Plato’s dialogue Cratylus concerns the question of whether the correctness of names/ words (ἡ τῶν ὀνομάτων ὀρθότης) is a matter of convention (συνθήκη) or nature (φύσις). While interpreters are divided over the assessment of this challenging work as a whole, there is near unanimity among them when it comes to the evaluation of the conception of language articulated by the character Hermogenes, the proponent of the conventionalist view in the text. It is, they maintain, highly problematic and, therefore, philosophically of little interest. The aim of this book is to show, through detailed philosopical-exegetical analyses of relevant passages of the Platonic dialogue, that such an evaluation is hardly plausible, since Hermogenes has a coherent – albeit not quite sufficiently complex – conception of language that allows him to give a convincing answer to the question of why names/words are correct. Crucial for this undertaking is to show that the three most common points of criticism brought forward against this conception are completely unfounded: It turns out that it does not exclude the possibility of successful intersubjective communication within a language community, and that it entails neither the impossibility of saying something false nor a »global« ontological relativism of the Protagorean type. Moreover, it becomes apparent that this conception is in all likelihood the first coherent conventionalist theory of language in the verbatim transmitted texts and text fragments of Greek-European culture. The study is completed by two brief observations: 1. the character Socrates in the Cratylus probably holds conventionalist views too; 2. this circumstance – together with the fact that in the Platonic corpus conventionalist statements can also be found in some passages outside the Cratylus – suggests that Plato himself should be regarded as a linguistic conventionalist. This book is primarily intended for Plato researchers. However, it may also be of interest to those who do research on the early history of the Western philosophy of language.

This thesis addresses the topic of collocations and their behavior based on Russian language data. In the course of four articles, I develop a better understanding of collocations that is based on a corpus-driven approach. Collocations are defined as statistically significant co-occurrences of tokens or lexemes within a syntactic phrase that are extracted by statistics-based automatic analysis tools and are restricted to various extents: from semantically not-idiomatic to full idioms. In the article “Evaluation of collocation extraction methods for the Russian language” (2017), my co-authors and I discuss of the methods used to extract statistical collocations and provide results pertaining to the comparison of five metrics for extracting statistics-based collocations as well as the raw frequency. First, this research has demonstrated that the results of the discussed metrics are often correlated and, second, that the degree of idiomaticity of the extracted units varies significantly. In “What do we get from extracting collocations? Linguistic analysis of automatically obtained Russian MWEs” (2015), I offer a comparison of the empirical and phraseological perspectives on collocations and introduce research where I attempt to position empirical collocations within the scope of a phraseological theory. This research demonstrates that empirical collocations have different tendencies to form idiomatic lexical units and I reveal the shortcomings of describing the idiomaticity of expressions in terms of strict classes. In “Choosing between lexeme vs. token in Russian collocations” (2019), I examine grammatical profiling as a method used to define the optimal level of representation for collocations. I have demonstrated that collocations have different distributional preferences across the corpus. I have also analyzed the relationship between token and lexeme collocations based on the degree to which their grammatical profiles resemble the grammatical profiles of their headwords (although the border between the two types is not clear-cut). I also offered a plausible method of differentiating between these two collocation types. Finally, in “Constructional generalization over Russian collocations” (2016) my co-authors and I present the main concepts of Construction Grammar and introduce the research where a substantial number of automatically extracted collocations were demonstrated to form clusters of words that belong to the same semantic class, even when they are not idiomatic. Such constructional generalizations have shown that there is a more abstract level on which collocations can be stable as a class rather than on the level of single collocations.

This work considers the problem of the ontological implications of epistemic success (“the problem of success”), that is, what can be inferred regarding how the world has to be if one only assumes that there has to be some evaluable epistemic access to that world. What ontological assumptions are sufficient for having such access? It is argued that three assumptions are sufficient for this task: A1) One can act in the world. A2) The way one’s actions in this world are constrained is not totally arbitrary. A3) One is able to interpret some specifications related to how one’s actions would be constrained. How these three assumptions can account for the possibility of evaluable empirical and theoretical knowledge is demonstrated by utilizing a novel ontological framework called Constrained Ontology. Constrained Ontology takes what is real to be the way in which our dealings with the world are non-arbitrary, that is, how our actions in the world are constrained. This means that the world is not taken to be real in terms of what it contains, but rather in how it affects our dealings with it. This shift in ontological emphasis has several interesting philosophical features. It allows for non-circular evaluations regarding when a representation is faithful (Chapter 2). It allows for indirect evaluations of theoretical knowledge claims and the various theoretical methods used in science (Chapter 3). These methods include inductive inferences, triangulation, robustness analysis and consistency and evaluability conditions. The use of these methods, on the other hand, can be used in explaining the theoretical success of science, which means that a constrained ontology in a sense provides an ontological explanation for the success of science. Constrained Ontology can also be taken as a structural realist position that can account for scientific realist desiderata without breaking the empiricist spirit (Chapter 4). Finally, a constrained ontology can be used to show that stronger ontological assumptions are not necessary for accounting for the possibility of science being successful. In particular, this implies that one does not need to assume the existence of any substantial entities and all arguments to that effect have to appeal to some further desideratum than the mere possibility of science being empirically and theoretically successful. The success of science does not imply that there are substantial entities. The work also utilises a condition of evaluability according to which distinctions are well defined only if there is some way to evaluate how they distinguish their objects. There must be some specified way to determine which cases fall to which side of the distinction. That is, a distinction is well defined only if there is some way of determining how it distinguishes the differing cases. Constrained Ontology can be seen as an application of this principle to ontology. What other implications this condition might have is a question well deserving of further study.

Native cultures in North America have rich oral traditions with many stories that have preserved whole lifestyles with different worldviews, traditions and values. The present-day Native storytellers, such as Ojibwe writer Louise Erdrich, create out of these traditional narratives new kinds of tribal treasures in the form of novels, plays and poetry as well as literature for younger readers. The themes of these narratives include such topics as traditional and modern survival stories, relationship to nature or land, circles and cycles, and the interdependency of humans and other life forms. In this thesis the main research questions consist of nature/land and nature/land relationships in Louise Erdrich’s young adult fiction, The Birchbark House series, and these questions are studied especially from the viewpoint of deep ecology, to the extent this approach fits and can be applied in the case of Native and Ojibwe cultures. In order to promote a more precise and Native culture focused analysis of Native American literature, both adult and young adult or children’s literature included, a creative tool for dialogue, namely that of Native Ecologue and Native (Tribal) Ecologue, as in Native (Ojibwe) Ecologue, is developed during the research process. As a concept, Native (Ojibwe) Ecologue includes in the process of dialogue the different elements of traditional Ojibwe culture and nature/land relationships, and humans, non-humans and other life forms of the past and present are all equally valuable dialogic partners in the storytelling process. When studying more modern Ojibwe or other Native American stories, this tool of analysis can be modified to meet the needs of present-day narratives and the requirements of different (literary) genres. Nature/land and nature/land relationships are studied by taking a closer look at three main points, namely how nature/land functions fictionally as a teacher and a source of healing for an Ojibwe family; how nature/land is a source of survival, challenges and happiness for them, and how the Ojibwe life and landscapes change during the 100-year journey by Omakayas and her family. This US focused thesis also addresses Native North American literary studies, ecocritical approaches and deep ecology in the Native and Ojibwe context as well as Louise Erdrich’s role as an Ojibwe and American writer and The Birchbark House series as Native literature for young adults but also for a more mature audience. The viewpoints of ecocriticism and deep ecology as well as Ojibwe culture are applied when close reading, especially from the cultural point of view, Louise Erdrich’s Birchbark House series with The Birchbark House (1999), The Game of Silence (2005), The Porcupine Year (2008), Chickadee (2012) and Makoons (2016), which tell the story of an Ojibwe girl Omakayas and her family and their journey from Madeline Island to the Great Plains of Dakota through a 100 years of Native American history. These novels, which have received less academic attention than other Erdrich’s writings, are linked with the story of Erdrich’s own ancestors and describe a time when the Ojibwe lifestyle changed radically due to contact with white settlers. Based on this thesis, it can be stated that Erdrich’s Birchbark House series is more than just novels for younger readers – they are educational books for all ages, providing much information about Ojibwe history, society, values, stories, culture and lifestyle and Ojibwe relationship to nature/land. Erdrich’s novels, even if partly fictional, embrace the silent history of her ancestors and give voice to the less heard story of a young Ojibwe female. History becomes also her story. Erdrich shows the changes in Ojibwe lives from a child’s or a young person’s perspective, and she shares her personal knowledge of Ojibwe language, worldviews, spirituality and values with her readership. In addition, her stories honor the Ojibwe elders, such as grandmother Nokomis. As transformation, change and empowerment are essential elements in Ojibwe storytelling tradition, Erdrich also engages in rebuilding and restor(y)ing the narrative landscape of the Ojibwe through her writings and she shows us the importance of all Native voices, young and small included. Her topics can be considered glocal, both global and local, by nature and they address such themes of human and nature/land relationships and shared survival that are relevant both for modern Native readers and non-Native audiences. As a dialogic tool for Native literary analysis, Native (Ojibwe) Ecologue allows readers to become more informed about the different elements of Ojibwe culture present in Louise Erdrich’s Birchbark House series, and this tool can then be applied in different Native cultural contexts and Native literary analysis as Native (Tribal) Ecologue. Keywords: Native American Literature, Ojibwe Literature, Young Adult Fiction, Deep Ecology, Native Ecologue, Native (Tribal) Ecologue, Native (Ojibwe) Ecologue, Louise Erdrich

Royal castles were part of a wider network that served many functions and tasks of the Swedish Kingdom. One of the most important functions for the networks was to transport foodstuffs to the centre of the medieval and early modern period Sweden, the castle of Stockholm. Tax articles from peasants were one part of the Crowns income together with production from the landed estates and Royal demesnes which were part of the castle governance. The zooarchaeological assemblages, as well as account books from two castles, Kastelhom on the Åland Islands and Raseborg on the west coast of Finland, were studied to see how the castles functioned in relationship to animal based food products and live animals. The aim was also to understand the reasons for possible differences between the castles. The faunal assemblages were analysed in order to investigate deposits of food waste and to understand how animals were used as resources on the sites. The assemblages were identified to species and observations on age, sex and cutmarks were recorded. The assemblages have the potential to enlighten what food products were consumed in the castles, where they came from and to what purposes the domestic animals were kept and utilised in the castles. The assemblages from Kastelholm were studied from the end of the 14th to 17th century. The assemblages from Raseborg dates to late 15th to mid-16th centuries. Account books from the two castles that were studied are from the mid-16th century where butchered livestock, fish and other hunted wild animals were recorded, as well as the consumed food products. The records show what kind of foodstuffs were consumed and what animals were kept in the castles, and they help to understand how the castle economy functioned during a short period of time. The combination of these two primary source materials show that livestock was kept in the nearby landed estates and Royal demesnes, and were likely butchered mainly during autumn. Livestock was butchered in similar ways at Kastelholm and Raseborg which suggests a sort of standard to the practice. Fish was an important source of food, especially on the Åland Islands where marine resources were used in higher extent. The wild fauna and how the livestock were managed show a different adaptation to different landscape. The taxation was flexible to both annual and seasonal variation in resource availability. Seasonal changes in the environment would dictate the periods for high intensity fishing and hunting periods, as well as the changes from keeping livestock inside and out on the pasture. Seasons would also be important to the availability of different foodstuffs which marked the significance of preserved foods. The variations are evident in the account books. The study shows that animals were important for the food economy of the castles. Livestock and wild fauna were central for the subsistence of the Royal castles, but also for the Crown in general. By combining two different primary source materials from the same sites, it has been possible to get a larger picture of the animals and animal products that were consumed in the castles and how they were produced.

This study examines the auto-antonymy of the Finnish verb epäillä and its nominal derivatives epäily and epäilys. This is referred to as polar ambiguity in the study, meaning that the assessment expressed with the examined lexemes may incline either to negation (e.g. epäile-n projekti-n onnistumis-ta, epäillä-1SG project-GEN success-PAR ‘I doubt the success of the project’) or to affirmation (e.g. epäile-n vilppi-ä, epäillä-1SG deceit-PAR, ‘I suspect that deceit has taken place’). Furthermore, the interpretation of the lexemes under study often involves evaluative negativity (e.g. the unfavorableness of the complement proposition). This meaning aspect is examined and shown to be linked to the polar variation, that is, whether an epäillä expression is affirmation-inclining or negation-inclining. Moreover, evaluative negativity receives a prominent role in tokens lacking a clear polar inclination. This phenomenon becomes evident especially in the analysis of the nouns. The study draws on a usage-based theoretical framework and utilizes the ideas of meaning construal developed in Cognitive Linguistics. Following the methodological interpretation of the usage-based model, the analysis is based on corpus data. The examination of the verb epäillä relies on a data set compiled from several corpora and divided into three periods: Old Finnish data (263 tokens, approx. 16th to 18th c.), Early Modern Finnish data (1231, approx. 19th c.), and Modern Finnish data (500, approx. 20th c. to present). The analysis of the nouns draws from the HS.fi News Comment Corpus illustrating Modern Finnish use (epäily: 603, epäilys: 173). The methodological core of the study lies in a qualitative contextual meaning analysis. In addition, quantitative collocational analysis is applied in the examination of the nouns. In the study, the synchronic variation in the usage of the verb epäillä as well as the diachronic changes in its polar meaning are examined. The main analytic units are complement constructions, i.e. combinations of the verb and its complement (e.g. an että ‘that’ clause or a NP object). The diachronic analysis shows that especially in the constructions with an että clause and the corresponding non-finite complement, the typical interpretation has changed from negation-inclining to affirmation-inclining during the history of written Finnish. In addition to the change and variation analysis, the usage patterns of epäillä are set in proportion to the syntagmatic behavior of inherently negative verbs in general. This analysis shows how a double negative (epäillä että ei ‘doubt that not’) can develop as a functionally motivated construction. Finally, the division of labor of the two nominal derivatives is under examination: although in a suitable context they are both capable of affirmation- and negation-inclining meanings, the data show specialized tendencies for both epäily and epäilys. The analysis of the polar ambiguity is based on two schemata indicating the role of the complement: target and content schema. In the target schema, the complement is in the scope of negation deriving from the inherently negative epäillä lexeme (verb or noun), whereas in the content schema no scope relation exists, as the complement verbalizes the thought or words of the one who doubts/suspects. The construction receives then an affirmation-inclining interpretation, in case the content complement itself contains no indication of negation. In this study, the two schemata serve mainly as a tool for analyzing the polar ambiguity of epäillä lexemes. They are, however, shown to be applicable also more broadly to the analysis of varying syntagmatic behaviors of different predicates. Finally, as the epäillä lexemes may receive the interpretation of both negation and evaluative negativity, the semantics of these words sheds light on the mutual relation of the named meaning concepts: the meaning variation both illustrates the intertwined nature of negation and e-negativity in language use and shows the importance of their conceptual differentiation. Keywords: cognitive semantics, auto-antonymy, polarity, negation, evaluative negativity, semantics of complementation

“Fictions of Madness” is a study about the forms and functions of representations of mental illness in literary narratives. It focuses on experiences of shattering and distress in a corpus of first-person narrated modernist Finnish novels, and examines them through four sets of questions: 1) the narrative construction of shattering minds and experiential worlds, 2) the ways readers are invited to engage with the minds and worlds created in the texts, 3) the ethical problems and power relations inherent in storytelling and in reading about mental distress and illness, and 4) the ways in which fiction generates knowledge and understanding about experiences of pain and suffering. Drawing on a wide range of narrative theory, phenomenology, enactivist theories, and feminist theory, the study shows how fictional portrayals of “madness” employ and challenge their readers’ personal, cultural, and scientific understanding of psychiatric disability and experiences of distress. Instead of portraying minds and mental illness as disembodied or disengaged from the world, the novels discussed—Helvi Hämäläinen’s “Kaunis sielu” (The Beautiful Soul, 1928/2001), Jorma Korpela’s “Tohtori Finckelman” (Doctor Finckelman, 1952), Timo K. Mukka’s “Tabu” (The Taboo, 1965) and Maria Vaara’s “Likaiset legendat” (The Dirty Legends, 1974)—conceive them as bodily and embedded in the world, enacted in intercorporeal and intersubjective relations with other people and with the world, and entangled in socio-cultural norms and narratives that shape identity, gender, and sexuality. Furthermore, the novels emphasize the aesthetic and constructed nature of the fictional portrayals of shattering: the sense of experientiality evoked in the first-person narration is a carefully planned literary effect. The analyses reveal how fictional stories can resist fixed cultural narratives of “normal” and “abnormal,” “natural” and “unnatural,” and “healthy” and “pathological” through their ambiguity and complexity. The discussed novels invite readers to ask aesthetic, ethical, and political questions about our views of psychiatric disabilities and persons suffering from them, and about the fictional portrayals and techniques of representation: How can we approach unusual and unsettling experiences without pathologizing or stigmatizing them? How can we honor the complexity of the experiences of others and cultivate an openness to difference? The study participates in the work done in the field of critical medical humanities and offers a Nordic perspective to representations of mental illness in literary fiction. It contributes to the understanding of how fictional narratives evoke and convey experiences of illness and distress, the role of narrative empathy and aesthetic immersion in understanding unsettling experiences, and how narratives create understanding about the experiences of others. From a literary historical perspective, the study also sheds light on the ways the mind, consciousness and mental illness were discussed in Finnish literature throughout the twentieth century, and situates the Finnish modernist works in the international modernist tradition. Keywords: fictional minds, illness narratives, Finnish modernism, psychiatric disability, phenomenology, enactivism, narrative theory, feminist theory, critical medical humanities

In philosophical metaphysics, speculation is often seen to have value as an ontological concept referring to rational contemplation on the fundamental but unobservable nature of reality. In philosophy of science, on the other hand, speculation is commonly taken as an epistemological notion to mean that a proposition regarding the nature of reality can be possibly either true or false, and that the veracity of a proposition can be tested against empirically observed facts. This simplistic division into speculation as a matter of metaphysics and a matter of empirics also pertains to archaeology where speculation, as an ontological concept pertaining to the unobservable, has had little value. Instead, speculation, as well as the ambiguity and uncertainty introduced with it, have been treated as provisional resorts and epistemological points of elimination. In reviewing the history of archaeology in terms of the common views of the form and constituents of archaeological inference, and in drawing philosophical inspiration from a range of speculative philosophies and contemporary archaeological theorising, this thesis argues that the desirable strategy in the epistemology of archaeology is not the systematic elimination of speculation. In contrast, the thesis takes speculation seriously and contends that it has significance in the epistemology of archaeology as both an epistemological and an ontological notion. The thesis holds that in order to develop an empirically sensitive, ontologically considerate, and ethically sustainable epistemology of archaeology, speculation should be cultivated and cared for as a systematic consideration of the multiplicity of experience. In other words, speculation is to be preserved as a method of thinking otherwise; a countermeasure to the methodological (and the ensuing ontological) simplification risked by adhering to the eliminationist strategies. The practical possibilities towards a speculative epistemology of archaeology are discussed in terms of methodological and theoretical deceleration, a matter that has become increasingly relevant with the recent natural scientific revolution in archaeology. Slowing down, in this context, aims towards a historical understanding of the discipline as a community of practitioners with possibly conflicting concerns and objectives. In this way, the principle of speculative epistemology becomes the perpetual anticipation of the possible practical effects of pursuing truths and realities on epistemologies that entertain different understandings of those concepts.

Reading Mutant Narratives explores how narratives of environmental and personal transformation in contemporary ecological science fiction can develop more-than-human modes of embodied experience. More specifically, it attends to the conflicted yet potentially transformative experientiality of "mutant narratives". Mutant narratives are viewed as uneasy hybrids of human-centered and posthumanist science fiction that contain potential for ecological understanding. Drawing on narrative studies and empirical reading studies, the dissertation begins from the premise that in suitable conditions, reading fiction may give rise to experiential change. The study traces and describes experiential changes that take place while reading works of science fiction. The bodily, subjective and historical conditions of reading are considered alongside the generic contexts and narrative features of the fictional works studied. As exemplary cases of mutant narratives, the study foregrounds the work of three American science fiction authors known for their critiques of anthropocentrism and for their articulations of more-than-human ecologies: Greg Bear, Paolo Bacigalupi, and Jeff VanderMeer. While much of contemporary fiction naturalizes embodied experience and hides their own narrative strategies, mutant narratives have the potential to defamiliarize readers’ notions of bodies and environments while also estranging their embodied experience of reading fiction. As a theoretical contribution to science fiction studies, the study considers such a readerly dynamic in terms of "embodied estrangement". Building on theoretical and practical work done in both embodied cognitive and posthumanist approaches to literature, the study shows how engagements with fictional narratives can, for their part, shape readers’ habitual patterns of feeling and perception. These approaches are synthesized into a method of close reading, "performative enactivism", that helps to articulate bodily, environmental, and more-than-human aspects of readerly engagement. Attending to such experiential aspects integrates ecological science fiction more deeply into the contemporary experiential situation of living with radical environmental transformation.

The subject of this research is the skill of knitting in Finland from the late 19th century to the present day. The cultural analytic focus is turned on a craft that has been considered a self-evident everyday practice but can also be looked at as a changing skill with different meanings for individuals and society in the past and present. Skills are learned culturally in interaction with the social and ecological environment. Craft skills are largely based on experiment- and sensory-based tacit knowledge which can be observed in the process of making, as well as in the end products. The main sources of this research are museum artefacts, altogether 110 pairs or single knitted mittens dating from 1876 to 1969 in the collections of the National Museum of Finland, experiences of knitting the copies of museum mittens that reflect the sensory experiences of knitters both in the past and in the present, and questionnaire material collected from 1962 to 1977 and in 2015 and preserved in the Archives of the National Board of Antiquity in Finland. In this ethnography of skill, the knowledge base and interpretations are derived from the verbal and tacit knowledge contained in the research data, of the researcher and the interaction between them. Knitting has been an important skill in the northern climates to make necessary clothing for households and to earn extra income. A knitted textile fragment found in archeological excavations in the Mätäjärvi area of Turku dates from the 15th century, possibly as early as the 14th century. Knitting in Finland was previously reliably dated to the 17th century, so this discovery dates it to much earlier than was previously thought. The discovery also supports the notion that knitting could have been mastered in Sweden, on the Öland island, in the 15th century. Girls began to learn knitting skills at the age of five with the guidance of the women in their family. The oldest knitting technique in Europe is so-called English knitting in which the knitter holds the yarn in the right hand. This technique was practiced in Finland in the early 20th century and it was the way girls learned to knit at home. The oldest museum mittens are most likely knitted with English knitting which is more suitable for making thick fabric from fine yarns than continental knitting. At an institutional level, knitting was considered an important skill due to its practical benefits and therefore knitting was part of the craft education in schools from the late 19th century. The technique taught in schools was continental knitting. Teachers used their authority and institutional power to require pupils to knit in the new and in their point of view the right way instead of using the skill that had been passed on through the generations. As a result of this teaching, the older knitting skill vanished with the last generation of women who grew up before the advent of compulsory education. Museum collections represent power in the choices they make about what is deemed worthy of preserving in the collections and what is left out. The museum collections give a different kind of picture of knitting than the questionnaire material. The colorful Fair Isle knitted mittens form the majority of the collections even though Fair Isle knitting was not an ordinary skill. The mittens were chosen to represent the regional knitting patterns and the tradition of knitting. Many of them were published in knitting books from 1930s onwards and knitters learned the Fair Isle patterns from these books. In rural communities, knitting was considered a feminine skill although it was not solely a craft for women. Attitudes towards men who knitted were twofold. Knitting was mainly considered shameful work for men, as it was seen to transgress social norms. To avoid being mocked or excluded from the social group, some men knitted secretly. On the other hand, men who were forced to knit due to circumstances, for example widowers, were appreciated. Sailors and forest workers who were unmarried or spent time away from their family, knitted as a pastime. During World War II, especially during the extremely cold winter of 1939–1940, the best and rare wool was used for knitting rifle gloves, helmets, socks and knee warmers for soldiers. The knits were appreciated by soldiers and there was a strong emotional bond between the knitter and the user. Women were encouraged to knit for all solders, not only for their loved ones, by making it free to send the knits to ‘the unknown soldiers’. Necessity was turned into a virtue at times when there were no alternatives to exhausting knitting that also caused strain. Knitting in the past and knitting today are different phenomena. In the past, knitting was a mandatory and necessary skill, while today it is a voluntary and enjoyable skill. For today’s knitters, the primary reasons for their craft are the relaxation and pleasure of knitting. Knitting also helps to cope with difficult life situations. Even today, knitters still find it important to make useful knitwear for loved ones, for themselves or for charity. The knitting tradition is still associated with regional knitting patterns as shown in the artefacts collected by museums. On the other hand, the knitting tradition is also seen as an international, cross-border handicraft tradition, transmitted through the Internet, publications and travel.