Matti Sintonen

Matti Tapani Sintonen
Born September 20, 1951, Kuusankoski

Baccalaureate, Huntington North High School, Indiana, USA 1969 and Kouvola Lyceum 1971
Master of Arts 1976, Licentiate 1977, PhD 1984 (theoretical philosophy), University of Helsinki
Master of Social Science 1979 (practical philosophy), University of Helsinki
Docent 1985– (practical philosophy), universities of Helsinki and Turku

Director 2014–,Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies
Professor of theoretical philosophy (acting) 2004–14, University of Helsinki
Professor of philosophy (particularly the philosophy of science) 1991–2010, University of Tampere
Deputy director of the Department of Philosophy 2008–10, University of Helsinki
Professor of philosophy, particularly logic and the theory of knowledge (acting)2003–04, University of Tampere
Professor of practical philosophy (particularly the methodology of social sciences) 1984–86, 1990–92, 1996–2000, University of Helsinki
Advanced research fellow 2000–01, Senior research fellow 1984–89, research fellow 1982–84, Academy of Finland
Head of the Department of Practical Philosophy 1985, 1999–2000, University of Helsinki
Professor of theoretical philosophy (acting) 1989–90, University of Turku
Research associate in practical philosophy (particularly the methodology of social sciences) 1976–91, University of Helsinki
Visiting Fellow, University of Helsinki Clare Hall Fellowship 1997–98, Cambridge
Visiting Fellow 1993–94, Darwin College, Cambridge
Visiting Fellow 1983–84, 1997–98, Department of Philosophy and the Department of Philosophy and History, University of Cambridge
Visiting Research Associate, 1986–87, Boston Center for the Philosophy and History of Science, Boston UniversityFlorey Student 1977–79, Queen´s College Oxford

Research themes: the philosophy of science, particularly the problematic of scientific explanation and invention, the philosophy of biology, the philosophy of social sciences.

Publications, research projects and other academic activity

Editor, editor-in-chief, member of the editorial board in the following journals:

Ajatus, Science & Technology Studies, Behavioral and Brain Science, Synthese, Acta Philosophica Tamperensia, Polish Journal of Philosophy Theoria, European Journal for Philosophy of Science

Honours and awards:

ASLA Fulbright Senior Grant, Boston Center for the Philosophy and History of Science, Boston University, 1986–87
Chancellor’s special award for best Master’s thesis, granted in celebration of 35 years of the Faculty of Social Sciences, 1980
Best Master’s Thesis Award, Faculty of Arts 1975, Faculty of Social Sciences 1979
Member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters

Photo: Ida Pimenoff
Written by Matti Sintonen (Tiia Niemelä ed.)
Translated by Matthew Billington

My Dream

In terms of academic life, after my term as departmental director is over my dream could be to put my mind to a theory of science for the humanities – a cognitive and social profile for humanities research. The need is pressing: I have been actively involved, particularly in European organisations, in the development of multidisciplinary research where humanities scholars, social scientists and also natural scientists and bio and environmental scientists, particularly biopharmacologists, have participated. Such projects include the Water symposium in Stresa, Italy, the Personalized Medicine, Sustainable Biobased Society project (primarily in Radbout University) and similarly the EUROCORES programme The Evolution of Cooperation and Trading (TECT). Genuinely multidisciplinary projects offer opportunities for collaboration on an equal footing between the humanities and other areas of science. My dream would be to construct a deeper analysis from this collaboration.

Another dream connected to this topic is to get many of the representatives of so-called hard sciences (STEM-sciences) to recognise that humanities research is not simply discussion, unfounded opinion. Humanities disciplines certainly use their own characteristic methodologies (of which there are many; humanities disciplines are not identical in their cognitive profiles!), but as in the natural sciences, claims made in the humanities must also be justified. Representatives of STEM sciences often say that science begins where experiments start, and, for instance, in medicine double blind studies are a guarantee of scientific rigour. But where is the methodological rigour in the humanities – as not everyone conducts experiments, let alone double blind experiments?

By Written by Matti Sintonen (Tiia Niemelä ed.), translated by Matthew Billingto