Osmo Kivinen
Biographic Data
| ID | 173494 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Osmo Kivinen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Osmo |
| FAMILY NAME | Kivinen |
| SIGNATURE | KIVINEN O |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Turku |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7630-1294 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 148 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1988 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Epoch‐Making Changes in the Cultural Evolution of Communication: Communication technologies seen as organized hubs of skillful human activities
This paper applies methodological relationalism, leaning on a pragmatist theory of action of classical Deweyan origin, supplemented among other things with Alva Noë’s enactivism, to analyze the development of communication technologies as a part of human cultural evolution. Tool‐use and technologies are understood as skillful human activities that form hubs of organized activity in developed human communities. Appreciating the quite slow pace of …
Pragmatist Methodological Relationalism in Sociological Understanding of Evolving Human Culture
The evolution of Homo Discens: Natural selection and human learning
This article takes an evolutionary “reverse engineering” standpoint on Homo discens , learning man, to track down the (learning) mechanisms that played a pivotal role in the natural selection of human being. The approach is “evolutionary sociological”—as opposed to gene‐centred or psychologising—and utilises notions of co‐evolutionary organism–environment transactions and niche construction. These are compatible with a Deweyan theory of action, w…
Relationalism
The term “relationalism” covers a variety of positions that emphasize the importance of some sort of relation in sociological theory or research. Many of these positions are ontological, but there are also epistemological and purely methodological relationalisms. Although they do not constitute a single unified school of thought, there are certain family resemblances between these positions, and there have been attempts to collaborate, even to st…
Human Transaction Mechanisms in Evolutionary Niches—a Methodological Relationalist Standpoint
There is a great variety of relationalisms on offer for social scientists these days (see, e.g., Archer, 1995; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992; Dépelteau, 2008; Emirbayer, 1997; Fuchs, 2001; Kivinen and Piiroinen, 2006; Powell, 2007; Tilly, 2001). Some of the most interesting ones of them share an anti-dualistic vein of thought that can be traced back to John Dewey (e.g., [1920] 1988a, pp. 187–198; [1925–1927] 1988c, pp. 355–356) and Norbert Elias (e…
On the Distinctively Human: Two Perspectives on the Evolution of Language and Conscious Mind
In this paper, two alternative naturalistic standpoints on the relations between language, human consciousness and social life are contrasted. The first, dubbed “intrinsic naturalism,” is advocated among others by the realist philosopher John Searle; it starts with intrinsic intentionality and consciousness emerging from the brain, explains language as an outgrowth of consciousness and ends with institutional reality being created by language‐use…
Hacia un relacionalismo metodológico pragmático. De la filosofización de la sociología a la sociologización de la filosofía
En el presente artículo se analizan los enfoques relacionalistas de las ciencias sociales en términos de una distinción conceptual entre la "filosofización de la sociología" y la "sociologización de la filosofía". Estos marcan dos actitudes diferentes con respecto a la metafísica filosófica y sus compromisos ontológicos. El pragmatismo de los autores tiene su origen en el relacionalismo metodológico de Dewey, el cual se compara con los enfoques r…
Hacia un relacionalismo pragmático metodológico: De Una Filosofización De La Sociología a Una Socialización De La Filosofía
En este artículo se analizan los enfoques relacionalistas en ciencias sociales en términos de una distinción conceptual entre ¿filosofizando la sociología¿ y ¿sociologizando la filosofía¿. Estos marcan dos diferentes actitudes hacia la metafísica filosófica y sus compromisos ontológicos. El pragmatismo de los autores tiene origen en el relacionalismo metodológico de Dewey, el cual es comparado con los compromisos ontológicos de los enfoques reali…
Sociologizing metaphysics and mind: A pragmatist point of view on the methodology of the social sciences
From Elite University to Mass Higher Education: Educational Expansion, Equality of Opportunity and Returns to University Education
The transition research framework combines two selection mechanisms, one non-discriminatory, based on equality criteria for transition from home to education, the other discriminatory, based on suitability criteria for transition from education to labour market. With the expansive, egalitarian Nordic higher education policy as its starting point, and drawing on Bourdieuan-Collinsian ideas and Finnish census data, the article examines changes in i…
Toward Pragmatist Methodological Relationalism: From Philosophizing Sociology to Sociologizing Philosophy
In this article, relationalist approaches to social sciences are analyzed in terms of a conceptual distinction between “philosophizing sociology” and “sociologizing philosophy.” These mark two different attitudes toward philosophical metaphysics and ontological commitments. The authors’ own pragmatist methodological relationalism of Deweyan origin is compared with ontologically committed realist approaches, as well as with Bourdieuan methodologic…
On the Limits of a Realist Conception of Knowledge: A Pragmatist Critique of Archerian Realism
In her book Being Human (2000), Margaret Archer presents intriguing pragmatist emphases on practice, embodiment and non-linguistic knowing-how, as regards to understanding humanity. However, as Archer attempts to conjoin these ideas with the morphogenetic realism she has been working on for the last few decades, she ends up holding on to a subject-object dualism, which makes things complicated. The authors' alternative pragmatist account defended…
The Relevance of Ontological Commitments in Social Sciences: Realist and Pragmatist Viewpoints
The article discusses the relevance of ontology, the metaphysical study of being, in social sciences through a comparison of three distinct outlooks: Roy Bhaskar's version of critical realism, a pragmatic realist approach the most renowned representatives of which are Rom Harré and Hilary Putnam, and the authors’ own synthesis of the pragmatist John Dewey's and the neopragmatist Richard Rorty's ideas, here called methodological relationalism. The…
Unifying Higher Education for Different Kinds of Europeans. Higher Education and Work: A comparison of ten countries
This article discusses the European Union's ongoing campaign to create a common European Higher Education Area against a set of comparative results on the current state of university education within the envisioned area. Our data on 25,000 university graduates from ten European countries reveal both similarities and differences between these countries in the relationships between education and the world of work, degree structures, actual study du…
The Emerging Field of Biotechnology- The Case of Finland
This article examines the emerging field of today's superscience-biotechnology- within the context of the national innovation system of one small country, namely Finland. This context is explored primarily through the practices of one particular Finnish biotechnology center, BioCity. The Silicon Valley rhetoric, which every self-respecting technology project around the world seems to incorporate into its own vocabulary, is compared with the every…
Changing relations between education and work: On the mechanisms and outcomes of the educational system
This article analyses the mechanisms of a state-organized educational system as it functions between households and the labour market, regulating the passage of age cohorts from the home via school to the labour market. One question is what outcomes the educational system actually produces and what mechanisms are at work in the distribution of educational advantage. In terms of disadvantage, the paper assesses solutions for overcoming the skill g…
Changes in Differences in Participation in Expanding Higher Education: Reply to Hellevik
In our article 'Expanding Education and Improving Odds?' (Kivinen et al. 2001) we focused on the key findings of research on the differences in participation in higher education in Finland in the 1980s and 1990s. In the Introduction we discussed the methods of measuring participation in higher education. We concluded that the advantage of the odds ratio (OR) is that it can also reveal how much more the offspring of the highly educated benefit fro…
Even Higher Learning Takes Place by Doing: From postmodern critique to pragmatic action
This article starts out from the postmodern critique on higher education, which presents a challenge to discard the contemplative conception of knowledge and promotes a pragmatic conception of inquiry, knowing how and higher learning. Experimental everyday inquiry and scienti c research do not differ from each other in this respect: both entail learning by doing as the experience accumulating through action shapes both the actor’s habits and the …
Expanding Education and Improving Odds? Participation in Higher Education in Finland in the 1980s and 1990s
This article focuses mainly on the key results of research on the differences in participation in higher education in Finland in the 1980s and 1990s. The recent discussion surrounding the methods of measuring participation in higher education is also considered. The results show that, in 1980, the odds for children of the well educated participating in higher education was 13 times greater than that of children of fathers with only a basic level …
Methodological Challenges for Comparative Research Into Higher Education
State, Governmentality and Education — the Nordic experience
In our article, we first interrogate the prevailing monolithic concept of the State, and introduce the concept of ‘governmentality’ originated by Michel Foucault. We then explore how governmentality has historically been linked with education, and specifically with the evolution of ‘civilizing the rabble’, inculcating deference, and more recently with the development of the Scandinavian ‘Caring State’. Finally, we explore the changing tasks of ed…
Finnish Higher Education Policy and Teacher Training
Didactic closure: Professionalization and pedagogic knowledge in Finnish teacher education
The Thirst for Learning, or Protecting One's Niche? The shaping of teacher training in Finland during the 19th and 20th centuries
The expansion in the scale and duration of education, and it overall growth, is one of the striking characteristics of the 20th century. More and more occupational groups have distanced themselves from the leaming‐on‐the‐job tradition in favour of a professional graduate training of many years’ duration. The article examines the historical development of teacher training in Finland against the context of the professionalization tendencies so char…
Investment in Higher Education: The Finnish Experience
From Elite University to Mass Higher Education: Educational Expansion, Equality of Opportunity and Returns to University Education
The transition research framework combines two selection mechanisms, one non-discriminatory, based on equality criteria for transition from home to education, the other discriminatory, based on suitability criteria for transition from education to labour market. With the expansive, egalitarian Nordic higher education policy as its starting point, and drawing on Bourdieuan-Collinsian ideas and Finnish census data, the article examines changes in i…
Expanding Education and Improving Odds? Participation in Higher Education in Finland in the 1980s and 1990s
This article focuses mainly on the key results of research on the differences in participation in higher education in Finland in the 1980s and 1990s. The recent discussion surrounding the methods of measuring participation in higher education is also considered. The results show that, in 1980, the odds for children of the well educated participating in higher education was 13 times greater than that of children of fathers with only a basic level …
The Relevance of Ontological Commitments in Social Sciences: Realist and Pragmatist Viewpoints
The article discusses the relevance of ontology, the metaphysical study of being, in social sciences through a comparison of three distinct outlooks: Roy Bhaskar's version of critical realism, a pragmatic realist approach the most renowned representatives of which are Rom Harré and Hilary Putnam, and the authors’ own synthesis of the pragmatist John Dewey's and the neopragmatist Richard Rorty's ideas, here called methodological relationalism. The…
Toward Pragmatist Methodological Relationalism: From Philosophizing Sociology to Sociologizing Philosophy
In this article, relationalist approaches to social sciences are analyzed in terms of a conceptual distinction between “philosophizing sociology” and “sociologizing philosophy.” These mark two different attitudes toward philosophical metaphysics and ontological commitments. The authors’ own pragmatist methodological relationalism of Deweyan origin is compared with ontologically committed realist approaches, as well as with Bourdieuan methodologic…
State, Governmentality and Education — the Nordic experience
In our article, we first interrogate the prevailing monolithic concept of the State, and introduce the concept of ‘governmentality’ originated by Michel Foucault. We then explore how governmentality has historically been linked with education, and specifically with the evolution of ‘civilizing the rabble’, inculcating deference, and more recently with the development of the Scandinavian ‘Caring State’. Finally, we explore the changing tasks of ed…
Changes in Differences in Participation in Expanding Higher Education: Reply to Hellevik
In our article 'Expanding Education and Improving Odds?' (Kivinen et al. 2001) we focused on the key findings of research on the differences in participation in higher education in Finland in the 1980s and 1990s. In the Introduction we discussed the methods of measuring participation in higher education. We concluded that the advantage of the odds ratio (OR) is that it can also reveal how much more the offspring of the highly educated benefit fro…
Sociologizing metaphysics and mind: A pragmatist point of view on the methodology of the social sciences
Didactic closure: Professionalization and pedagogic knowledge in Finnish teacher education
On the Limits of a Realist Conception of Knowledge: A Pragmatist Critique of Archerian Realism
In her book Being Human (2000), Margaret Archer presents intriguing pragmatist emphases on practice, embodiment and non-linguistic knowing-how, as regards to understanding humanity. However, as Archer attempts to conjoin these ideas with the morphogenetic realism she has been working on for the last few decades, she ends up holding on to a subject-object dualism, which makes things complicated. The authors' alternative pragmatist account defended…
On the Distinctively Human: Two Perspectives on the Evolution of Language and Conscious Mind
In this paper, two alternative naturalistic standpoints on the relations between language, human consciousness and social life are contrasted. The first, dubbed “intrinsic naturalism,” is advocated among others by the realist philosopher John Searle; it starts with intrinsic intentionality and consciousness emerging from the brain, explains language as an outgrowth of consciousness and ends with institutional reality being created by language‐use…
The evolution of Homo Discens: Natural selection and human learning
This article takes an evolutionary “reverse engineering” standpoint on Homo discens , learning man, to track down the (learning) mechanisms that played a pivotal role in the natural selection of human being. The approach is “evolutionary sociological”—as opposed to gene‐centred or psychologising—and utilises notions of co‐evolutionary organism–environment transactions and niche construction. These are compatible with a Deweyan theory of action, w…
Unifying Higher Education for Different Kinds of Europeans. Higher Education and Work: A comparison of ten countries
This article discusses the European Union's ongoing campaign to create a common European Higher Education Area against a set of comparative results on the current state of university education within the envisioned area. Our data on 25,000 university graduates from ten European countries reveal both similarities and differences between these countries in the relationships between education and the world of work, degree structures, actual study du…
The Emerging Field of Biotechnology- The Case of Finland
This article examines the emerging field of today's superscience-biotechnology- within the context of the national innovation system of one small country, namely Finland. This context is explored primarily through the practices of one particular Finnish biotechnology center, BioCity. The Silicon Valley rhetoric, which every self-respecting technology project around the world seems to incorporate into its own vocabulary, is compared with the every…
Even Higher Learning Takes Place by Doing: From postmodern critique to pragmatic action
This article starts out from the postmodern critique on higher education, which presents a challenge to discard the contemplative conception of knowledge and promotes a pragmatic conception of inquiry, knowing how and higher learning. Experimental everyday inquiry and scienti c research do not differ from each other in this respect: both entail learning by doing as the experience accumulating through action shapes both the actor’s habits and the …
Investment in Higher Education: The Finnish Experience
The University, the State and Professional Interest Groups: A Finnish Lesson in University Development Policy
Epoch‐Making Changes in the Cultural Evolution of Communication: Communication technologies seen as organized hubs of skillful human activities
This paper applies methodological relationalism, leaning on a pragmatist theory of action of classical Deweyan origin, supplemented among other things with Alva Noë’s enactivism, to analyze the development of communication technologies as a part of human cultural evolution. Tool‐use and technologies are understood as skillful human activities that form hubs of organized activity in developed human communities. Appreciating the quite slow pace of …
Relationalism
The term “relationalism” covers a variety of positions that emphasize the importance of some sort of relation in sociological theory or research. Many of these positions are ontological, but there are also epistemological and purely methodological relationalisms. Although they do not constitute a single unified school of thought, there are certain family resemblances between these positions, and there have been attempts to collaborate, even to st…
The Thirst for Learning, or Protecting One's Niche? The shaping of teacher training in Finland during the 19th and 20th centuries
The expansion in the scale and duration of education, and it overall growth, is one of the striking characteristics of the 20th century. More and more occupational groups have distanced themselves from the leaming‐on‐the‐job tradition in favour of a professional graduate training of many years’ duration. The article examines the historical development of teacher training in Finland against the context of the professionalization tendencies so char…
The School System and Special Education: Causes and Effects in the Twentieth Century
The article delineates a line of development in which special education and the increasing need for it are connected with the gradual institutionalisation of the modern school model in the school system. In a model of this type the teacher must use the limited time available efficiently to attain the set objectives, which means that any interruptions or disturbances jeopardise the possibility of achieving important goals with the time-limit, and …
The University, the State and Professional Interest Groups: A Finnish Lesson in University Development Policy
Policy change in higher education: Intended and unintended outcomes
The First Years of Study at Fachhochschulen and Universities in the Federal Republic of Germany
Investment in Higher Education: The Finnish Experience
The Thirst for Learning, or Protecting One's Niche? The shaping of teacher training in Finland during the 19th and 20th centuries
The expansion in the scale and duration of education, and it overall growth, is one of the striking characteristics of the 20th century. More and more occupational groups have distanced themselves from the leaming‐on‐the‐job tradition in favour of a professional graduate training of many years’ duration. The article examines the historical development of teacher training in Finland against the context of the professionalization tendencies so char…
Didactic closure: Professionalization and pedagogic knowledge in Finnish teacher education
Methodological Challenges for Comparative Research Into Higher Education
State, Governmentality and Education — the Nordic experience
In our article, we first interrogate the prevailing monolithic concept of the State, and introduce the concept of ‘governmentality’ originated by Michel Foucault. We then explore how governmentality has historically been linked with education, and specifically with the evolution of ‘civilizing the rabble’, inculcating deference, and more recently with the development of the Scandinavian ‘Caring State’. Finally, we explore the changing tasks of ed…
Finnish Higher Education Policy and Teacher Training
Expanding Education and Improving Odds? Participation in Higher Education in Finland in the 1980s and 1990s
This article focuses mainly on the key results of research on the differences in participation in higher education in Finland in the 1980s and 1990s. The recent discussion surrounding the methods of measuring participation in higher education is also considered. The results show that, in 1980, the odds for children of the well educated participating in higher education was 13 times greater than that of children of fathers with only a basic level …
Changing relations between education and work: On the mechanisms and outcomes of the educational system
This article analyses the mechanisms of a state-organized educational system as it functions between households and the labour market, regulating the passage of age cohorts from the home via school to the labour market. One question is what outcomes the educational system actually produces and what mechanisms are at work in the distribution of educational advantage. In terms of disadvantage, the paper assesses solutions for overcoming the skill g…
Changes in Differences in Participation in Expanding Higher Education: Reply to Hellevik
In our article 'Expanding Education and Improving Odds?' (Kivinen et al. 2001) we focused on the key findings of research on the differences in participation in higher education in Finland in the 1980s and 1990s. In the Introduction we discussed the methods of measuring participation in higher education. We concluded that the advantage of the odds ratio (OR) is that it can also reveal how much more the offspring of the highly educated benefit fro…
Even Higher Learning Takes Place by Doing: From postmodern critique to pragmatic action
This article starts out from the postmodern critique on higher education, which presents a challenge to discard the contemplative conception of knowledge and promotes a pragmatic conception of inquiry, knowing how and higher learning. Experimental everyday inquiry and scienti c research do not differ from each other in this respect: both entail learning by doing as the experience accumulating through action shapes both the actor’s habits and the …
Unifying Higher Education for Different Kinds of Europeans. Higher Education and Work: A comparison of ten countries
This article discusses the European Union's ongoing campaign to create a common European Higher Education Area against a set of comparative results on the current state of university education within the envisioned area. Our data on 25,000 university graduates from ten European countries reveal both similarities and differences between these countries in the relationships between education and the world of work, degree structures, actual study du…
The Emerging Field of Biotechnology- The Case of Finland
This article examines the emerging field of today's superscience-biotechnology- within the context of the national innovation system of one small country, namely Finland. This context is explored primarily through the practices of one particular Finnish biotechnology center, BioCity. The Silicon Valley rhetoric, which every self-respecting technology project around the world seems to incorporate into its own vocabulary, is compared with the every…
The Relevance of Ontological Commitments in Social Sciences: Realist and Pragmatist Viewpoints
The article discusses the relevance of ontology, the metaphysical study of being, in social sciences through a comparison of three distinct outlooks: Roy Bhaskar's version of critical realism, a pragmatic realist approach the most renowned representatives of which are Rom Harré and Hilary Putnam, and the authors’ own synthesis of the pragmatist John Dewey's and the neopragmatist Richard Rorty's ideas, here called methodological relationalism. The…
Toward Pragmatist Methodological Relationalism: From Philosophizing Sociology to Sociologizing Philosophy
In this article, relationalist approaches to social sciences are analyzed in terms of a conceptual distinction between “philosophizing sociology” and “sociologizing philosophy.” These mark two different attitudes toward philosophical metaphysics and ontological commitments. The authors’ own pragmatist methodological relationalism of Deweyan origin is compared with ontologically committed realist approaches, as well as with Bourdieuan methodologic…
On the Limits of a Realist Conception of Knowledge: A Pragmatist Critique of Archerian Realism
In her book Being Human (2000), Margaret Archer presents intriguing pragmatist emphases on practice, embodiment and non-linguistic knowing-how, as regards to understanding humanity. However, as Archer attempts to conjoin these ideas with the morphogenetic realism she has been working on for the last few decades, she ends up holding on to a subject-object dualism, which makes things complicated. The authors' alternative pragmatist account defended…
Sociologizing metaphysics and mind: A pragmatist point of view on the methodology of the social sciences
From Elite University to Mass Higher Education: Educational Expansion, Equality of Opportunity and Returns to University Education
The transition research framework combines two selection mechanisms, one non-discriminatory, based on equality criteria for transition from home to education, the other discriminatory, based on suitability criteria for transition from education to labour market. With the expansive, egalitarian Nordic higher education policy as its starting point, and drawing on Bourdieuan-Collinsian ideas and Finnish census data, the article examines changes in i…
Hacia un relacionalismo metodológico pragmático. De la filosofización de la sociología a la sociologización de la filosofía
En el presente artículo se analizan los enfoques relacionalistas de las ciencias sociales en términos de una distinción conceptual entre la "filosofización de la sociología" y la "sociologización de la filosofía". Estos marcan dos actitudes diferentes con respecto a la metafísica filosófica y sus compromisos ontológicos. El pragmatismo de los autores tiene su origen en el relacionalismo metodológico de Dewey, el cual se compara con los enfoques r…
Hacia un relacionalismo pragmático metodológico: De Una Filosofización De La Sociología a Una Socialización De La Filosofía
En este artículo se analizan los enfoques relacionalistas en ciencias sociales en términos de una distinción conceptual entre ¿filosofizando la sociología¿ y ¿sociologizando la filosofía¿. Estos marcan dos diferentes actitudes hacia la metafísica filosófica y sus compromisos ontológicos. El pragmatismo de los autores tiene origen en el relacionalismo metodológico de Dewey, el cual es comparado con los compromisos ontológicos de los enfoques reali…
On the Distinctively Human: Two Perspectives on the Evolution of Language and Conscious Mind
In this paper, two alternative naturalistic standpoints on the relations between language, human consciousness and social life are contrasted. The first, dubbed “intrinsic naturalism,” is advocated among others by the realist philosopher John Searle; it starts with intrinsic intentionality and consciousness emerging from the brain, explains language as an outgrowth of consciousness and ends with institutional reality being created by language‐use…
Human Transaction Mechanisms in Evolutionary Niches—a Methodological Relationalist Standpoint
There is a great variety of relationalisms on offer for social scientists these days (see, e.g., Archer, 1995; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992; Dépelteau, 2008; Emirbayer, 1997; Fuchs, 2001; Kivinen and Piiroinen, 2006; Powell, 2007; Tilly, 2001). Some of the most interesting ones of them share an anti-dualistic vein of thought that can be traced back to John Dewey (e.g., [1920] 1988a, pp. 187–198; [1925–1927] 1988c, pp. 355–356) and Norbert Elias (e…
Sociology (24 works) · Philosophy (15 works) · Political science (15 works) · Epistemology (14 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Higher education (11 works) · Economics (9 works) · Critical Realism in Sociology (8 works) · Higher Education Governance and Development (8 works) · Economic growth (7 works)