Juha Varto is a Finnish philosopher, considered the most important phenomenologist in Finland, known also for his prolific output on a variety of philosophical themes. Since 1999 he has been professor of research in visual art and education at the Aalto University

Aalto University

Aalto University is a Finnish university established on January 1, 2010, by the merger of the Helsinki University of Technology, the Helsinki School of Economics, and the University of Art and Design Helsinki....

 School of Art and Design, Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

. Before that he taught research methodology and acted as director of research in various Finnish universities and polytechnics (1992–1999) and before that taught philosophy at the University of Tampere

University of Tampere

The University of Tampere is a university in Tampere, Finland. It has 15,400 degree students and 2,100 employees. It was originally founded in 1925 in Helsinki as a Civic College , and from 1930 onwards it was known as a School of Social Sciences...

 (1973–1993). During the 1990s Varto produced over 100 programmes for Finnish radio and television, mainly dealing with philosophical questions. He has been awarded an honorary doctorate for theatre and drama by the Theatre Academy Helsinki.

Career

Varto’s early philosophical interest was in the history of logic

Logic

In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...

; his mentor, professor Raili Kauppi

Raili Kauppi

Raili Kauppi , professor of philosophy at the University of Tampere. She was an internationally recognized scholar of Leibniz and intensional logic.Main publications:...

 was an internationally known Leibniz scholar and writer in intentional logic

Intentional Logic

Intentional Logic: A Logic Based on Philosophical Realism is a book by Henry Babcock Veatch published in 1952....

. Varto’s doctoral thesis dealt with the subject of 12th century logic. Later he wrote on questions that touch upon the relationship between formal and philosophical in logic. Varto’s main corpus of writing is in Finnish, since during his early career there were only few texts in Finnish in philosophy and even less on phenomenology. His pedagogical interest was in elaborating Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

’s texts as a starting point in philosophy. But he has also dealt with texts on Edmund Husserl

Edmund Husserl

Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...

, Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...

, Scheler, Reinach

Reinach

- Places :*Reinach, Aargau , a municipality in Switzerland*Reinach, Basel-Country , a municipality in Switzerland- Surname :* Adolf Reinach , German philosopher...

, Edith Stein

Edith Stein

Saint Teresia Benedicta of the Cross, sometimes also known as Saint Edith Stein , was a German Roman Catholic philosopher and nun, regarded as a martyr and saint of the Roman Catholic Church...

, Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Maurice Merleau-Ponty was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Karl Marx, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger in addition to being closely associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir...

, Emmanuel Levinas

Emmanuel Lévinas

Emmanuel Levinas was a Lithuanian-born French Jewish philosopher and Talmudic commentator.-Life:Emanuelis Levinas received a traditional Jewish education in Lithuania...

 and Michel Henry

Michel Henry

Michel Henry was a French philosopher and novelist. He wrote five novels and numerous philosophical works. He also lectured at universities in France, Belgium, the United States of America, and Japan.- Biography :...

. He has also studied the writings of Simone Weil

Simone Weil

Simone Weil , was a French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist.-Biography:Weil was born in Paris to Alsatian agnostic Jewish parents who fled the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. She grew up in comfortable circumstances, and her father was a doctor. Her only sibling was...

 and his approach to issues important to every day life. In recent years Varto has published extensive texts on aesthetics

Aesthetics

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...

 and artistic thinking and the methodology of artistic research.

The Tampere School of Phenomenology

The so-called ”Tampere School of Phenomenology” emerged around Varto’s scholarship activities in the 1980s. This group included both philosophers and scholars of other areas, such as politics and sociology. Today, many of his former students from that period hold leading positions in Finnish universities, as well as governmental institutions and private enterprises. The group identified itself as the ”Finnish Phenomenological Institute”, but after Varto moved to Helsinki it became known as the ”Society of European Philosophy”. The Institute published 44 volumes of scholarship in phenomenology, ranging from doctoral theses to monographs on individual intellectuals and translations of works by foreign intellectuals. Like Varto himself, the Institute and later the Society has been active in civil and public discussions on issues that previously lacked any intellectual approach. Notably, in 1993 they founded the philosophical journal ”niin&näin”, which became a known discussion forum, not tied to any particular school.

Books by Varto in English and German

• Formal and Philosophical in Early Medieval Logic (1989, ISBN 9514424190)
• Formalontologische Relationen der Sprache (1990, ISBN 9514426541)
• The Art and Craft of Beauty (2008, ISBN 9515582806)
• Basics of Artistic Research (2009, ISBN 9515583039)
• Song of the Earth (2011, ISBN 9526041209)

Books by Varto in Finnish

• Nuoruuden viisaus ja muita kirjeitä peruskysymyksestä (The Wisdom of Youth) (1991).
• Laulu maasta: Luennot etiikasta (Lectures in Ethics) (1991)
• Myytti ja metodi: Johdatusta filosofian menetelmiin (Myth and Method) 1992
• Kannettava filosofinen sanakirja (The Portable Philosophical Dictionary) (1992)
• Fenomenologinen tieteen kritiikki (A Phenomenological Critique of Science) (1992)
• Tästä jonnekin muualle: Polkuja Heideggerista (From here to somewhere else: Paths from Heidegger) (1993)
• (with Liisa Veenkivi) Näkyvä ja näkymätön (Philosophical Discussions) (1993)
• Merkintöjä Platonista ja Platonin filosofiasta (Remarks on Plato) (1993)
• Laadullisen tutkimuksen metodologia (Methodology of Qualitative Research) (1992)
• Filosofian taito 1 (The Art of Philosophy I) (1994)
• Filosofian taito 2–3 (The Art of Philosophy II-III) (1995)
• (With Liisa Veenkivi,) Ihmisen tie: Keskusteluja mystikoista (Man's way I: A Discussion on Mystics) (1995)
• Lihan viisaus: Kirjoituksia halusta, katseesta ja puheesta (The Wisdom of the Flesh) 1996
• (With Liisa Veenkivi) Filosofia ja kaunokirjallisuus (Philosophy and Literature) 1996
• (With Liisa Veenkivi) Ihmisen tie 2: ”Kolmas maailma” (Man's way II: The Third World) (1997)
• (With Liisa Veenkivi) Rakkaus ja rukous (Love and Prayer) (1998)
• Uutta tietoa: Värityskirja tieteen filosofiaan (New Knowledge) (2000)
• Kauneuden taito: Estetiikkaa taidekasvattajille (Aesthetics for Art Educators) (2001)
• Isien synnit: Kasvatuksen kulttuurinen ja biologinen ongelma (The Sins of Fathers) (2002)
• Mitä Simone Weil on minulle opettanut (What Simone Weil taught me) (2005)
• (With Hakim Attar) Syvä laulu (Flamenco Deep Song) (2006)
• Ventura Pons (2007)
• Elämän kuvia: Elokuva, elämismaailma ja moraali (Images of Life. Cinema and Morality) 2008.
• Kymmenes muusa (The Tenth Muse. Cinema and Literature) (2007)
• Ajattelemisen alku ja loppu: Kreikkalaista eetosta etsimässä (The beginning and end of thinking: Search for Greek Ethos) (2008)
• Tanssi maailman kanssa. Yksittäisen ontologia. (Dance with the World. The Ontology of Singularity) (2008).