Dr. J. (Jouni-Matti) Kuukkanen

Position:
  • Postdoctoral fellow in the NWO funded project “Philosophical Foundations of the Historiography of Science”
Expertise:
  • Philosophy of Science
  • Thomas Kuhn
  • Philosophy of the History of Thought
  • Historiography of Science
  • Science Studies


Telephone number: +31 (0)71 527 2031
E-Mail: j.kuukkanen@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Faculty / Department: Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte
Office Address: Witte Singel-complex
Witte Singel 25/M. de Vrieshof 4
2311 BZ Leiden

Dr. Kuukkanen studied contemporary history and philosophy at the University of Turku, Finland, and Philosophy at the New School University, New York. He received his doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Edinburgh in 2006. After that he was Visiting Research Fellow until 2008 in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Durham, England. Since October 2008, Kuukkanen has worked as Postdoctoral Fellow in the project “Philosophical Foundations of the Historiography of Science” in Leiden.

Research
My research interests can be summarized into three areas. First, there is philosophy of science in general, and Thomas Kuhn and other historical philosophers of science in particular. My dissertation was on Kuhn and the meaning change debate, which is now published as Meaning Changes. A Study of Thomas Kuhn’s Philosophy (VDM Verlag Dr Müller, 2008). Second, I am interested in the philosophy of history with specific emphasis on what I call the philosophy of the history of thought. Third, currently, I study philosophical implications of the current historiography of science. My role is to carry out research which aims at showing that the concept of autonomy can be used to provide a resolution between two conflicting intuitions in the current historiography of science. One is scientists’ emphasis that scientific knowledge is objectively valid and independent of any local contexts, and the other is the view generally held by contemporary historians of science that scientific knowledge is constructed by local, contingent, and contextual processes.    

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Last Modified: 23-08-2010