- Pekka Himanen
Pekka Himanen (born
October 19 ,1973 ) is a Finnishphilosopher .Biography
He studied
philosophy (andcomputer science as a minor) at theUniversity of Helsinki . In 1994, with his thesis on thephilosophy of religion , "The challenge ofBertrand Russell ", he received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the same university, thus becoming the youngest Ph.D. in Finland.He has done research work in
Finland (University of Helsinki ), theUnited Kingdom , and theUnited States (Stanford University ,University of California, Berkeley ) and has done field work inIndia ,China andJapan . At UC Berkeley, Himanen directed (Manuel Castells as chair) the Berkeley Center for the Information Society, a research group under Berkeley's International Computer Science Institute. The Center was active from 1997 until 2005 [http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/BCIS/] .Himanen has also been a counselor to the president of Finland, Finnish government (including the Ministry of Education) and Finnish parliament in the field of
information society , keeping a sustained dialogue on human-oriented information society with the leading IT companies of the world.Currently, Himanen works as a Principal Scientist at the
Helsinki Institute for Information Technology , where he leads a research project on global network society. He is also a Professor of Creative Economy at theUniversity of Art and Design Helsinki , and has been a Visiting Professor at theOxford Internet Institute (based atOxford University ) from September 2005 to July 2006.In his book "
HimEros " written as adialogue ,Socrates ’ wifeXanthippe relates to theHelsinki an what happened to Socrates inHades , how Socrates decided to escape from Hades and go to study philosophy at theUniversity of Helsinki , 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), Unabomber (Theodore Kaczynski ) and Madonna (Madonna Ciccone).In "Hacker Ethic", Himanen is trying to understand the core of
informationalism , the post-industrialistparadigm , extending the ideas ofManuel Castells ' "Information Age". As an alternative to the industrial-capitalistprotestant work ethic he proposes ahacker ethic as something like a cybercommunitarianism . The structure of the information society is a web, which in contemporary business world manifests itself, for instance, in dynamicoutsourcing and even cooperation with one's competitors. The "knots" of such a web get activated according to the needs and opportunities.According to Himanen, the three main features of hacker ethic are:
* enthusiastic, passionate attitude to the work that is enjoyed
*creativity , wish to realise oneself and one's ability, often in teams that are formed spontaneously (project orientation)
* wish to share one's skills with a community having common goals, along with the need to acquire recognition from one's "tribe"; one is motivated by inner zeal rather than external awards: the fruits of one's work are donated to everybody for their advances and further developmentsManuel Castells thinks that theinnovation s produced by hackers are the foundations of the development of the whole culture. According to Himanen, the social hackerism begins from such things asvegetarianism , whereas the opposite of it is represented byMicrosoft and the licensing ofcomputer program s. Himanen thinks that in the information society we need a radical lack of prejudice, such as he has met in philosophy lessons to children. A critical challenge of theInternet era is the ability to meet the other human being.Books
*"
HimEros " (1996)
*"Filosofian oikeudenkäynti" ("The trial of philosophy", 1998)
*"The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age" (foreword byLinus Torvalds , afterword byManuel Castells , 2001)
*Manuel Castells 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 ofFinland (2004). 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"))
*1998Europe anmultimedia awardEuroprix for the CD "Sokrates" ("Socrates")External links
* [http://www.pekkahimanen.org/index.html Pekka Himanen's homepage]
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