris in September 9-11 2015. Our Centre of Excellence was represented by Sami Pihlström and myself. The participants included also other Finnish philosophers involved in the study of pragmatism. This second conference was considerably larger than the first one in Rome three years ago, so it would seem that pragmatism is a growing trend. The next conference in the series will be organized in Helsinki in 2018.

The opening of the conference

The CoE's research themes of recognition resonated quite nicely with the programme and with the participants of the conference. There was, for example, an interesting session on democracy, and a presentation dealing with Axel Honneth's work. I got to give my talk titled "Mediated Recognition and Brandom's Analysis" in a Nordic Pragmatism Network Invited Panel on normativity. The Finns Henrik Rydenfelt and Mats Bergman also gave their presentations in the same session.

The Eiffel Tower

During the days in Paris, I enjoyed having many good discussions as well as meeting old friends and making new ones. Here is a link to the conference's official pages. Below are a couple more photos.

Notre Dame

Jardin du Luxembourg