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Message in a Bottle

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Hermann David Salomon Corrodi (1844- 1905), On the Amalfi Coast Busy week ahead! I have taken on teaching introduction to history of philosophy at Tampere University again, having classes with the new students every Monday and Tuesday. We discussed philosophy after Plato and Aristotle until early scholasticism this week and will move on to the Renaissance and 17th century philosophy next week. The progress has been slower than usual due to the students being eager to ask questions and discuss the issues raised in the class. But that's the way I like it. Tomorrow, I will go to a meeting with publishing house Tammi on a possible book project. Can't say too much about that yet but the project would be really interesting. On thursday, my three-week course on forgotten women philosophers will begin in Vantaa Adult Education Center . Its great to get to try new teaching material with a new audience. As for article projects in progress, I have had to put them on hold for now due to t...
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The Night of the Brontosaurus

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Originally published in Finnish in niin & näin online-extra in 2015. In the beginning of April 2015 many dinosaur-buffs had to rub their eyes. The long-necked Brontosaurus, familiar from movies, toys and stamps, was reported to have returned to the fields of science. [1]  This was a surprise likewise for those who knew about Bronto’s unofficial status and for those who did not even know the giant had been absent. What ever happened to Brontosaurus? In order to understand the piece of news, it is good to take a glance on the naming history of Brontosaurus, as well as on the history of paleontological naming conventions in general. Once upon a time there was Brontosaurus. It was the biggest dinosaur known in its time, when its fossils were dug up in 1879 from the Morrison Formation in Wyoming. [2]  It was so big that famous American paleontologist and University of Yale professor O.C. Marsh named the finding Brontosaurus excelsus , meaning thunder lizard (gr. brontê , thu...
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Did Descartes kick dogs? A few words on the Cartesian conception of animals

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Originally published in Finnish, in a shorter form, by the Animal Justice Party of Finland  in 2015. Later revised and published in a longer from, still in Finnish, in Paatos  in 2016.  According to a famous story, French philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650) once kicked a pregnant dog; when berated by his companions for the action, he replied that the dog’s whimpers are only like the rattling of gears. The story is lively but does not have textual support. In other versions of the story, the dog is kicked by another philosopher, Nicholas Malebranche (1638–1715), generally considered as a follower of Descartes ( e.g. , Watson 2007, 11–12; Hatfield 2008, 423). Confusing the philosophers seems to stem from a common conception that, according to Descartes, animals do not feel or sense anything, not even pain. Descartes’s enthusiasm to kick and dissect living dogs has become a stuff of philosophical legend, [1] even though no direct evidence for such behaviour exists....
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