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37Aesthetics in Biodiversity ConservationJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. forthcoming.Biodiversity loss is an immense ecological crisis of our time. But while “biodiversity” has become a buzzword in media and policy, conservationists have found it difficult to build a common understanding on the nature and severity of biodiversity loss and the means to tackle it. Perhaps surprisingly, many biologists and philosophers have proposed that biodiversity might be best defended with reference to its aesthetic value. This article explores whether aesthetic values could provide strong sup…Read more
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4Replies to Vendrell Ferran, Piercey, Schechtman, and CollinsPhilosophia 52 (1): 49-55. 2024.i) Íngrid Vendrell Ferran’s defence of the ‘experiential view’ and her related conception of ‘radical neo-cogntivism’, ii) Robert Piercey’s view of the epistemic value of plots and emplotment, iii) Marya Schechtman’s revisionist ideas of self-narration, and, finally, iv) David Collins’s suggestion of the value of an imaginative engagement with the author of an artwork.
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15Précis of Philosophy, Literature and Understanding: On Reading and CognitionPhilosophia 52 (1): 5-9. 2023.This précis gives an overview of my book Philosophy, Literature, and Understanding: On Reading and Cognition which is the subject of a book symposium in Philosophia. The overview covers the book’s four chapters that explore i) the nature of literary imagination, ii) the epistemic value of narratives, iii) the concepts of cognition, knowledge and understanding with regard to fiction, and iv) evidence for claims about the epistemic impact of literary works on their readers.
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8Kirjallisuus ja filosofia: rinnakkaisuuksia, risteyksiä, ristiriitoja (edited book)Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. 2012.
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301Analytic philosophy of literatureIn Piotr Stalmaszczyk (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of the Philosophy of Language, Cambridge University Press. 2021.
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Analytic philosophy of literatureIn Piotr Stalmaszczyk (ed.), Cambridge Handbook of the Philosophy of Language, Cambridge University Press. 2021.
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20On the Body of Literary PersuasionEstetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics 47 (1): 51. 2020.
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11Knowledge, Imagination, and Stories in the Aesthetic Experience of ForestsEstetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics 55 (1): 3. 2020.
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8Kirjallisuuden eettisistä mahdollisuuksistaAjatus 75 (1): 347-360. 2018.Kommentoin artikkelissa Hanna Meretojan The Ethics of Storytelling -teoksessa esittämiä näkemyksiä kaunokirjallisten kertomusten eettisestä arvosta. Kritisoin Meretojan edustamaa lähestymistapaa, jossa kaunokirjallisten teosten vaikutuksista teoretisoidaan ilman empiirisiä viitepisteitä taikka pohdintaa siitä, mistä väitteille voitaisiin löytää tukea tai kuinka teoriaa voitaisiin koetella. Lisäksi esitän huomioita muun muassa kaunokirjallisten kertomusten soveltamisesta arkeen sekä kertomusten k…Read more
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33Philosophical Aesthetics and the Global Environmental EmergencyEnvironmental Values 31 (1): 15-26. 2022.
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59Implicit Assertions in Literary FictionProceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics, Vol. 2. 2010.In analytic aesthetics, a popular ‘cognitivist’ line of thought maintains that literary works of fictional kind may ‘imply’ or ‘suggest’ truths. Nevertheless, so-called anti-cognitivists have considered the concepts of implication and suggestion both problematic. For instance, cognitivists’s use of the word ‘implication’ seems to differ from all philosophical conceptions of implication, and ‘suggestion’ is generally left unanalysed in their theories. This paper discusses the role, kinds and conc…Read more
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25The Stories of Our LivesIn Garry L. Hagberg (ed.), Narrative and Self-Understanding, Palgrave. pp. 11-27. 2019.It has become a commonplace that narrative plays an important, even essential role in our understanding of reality and ourselves. Recently, however, analytic philosophers have questioned narrative’s alleged epistemic value. This essay defends the epistemic significance of narratives, everyday and literary. First, it will argue that the philosophical attack on the value of narratives operates on problematic concepts. Second, it proposes that the epistemic significance of narratives is not to be e…Read more
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23Fiction and the Weave of Lifeby gibson, johnJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 66 (4): 403-406. 2008.
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33The Aesthetics, Poetics, and Philosophy of NarrativeBritish Journal of Aesthetics 52 (3): 320-322. 2012.
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25Literature, Analytically Speaking: Explorations in the Theory of Interpretation, Analytic Aesthetics, and Evolution (review)International Journal of Philosophical Studies 21 (2): 292-296. 2013.No abstract
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87Philosophy, Literature and Understanding: On Reading and CognitionBloomsbury Academic. 2021.Challenging existing methodological conceptions of the analytic approach to aesthetics, Jukka Mikkonen brings together philosophy, literary studies and cognitive psychology to offer a new theory on the cognitive value of reading fiction. Philosophy, Literature and Understanding defends the epistemic significance of narratives, arguing that it should be explained in terms of understanding rather than knowledge. Mikkonen formulates understanding as a cognitive process, which he connects to narrati…Read more
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19Philosophy of literature by Finnish researchers: a bibliography 1968-2008 (edited book)Filosofia.fi. 2008.This bibliography aims to gather together studies in the philosophy of literature by Finnish researchers. It consists of articles and monographs which treat i) philosophical literary theory, ii) philosophical literature, or iii) literary philosophy and philosophers’ use of literary devices. The bibliography, collected by requests of publication data and from several Finnish publication databases, is not intended inclusive. Nevertheless, it is being throughout updated, and all kinds of suggestion…Read more
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78The Cognitive Value of Philosophical FictionBloomsbury Academic. 2013.Can literary fictions convey significant philosophical views, understood in terms of propositional knowledge? This study addresses the philosophical value of literature by examining how literary works impart philosophy truth and knowledge and to what extent the works should be approached as communications of their authors. Beginning with theories of fiction, it examines the case against the prevailing ‘pretence’ and ‘make-believe’ theories of fiction hostile to propositional theories of literary…Read more
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28Narratives and Narrators: A Philosophy of Stories, by Gregory CurrieMind 121 (481): 172-176. 2012.
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10Assertions in Literary FictionMinerva - An Internet Journal of Philosophy 13 144-180. 2009.In this paper, I shall examine two types of assertions in literary narrative fiction: direct assertions and those I call literary assertions. Direct assertions put forward propositions on a literal level and function as the author’s assertions even if detached from their original context and applied in so-called ordinary discourse. Literary assertions, in turn, intertwine with the fictional discourse: they may be, for instance, uttered by a fictional character or refer to fictitious objects and …Read more
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15Review: Stein Haugom Olsen and Anders Pettersson, eds., Why Literary Studies? Raisons D’être of a Discipline (review)Nordic Journal of Aesthetics 23 (46). 2013.
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78Intentions and Interpretations: Philosophical Fiction as ConversationContemporary Aesthetics 7. 2009.Appeals to the actual author's intention in order to legitimate an interpretation of a work of literary narrative fiction have generally been considered extraneous in Anglo-American philosophy of literature since Wimsatt and Beardsley's well-known manifesto from the 1940s. For over sixty years now so-called anti-intentionalists have argued that the author's intentions – plans, aims, and purposes considering her work – are highly irrelevant to interpretation. In this paper, I shall argue that the…Read more
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231Knowledge, Imagination, and Stories in the Aesthetic Experience of ForestsEstetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics 55 (1): 3-24. 2018.A key dispute in environmental aesthetics concerns the role of scientific knowledge in our aesthetic appreciation of the natural environment. In this article, I will explore this debate by focusing on the aesthetic experience of forests. I intend to question reductive forms of the scientific approach and support the role of imagination and stories in nature appreciation.
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70On Studying the Cognitive Value of LiteratureJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 73 (3): 273-282. 2015.The debate on the cognitive value of literature is undergoing a change. On the one hand, several philosophers recommend an epistemological move from “knowledge” to “understanding” in describing the cognitive benefits of literature. On the other hand, skeptics call for methodological discussion and demand evidence for the claim that readers actually learn from literature. These two ideas, the notion of understanding and the demand for evidence, seem initially inconsistent, for the notion of under…Read more
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36Contemplation and Hypotheses in LiteraturePhilosophical Frontiers 5 (1): 73-83. 2010.In literary aesthetics, the debate on whether literary fictions provide propositional knowledge generally centres around the question whether there are authors’ explicit or implicit truth-claims in literary works and whether the reader’s act of looking for and assessing such claims as true or false is an appropriate stance toward the works as literary works. Nevertheless, in reading literary fiction, readers cannot always be sure whether the author is actually asserting or suggesting a view she …Read more
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94Sutrop on Literary Fiction-Making: Defending CurrieDisputatio 3 (28): 151-157. 2010.In her study Fiction and Imagination: The Anthropological Function of Literature (2000), Margit Sutrop criticizes Gregory Currie’s theory of fiction-making, as presented in The Nature of Fiction (1990), for using an inappropriate conception of the author’s ‘fictive intention.’ As Sutrop sees it, Currie is mistaken in reducing the author’s fictive intention to that of achieving a certain response in the audience. In this paper, I shall discuss Sutrop’s theory of fiction-making and argue that alth…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Literature |
Aesthetics |
Aesthetics of Nature |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Literature |
Narrative |