
I studied Modern Languages at Merton College Oxford, followed by a DPhil on the work of Paul Celan, a German Jewish poet who wrote remarkable poems about the Holocaust, at Wolfson College Oxford. Life has taken me to many different places, and I have had the opportunity to teach at universities in Germany, Russia, Italy, USA and now China. I held the chair of Christian Doctrine at King's College London from 2004-2017, where I am still an Emeritus Professor, and Affiliate of the Lau China Institute. I currently hold a senior research chair in Science, Ethics, and Philosophy in the School of Philosophy at Renmin University of China, Beijing. At RUC, I am a Professorial Fellow of the newly founded Centre for the Interdisciplinary Study of Philosophy and Cognitive Science, and teach a Masters course on 'Ethics and Globalisation'.
Throughout my career, I have had a continuing interest in understandings of the human from both past and present. Working in these areas today is particularly compelling in that ground-breaking science offers new resources for self-understanding, just as advances in AI constitute potentially creative challenges to our received understandings of what it is to be human.
Moreover, with the rise of science in China, it is becoming possible to explore the human from perspectives which include the whole range of humanity, both East and West. Of particular importance are collaborations between Chinese and Western scholars in the reception of cognitive science and evolutionary anthropology. These present real challenges in terms both of interdisciplinarity and cross-cultural hermeneutics but, arguably, they are also laying the foundations for human self-understanding in the future.
Throughout my career, I have had a continuing interest in understandings of the human from both past and present. Working in these areas today is particularly compelling in that ground-breaking science offers new resources for self-understanding, just as advances in AI constitute potentially creative challenges to our received understandings of what it is to be human.
Moreover, with the rise of science in China, it is becoming possible to explore the human from perspectives which include the whole range of humanity, both East and West. Of particular importance are collaborations between Chinese and Western scholars in the reception of cognitive science and evolutionary anthropology. These present real challenges in terms both of interdisciplinarity and cross-cultural hermeneutics but, arguably, they are also laying the foundations for human self-understanding in the future.
NEW ARTICLE:
Confucianism in the Perspective of Global Science—A Review of 'Reconceptualizing Confucian Philosophy in the 21st Century'
Front. Philos. China 2018, 13(1): 150–163
DOI 10.3868/s030-007-018-0010-2
Confucianism in the Perspective of Global Science—A Review of 'Reconceptualizing Confucian Philosophy in the 21st Century'
Front. Philos. China 2018, 13(1): 150–163
DOI 10.3868/s030-007-018-0010-2