Kalle Puolakka

Curriculum vitae

Blogini "Estetiikkaa tuoreeltaan. Tutkijan elämää ja klassista musiikkia."

Description of research and teaching

I currently work as a university researcher and docent of aesthetics at the University of Helsinki. My current research project “Literary Experience: Intimacy and Knowledge”, funded by the Kone Foundation (2025–2026), deals with the experience and cognitive value of literature. I am especially interested in developing an account of so-called experiential knowledge – i.e., the claim that literary works offer knowledge of what experiences feel like –, which manages to avoid some of the principal pitfalls attributed to the idea. Moreover, building on Linda Zagzebski’s virtue epistemology, the other important goal of my project in the epistemology of literature is to uncover epistemic features in literary creation and literary works that make literature into a cognitive medium meriting epistemic trust. In addition, I examine, with the help of four concepts – private performance, routine, gap, and trust – the intimacy literary reading involves, which has perplexed numerous literary researchers and philosophers alike.

My other research interests include philosophy of interpretation, philosophy of music, and everyday aesthetics. I am also passionate about John Dewey’s aesthetics, the contemporary relevance of which I have considered in numerous publications. My work on these topics has appeared in, for example, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, the British Journal of Aesthetics, The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Estetika – The European Journal of Aesthetics, Contemporary Aesthetics, International Journal of Philosophical Studies, and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I am also the author of Relativism and Intentionalism in Interpretation. Davidson, Hermeneutics, Pragmatism (Lexington Books, 2011), which is based on my PhD thesis (University of Helsinki, 2009) and which I would very much like to rewrite. In addition, I have written two books in Finnish, John Deweyn estetiikka. Kokemus, luonto ja kulttuuri [John Dewey’s Aesthetics. Experience, Nature, and Culture] (Gaudeamus, 2021) and Johdatus estetiikkaan ja taiteenfilosofiaan [Introduction to Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art] (Gaudeamus, 2024).

I have been a fellow both at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies (fall 2013) and The Institute for Advanced Studies Sofia (Spring 2024). In fall 2021, I was a visiting researcher at the University of Murcia, hosted by the Aesthetics and Theory of Arts Research Group (ARESMUR). I am also the past secretary of both the Finnish Society of Aesthetics (2007–2009) and the European Society of Aesthetics (2013–2018).