Experience and Existence Revisited Something Essential on A Philosophical Education in Film Art

Abstract The film, the living imagery, traces out its legend before the eyes of the viewer seated there in the darkened space, and in his consciousness becomes a lived spectacle, an interiorised impress of experience. It takes up its abode in him and he falls in step with its movement, merging with the stream of its narrative. In this there evolves an aesthetic-existential situation – of one, many; of one, a qualitative multiplicity is born, and with it the experienced essence of the unique, the inimitable. On this same, the critic pronounces judgement – as often as not his verdict – on this spectacle which he – and another – has beheld; that individual, original experience is thus now couc…

Loppusanat : Kalastajatorppa, ajattomasti

A Modern-Day Diary : Notes for Future Humans

Abstract Time and being can be seen as a space. A modern-day diary is a way of exploring that space or state of being. Outlining and shaping it requires word, image and imagination. The question is framed cultural-philosophically, and the mode of writing is poetic essayism. Otherwise, the creative untangling and differentiation of the poetics of lived space is not possible. After all, the goal is to combine science and art and weave them into the same reflective fabric. The essential aspects include thoughts about the fullness and filling of something, about its fulfilment. Then the present moment is not seen as marking a boundary in just one direction: it is not just an endpoint of the pas…

The Moments Which Were Never Lost

From faraway Hyperborea, the North wind blows, bringing tidings from a blissful northern people in whose very being there resides a smile. The joyful days of Finnishness were left behind in Karelia, in its beloved song-lands. It is an Arcadia that still lives on in memories, passed on, in the form of stories, from one generation to the next. Yet in those unbreakable links of longing there lurks a danger: a constant temptation to deprecate and even dismiss the present moment. If your sense of the real, of the presently passing moment of the “now” is lost, then who bears the responsibility for that? An idealization of the past results in time deception, a chronological fraud where your entire…

Philosophical musings on being, culture and experientiality

Being is like a large looking glass, reflecting nested levels of existence. The idea of mirroring also implies a series of recurring reflections. A culture contains an image of itself that repeats its totality in the form of a diminished image. Internationality and nationality need each other. A one-sided emphasis on one's own history directs the gaze excessively inwards and simultaneously the future is closed off. Nevertheless, internationality needs a core of nationality. Understanding the importance of respecting the past and valuing a diversified future produces a harmonious image in the mirror of time. Being continues uninterruptedly from the bygone into new ages. Even though the harsh…

The Finland of Poetry Revisited Four Snapshots

A poem is a condensation of signs and a method characteristic of every human being for investigating a shared reality. Accordingly, a human being also lives and exists poetically in this common world. This being so, the primacy of the mother tongue refers to the lived language, which mediates the possibility for us of carving out our own unique imprint on existence. Similarly, the native land signifies a milieu where a human being takes on a reality amidst other objects, surrounded by them and as one of them. Poetry creates harmony between past and present. peerReviewed

On Concentric Circles of Being Revisited: Friedrich Nietzsche and the Idea of Eternal Recurrence

The circle, or ouroboros, is a perfect shape: within its depths lie both the beginning and the end. Things are repeated; people encounter the same situations again and again. Concentricity dwells in the spirit of a place, as it does in the ‘I’ of a person. A memory can bring to life the circular nature of existence, allowing the subject to travel recurrently through previously realised pasts. Photographs and literature are also capable of transferring the bygone into the freshness of the present moment. The aesthetics of inhabited space is articulated in architectural shapes. It is an essential part of the collective national narrative, a cultural philosophy narrated into the fabric of bein…

Kalastajatorpan olemus : elokuvamatka aikaan ja tilaan

The Waves of Time Revisited : Glimpses of life

This study could perhaps be characterized as the art of walking in time, verbally, pictorially and abstractly, i.e. using words, images and thoughts. Of course, the ideal of essayism also includes a scientific dimension. Equally the aim is to make multi-level use of the idea of dialogue. At the same time, the writer is also carrying on a monologue (with himself), an aspect that is called dialogic monologue. After all, the respondent, too, is himself the questioner. Architecture and the essay are reminiscent of each other. The created building and the created word are close relatives. An essayistic study signifies a hermetic state of language. A text’s inner verbal room is constructed from a…

Worldly and unworldly flavors. Toward the essence of writing

The Quintessential Kalastajatorppa : A Cinematic Journey into a Time and a Space

Ventovieraana Verkkokalastajatorpassa : kulttuurifilosofinen vuoropuhelu

From the Station to the Lyceum

The world existed before me. I am a visitor, a temporary visitor, in the infinity of existence. The reality lived by those who visited before me has congealed into its own pastness. Yet it is ever present in the present that I am living, contained “within” it. The future, still awaiting its realisation, is open: packed full of tomorrows.

The Many Faces of Turku : An Essayistic Study of Urban Travel

What does it mean to take a photographic, imaginary, or fictional journey to some destination? How does indirect observation of the object differ from direct observation? What are they like, the immediate and the mediated Turku? Which of them is more real or more authentic? Turku is Finland’s most poetic city. It is also the most European of our cities. As the flâneur saunters along the banks of the River Aura, he traverses several centuries. The murmur of yesteryear is to be heard in the old buildings and in the foliage of the time-honoured trees. Here is the cradle, the first home of Finnish civilization. The philosopher-poet is able to see into the essence of a city: he has the patience …

Valiant, vital and virtuous : A time-snap review

A time-snap review – moments captured pictorially – means the creation of multi-layered observation. The enquiring gaze then extends beyond the present moment: to its existential roots. However, it is not a question of presenting an historical list, a collection of topics of various types and periods. Of course, understanding the present also requires knowledge of the people and events of the past. In this way it also becomes possible to study the recurring nature of existence. Can war-related travel also count as cultural travel? Is it possible to talk about war tourism? Presumably, in many countries the answer to this will be positive. It relates to the history of ideas and also to nation…