Abstract

This article gives an overview of Finnish aesthetics in the past forty years. I will introduce major figures who have done research in aesthetics and topics that have been investigated. I will divide the field of aesthetics in two: philosophy of art and environmental aesthetics. Especially the latter has gained a lot of prominence in Finnish aesthetics, and there are also institutional settings that have made this possible. But philosophical problems in the arts have been scrutinized intensively, too. Finnish aestheticians have taken inspiration both from the Anglo‐American analytic tradition and the German and French phenomenological tradition. In order to put the contemporary considerations into some perspective, I will give a brief outline of the early stages of Finnish Aesthetics. The early 20th century was a heyday in Finnish Aesthetics