Pekka Himanen (born 19 October 1973) is a

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

philosopher.

Professional career

Pekka Himanen studied philosophy (and

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...

as a minor) at the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...

, under professor

Esa Saarinen Esa Jouni Olavi Saarinen (born 27 July 1953 in Hyvinkää, Finland) is a Finnish philosopher who was a professor of applied philosophy at Aalto University and co-director of the Systems Intelligence Research Group.''Kuka kukin on 2003'', pp. 867 ...

. In 1994, with his thesis on the

philosophy of religion Philosophy of religion is "the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions". Philosophical discussions on such topics date from ancient times, and appear in the earliest known texts concerning ph ...

, ''The challenge of

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...

'', he received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the same university, breaking the record as the youngest person to obtain a PhD in Finland, following other record-breaking young PhDs supervised by Saarinen. He has done research work in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

(

), the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

(

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

)), and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

( Stanford University,

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

). At UC Berkeley, Himanen directed the Berkeley Center for the Information Society, a research group under Berkeley's International Computer Science Institute. The Center was active from September 2002 until 200

Himanen has been a counselor to the president of Finland, Finnish government (including the Ministry of Education) and Finnish parliament, in the field of

information society An information society is a society where the usage, creation, distribution, manipulation and integration of information is a significant activity. Its main drivers are information and communication technologies, which have resulted in rapid inf ...

. He was a Visiting Professor at the

Oxford Internet Institute The Oxford Internet Institute (OII) is a multi-disciplinary department of social and computer science dedicated to the study of information, communication, and technology, and is part of the Social Sciences Division of the University of Oxford ...

(based at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

) from September 2005 to July 2006. Himanen had multiple appointments as a fixed-term part-time professor at Helsinki School of Art and Design (now part of

Aalto University Aalto University ( fi, Aalto-yliopisto; sv, Aalto-universitetet) is a public research university located in Espoo, Finland. It was established in 2010 as a merger of three major Finnish universities: the Helsinki University of Technology, the ...

Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture Aalto is a Finnish surname meaning "wave". Notable people with the surname include: * Aino Aalto (1894–1949), Finnish architect and designer * Alec Aalto (1942–2018), Finnish diplomat * Alvar Aalto (1898–1976), Finnish architect and designe ...

) from 2008 until 2014.

Writings

In his book ''

HimEros In Ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Erotes () are a collective of winged gods associated with love and sexual intercourse. They are part of Aphrodite's retinue. ''Erotes'' (Greek ) is the plural of ''Eros'' ("Love, Desire"), who as a sin ...

'' written as a dialogue,

Socrates Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...

’ wife

Xanthippe Xanthippe (; , , ; 5th–4th century BCE) was an ancient Athenian, the wife of Socrates and mother of their three sons: Lamprocles, Sophroniscus, and Menexenus. She was likely much younger than Socrates, perhaps by as much as 40 years. Name ...

relates to the

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...

an what happened to Socrates in Hades, how Socrates decided to escape from Hades and go to study philosophy at the

, and how he was arrested, sentenced to death and executed as a result of a three-day conversation with the philosophers of the University. Xanthippe also transmits Socrates’ dialogue with the university teachers of philosophy Cyborg ( Stephen Hawking), Pope (

John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

), Unabomber (

Theodore Kaczynski Theodore John Kaczynski ( ; born May 22, 1942), also known as the Unabomber (), is an American domestic terrorist and former mathematics professor. Between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski killed three people and injured 23 others in a nationwide ...

) and Madonna ( Madonna Ciccone). In ''

Manuel Castells Manuel Castells Oliván (; ; born 9 February 1942) is a Spanish sociologist. He is well known for his authorship of a trilogy of works, entitled The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. He is a scholar of the information society, co ...

' ''Information Age''. As an alternative to the industrial-capitalist

protestant work ethic The Protestant work ethic, also known as the Calvinist work ethic or the Puritan work ethic, is a work ethic concept in theology, sociology, economics and history which emphasizes that diligence, discipline, and frugality are a result of a per ...

he proposes a

hacker ethic The hacker ethic is a philosophy and set of moral values within hacker culture. Practitioners believe that sharing information and data with others is an ethical imperative. The hacker ethic is related to the concept of freedom of information, ...

as something like a cyber communitarianism. The structure of the information society is a web, which in contemporary business world manifests itself, for instance, in dynamic outsourcing and even cooperation with one's competitors. The "knots" of such a web get activated according to the needs and opportunities.

Global Dignity

In 2006, he established Global Dignity with

Haakon, Crown Prince of Norway Haakon, Crown Prince of Norway (; Haakon Magnus; born 20 July 1973) is the heir apparent to the Norwegian throne. He is the only son of King Harald V and Queen Sonja. Haakon represents the fourth generation of the sitting Norwegian royal fa ...

and

John Hope Bryant John Hope Bryant (born February 6, 1966) is an American financial literacy entrepreneur and businessman. Bryant is the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of nonprofit Operation HOPE, chief executive officer of Bryant Group Ventures a ...

. Global Dignity is an independent, non-political organization that promotes the universal right of every human being to lead a dignified life.

Criticism and negative publicity

Two Finnish journalists, Anu Silfverberg and Johanna Vehkoo, published a critical investigation of Himanen's research funding from public sources, the outcomes of his research, as well as his use of the title of "professor" without holding a professorship. The investigation followed the critical reception of Himanen's recent research reports on information society done under contract with the Finnish government, and reports of disorderly conduct in public places while intoxicated.

Books

*''

'' (1996) *''Filosofian oikeudenkäynti'' (''The trial of philosophy'', 1998) *''

The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age ''The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age'' is a book released in 2001, and written by Pekka Himanen, with prologue written by Linus Torvalds and the epilogue written by Manuel Castells.Linus Torvalds Linus Benedict Torvalds ( , ; born 28 December 1969) is a Finnish software engineer who is the creator and, historically, the lead developer of the Linux kernel, used by Linux distributions and other operating systems such as Android. He also ...

, afterword by

, 2001) *

and Pekka Himanen. ''The Information Society and the Welfare State: The Finnish Model'' (2002) *''Challenges of the Global Information Society'', report for the Committee for the Future in Parliament of

(2004). https://web.archive.org/web/20041114013607/http://www.eduskunta.fi/efakta/vk/tuv/challenges_of_the_globalinformationsociety.pdf *''Rakkaus'' (Love) to appear (2004).

Awards

*1994 Finnish State Award for Popular Science (for the talk series ''Joulukalenteri'' (''Christmas Calendar'')) *1998

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradit ...

award Europrix for the CD ''Sokrates'' (''Socrates'')

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Himanen, Pekka 1973 births Living people 21st-century Finnish philosophers 20th-century Finnish philosophers Academic staff of the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture