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Currently I¡Çm an associate professor of philosophy at Shinshu University, Japan. I mainly work in ethics, theory of normativity and rational agency, the history of philosophy (especially Kant and Sellars), and comparative philosophy.
I did my undergraduate (B.A. in philosophy) and graduate studies (M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy) at Kyoto University, Japan. After receiving my Ph.D., I was a post-doctoral fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and taught at several universities in Japan as a visiting lecturer. Before coming to Shinshu University, I was a visiting scholar at the philosophy department of UC Berkeley. |
Research Interests
In a word, my interests lie in ¡Èphilosophical anthropology,¡É in the original sense of Kant as well as in the extended sense of Richard Rorty and Huw Price. In my view, Rorty and Price, with Wilfrid Sellars as a via media, can be regarded as contemporary successors rather than opponents of Kant.
To be more specific, my research focuses on how we can specify the structure of normativity and rational agency from a Sellarsian-cum-Kantian perspective. And in pursuing this project, I¡Çm engaged in:
1) theoretical reconstruction of Sellars¡Çs Kantian approach to perception as non-inferential report by way of a comparison between McDowell¡Çs and Brandom¡Çs reading of the Sellarsian space of reasons. 2) elucidating and characterizing Sellars¡Çs exposition of modal/normative vocabulary as a precursor of meta-linguistic expressivism recently espoused by Brandom and Huw Price.
Recently I¡Çve also launched a collaborative research project on comparative philosophy (with my colleagues in Indian philosophy), focusing on the epistemology of Dharmakirti and Kant.
Also, I¡Çm strongly interested in what philosophy can do in liberal education. Actually my first book on the ethics of death and the meaning of life was written in accordance with this orientation.
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