TIEDE & EDISTYS 1/1998 SUMMARIES

JUKKA GRONOW: In food we trust. The dangers and risks of consumption. Many social scientists share the opinion that our modern food culture is characterised by a fundamental ambiguity concerning what is safe, what is edible, and what are the proper manners and rules of eating. Food panics and scares are manifestations of the detraditionalization of culture. There are at least three different social mechanisms that help to cope with these ambiguities. Firstly, food scares themselves can function as negative fashions and, in this capacity, stabilise the culture. Secondly, consumers can adopt various scientific, or rather pseudoscientific, diets which drastically restrict the number of alternatives open to them, and thirdly, we can, hopefully, learn to tolerate situations of uncertainty without the help of any firm guidelines. In other words, we can gradually learn to tolerate risks without anxiety. Following Niklas Luhmann's suggestion it is important to make a distinction between risk and danger. Risks are taken whereas dangers face us anyhow. By making the consumers personally responsible for their food choice, e.g. by informing them of the risks involved, potential dangers of eating or consuming are transformed into risks. Since it is, however, principally impossible to transform most dangers into risks, the confidence and the legitimacy enjoyed by all the relevant social institutions become central - and problematic at the same time - to the stability of social life.

MIKKO JAUHO & TURO-KIMMO LEHTONEN: Bad bacteria, good mothers and normal families in Finnish health education at the turn of the century. This paper examines the normalisation of family life and the mother's role in it through a study of Finnish health education journals from the turn of the century. The key to the social hygienic thinking of this period is the progress in bacteriology. It revolutionized the field where applied medicine was operating: it helped to concentrate forces and presented the hygienic movement with a concrete enemy. The practical application of bacteriology involved the hectic cleaning of both public and private spaces as well as paying attention to the potentially infectious effect of relations between human beings. The fear of bacteria was channeled into a generalised vigilance against dirt. However, the problem remained of how to teach people to fight the common enemy. The answer was located in the role of women. They were to be the ‘guardian angels' of a brave new healthy world; they were to be the agents who realised the social hygienic project and led the way to a new sense of cleanliness.

MIKKO SALMELA: Moral Philosophy in Finland in the 20th Century. There are two main traditions in Finnish ethics in the 20th century: the phenomenological and the analytical. The former, represented by J.E. Salomaa (1891-1960), Erik Ahlman (1892-1952), and Sven Krohn (1903-), flourished especially in the first half of the century. The latter was initiated by Eino Kaila (1890-1958) and Georg Henrik von Wright (1916-). Salomaa and Krohn claim that a phenomenological analysis of moral consciousness yields objective and absolute values. Ahlman rejects both cognitivism and objectivism in his critical intuitionism, which combines elements from phenomenological, existentialist, emotivist, and even postmodern ethics. Kaila does not present a systematic moral theory, although there is a discernible evolutionist strand in his ethical thought, along with emotivist, pragmatic, and logical ones. Von Wright's ethics is based on a logical analysis of morality and moral statements. He has also tried to develop an Aristotelian form of practical rationality for assessing subjective preferences. Yet none of the mentioned philosophers has succeeded in providing a satisfactory moral theory. The mutual disagreements between Finnish philosophers have been mainly meta-ethical, and a general agreement on correct values and moral principles has restrained their public debate over ethical issues until recent decades.

TIEDE & EDISTYS 2/1998 SUMMARIES

ERIK ALLARDT: The rhetoric of technology in shaping the social construction of Finnish reality. Technological rhetoric is increasingly influencing the conceptions and images of the Finnish society. This development has emerged in the 1990's with the rapid growth of computerized information systems. During the preceding decades national goal-setting was focused mainly on industrialization and the building of the welfare state. Yet in the 1990's, a strong emphasis on computer discourse and computer technologies has become observable both in the formulation of national goals and in public policies within several institutional sectors. In a speech in the spring of 1997 President Matti Ahtisaari characterized Finland as one of the first and leading information societies of the world, and outlined what this position implied in terms of societal goals and citizens' duties. The rapidly spreading rhetoric of technology has influenced goal-setting in several institutional realms. Science and technology have become increasingly integrated, and in this process innovation and innovativeness are emphasized rather than processess of creation and and creativeness. The key words in the programs of the Finnish State Board of Science and Technology are innovations and the national innovation system, and there is, furthermore, an emphasis on short term strategies. This rhetoric has had an impact on the language and terminology of the social sciences as well. Patterns of human interaction are increasingly described as networks in the sense of this word is used in computer discourse. A similar observation can be made about the word risk, which has been made popular particularly by Ulrich Beck's conception of the risk society, and which in its sociological usage has derived its meaning from nuclear technology.

KLAUS EDER: Is there a reality out there? Realism versus constructivism in the social theory of nature. The article is a defence of constructionism as the necessary point of view that sociology has to contribute to the debate on the natural environment. It aims to clarify the debate on realism versus constructivism by distinguishing events, operational models and cognized models. Events are pre-social. Events enter society by being communicated; they then become part of permanent constructions and reconstructions of nature. This process is regulated by cognized models which contain both social and empirical knowledge. The role of sociologists and sociology is to observe the difference between the performance of a society and the available knowledge on nature, i.e. the operational models the society has.

SARA HEINÄMAA: On science and responsibility: Phenomenological perspectives on European identity. Maurice Merleau-Ponty gave an important speech on the European spirit in 1946. Merleau-Ponty claimed that the European identity is in crisis. This article argues that his remarks on Europe and its crisis can be understood only in relation to Edmund Husserl's late writings on the state of the European sciences. Merleau-Ponty's discussion on Europe is an elaboration of Husserl's arguments. The central notion here is Husserl's idea of philosophy as rigorous science. According to Husserl, this is the core of the European spirit. He defines his notion of philosophy in two steps: first he distinguishes the theoretico-philosophical attitude from the practical life-interests, and then he argues that the theoretical attitude makes possible a specific new practice: universal criticism. Philosophy - as rigorous science - becomes radical self-criticism and self-responsibility. It is argued further that the Husserlian notion of philosophy as self-responsibility is the basis for Merleau-Ponty's claims according to which philosophy is an endless project. Merleau-Ponty develops Husserl's idea of philosophy as a kind of reflective movement that turns back to study its own origin and question its own possibility. The "turning back" should not be understood as a distant goal or an end result; it is rather like an exercise that has to be repeated again and again. For Merleau-Ponty, philosophy is not a problem to be solved but a paradox that has to be accepted. Finally, the article suggests that Michel Foucault's genealogy and Jacques Derrida's deconstruction, in an interesting way, comment on the phenomenological tradition of philosophy in questioning the meaning and possibility of self-criticism.

HEIKKI MIKKELI: Can Metaphysics be avoided? Otto Neurath's encyclopedism and David Mitrany's functionalism. The article compares Otto Neurath's (1882-1945) encyclopedism with David Mitrany's (1888-1975) functionalism. Otto Neurath tried to form his "International System of Unified Science" on the principles of a "physicalist" language which was free from metaphysical statements. As a member of the left wing of the Vienna Circle Neurath saw socialist educational programmes and unified science as two sides of the same coin. Also David Mitrany constructed his functionalist theory of integration on principles in which the aims of integration were far less studied than the process itself. Neurath's encyclopedism faded away after the World War II but Jean Monnet (1888-1979), "the father of Europe", applied Mitrany's functionalist ideas to the process of European integration.

TIEDE & EDISTYS 3/1998 SUMMARIES

IMMANUEL KANT: The conflict of the faculties. The beginning of Kant's original text Der Streit der Fakultäten is published as a Finnish translation to commemorate the 200 years of dispute between university faculties since the publication of the original in 1798.

JARI ARO: The network metaphor in social science. The article presents an analysis of the qualities of the network metaphor in the language of social sciences. Network is a metaphor in at least three different meanings. As an orientation metaphor it emphasises its ability to render physical and social distances unimportant. In this use it stresses the qualities of co-operation and flexibility in social systems. However, it is possible to use the concept of network also in the analysis of power by interpreting network as a container or as a conduit metaphor. When seen in this way, the network illustrates strategies of social power in forming webs of influence and control: those who have power are inside the network, and those who are in control of the important nodes of the network have a capacity to control different flows going through the network.

KIRSI SAARIKANGAS: The dirty places of Finnish homes - Hygiene and the formation of the modern dwelling. Sunshine, fresh air and a functional differentiation of space were key aspects in social and popular medical discussions on dwelling and housing hygiene from the late 19th century onwards. These discussions had a key role in spatial hygiene, when light, air and the regulation of encounters between users became central organizing principles in the planning of hospitals, schools and dwellings. Bacteriological thinking was important in the genealogy of modern home. Functionalists following the footsteps of social-hygienists went even further than the latter in the definition and realization of spatial hygiene. Modern, functional architecture and the construction of the Nordic welfare state were closely related with each other: the making of the new society can be described as a huge ventilation project in which sunshine and fresh air were made to circulate freely both in dwellings and between them. Cleanliness and aesthetical meanings connected with it had a key position in the making of new functional dwellings and new bacteria-free homes. New aesthetics of health and cleanliness were formed in the planning of housing. Cleanness was a sign of a bacteria-free environment. To be clean it was essential to look clean: appearances, smells and touches were important in the definition of the clean. In the "classless" aesthetics of functionalism the clean, the healthy and the rational implied the beautiful and vice versa. The dwelling that fulfilled the demands of the modern age and society was essentially clean and hygienic. Housewives were responsibe for cleanness at home, and through that, the cleanness of her children and family. It was her duty to eliminate dirt and purify her home.

TIEDE & EDISTYS 4/1998 SUMMARIES

TIMO KAITARO: Imagination and the alchemy of the verb. The verbal imagination of surrealism In English, as in many other European languages, the word for imagination is etymologically related to the word "image". Imagination is metaphorically conceived as seeing pictures, images in the mind. Verbal forms of imaginary creation are often seen as verbal transcripts or descriptions of these images. There is, however, a tradition which links imagination directly with language. This is the tradition related to Rimbaud's alchemy of the verb, alchemie du verbe. This tradition culminates in the surrealistic theory of poetic images (and that of André Breton especially). In this tradition, verbal imagination is seen as combinatory imagination, which attempts to combine words in unusual ways in order to produce surprising encounters. These encounters are not supposed to be meaningless. Instead, the unusual use of language is a way of returning to the source of meaning, or, to use Maurice Merleau-Ponty's terminology, to the "speaking language" (langage parlant), as opposed to the routine and banal "spoken language" (langage parlé). Breton regards verbal imagination as primary: visual images are merely secondary accompaniments of the automatic verbal dicté. The metaphorical way of seeing the world that results from such poetic use of language reminds one of a premodern vision which considered the world a network of analogies and correspondences. However, in surrealist universe there is not a transcendent world (beyond this world), which would give a codified meaning to coincidences and encounters. This absence of transcendence gives free reign to the analogical imagination, which, according to Breton, is able to see any object metaphorically as any other, and consequently to create the world anew.

RIIKKA JOKINEN: Levinas and il y a, or, when the modern subject can't get any sleep. Levinas's ethics is here read as a critique of the modern conception of the self-conscious subject. The article asks whether the integrity of the self-conscious subject is dissolved primarily by the horror of the il y a and the meaninglessness of human finality or by ethical responsibility for the Other. Three aspects of Levinas's thinking are here of particular importance. Firstly, the basic feature of the Being of beings is the "presence" of the anonymous and indeterminate il y a, which directs the subject to a non-in-different relation to the Other. Secondly, in his analysis of the concept of "future" Levinas finds that the il y a is analogous with death: realizing the radical otherness of death, the subject can no longer be the master of its own existence. And, thirdly, when Levinas examines the "past" he writes about how being precedes conscious being from which responsibility arises. The il y a is still present as a background of Levinas's later thinking, and it keeps reminding us of the priority of ethics.

MARKE EUROPAEUS: Bipolarity and sexual difference - can the subject of ethics be sexual? The article presents three phenomenologically oriented thinkers to whom sexual difference is an important philosophical problem. In Emmanuel Levinas's thinking sexual difference is a difference of a specific kind and corporeality and sexuality are essential in descriptions of the constitution of subjectivity. Still, the article argues that Levinas is unable to think about this "difference in itself" as he first describes it because of the implicit binarity behind his thinking. The difference between sexual binarity and sexual difference is then presented as it is formulated in Jacques Derrida's reading of ‘Dasein' and sexuality. It is argued that this reading - while conceptually interesting - perhaps can not lead to any further fruitful examinations of the sexuality of ‘Dasein'. Finally it is shown that Luce Irigaray's thinking of sexual difference is an attempt to open up sexuality as a ‘gift' and to avoid binarity by explicitly and constantly questioning the limits of language and by trying not to describe sexuality as an attribute of a being.

MERJA HINTSA: Of the tragedy of the thought of the other. The article focuses on three thinkers of the other: Sigmund Freud, Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas. With respect to each the article inquires what happens to the thought, how it becomes other in its effort to say the wholly other which is incommensurable with its traditional, that is ontological, categories. In each case this effort has to be defined as both necessary and impossible - the fate of the thought that wants to say ‘come' to the other seems to be a tragedy of disappointment. The article argues, however, that this tragedy must not be seen only as an impasse, but also as a condition of possibility of ethics. The key to this reading is Derrida's paradoxical idea of undecidability as a condition of the possibility of justice beyond calculability. An ethical thought of the other finds its possibility in the thought of undecidability: be it in the manner of Freud in being incapable (for exemple in his discourse on deathdrives) of saying anything of his subject without withdrawing it immediately, or in the manner of Levinas in trying to locate the ethical Saying in the language of the ontological Said by an infinite oscillation between this Said and its unsaying.