Dr.phil. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich (Germany)
Lic.phil. University of Basel (Switzerland)
Renaissance and Early Modern Philosophy, Islamic Philosophy, Contemporary Arab Philosophy, Feminist Issues in Philosophy

Professor Albertini’s research in Renaissance philosophy focuses on Nicholas of Cusa (mathematics, cosmology), Marsilio Ficino (metaphysics, aesthetics) and Charles de Bovelles (sapientia, ars oppositorum, analogia) in whose works she detects an alternative type of rationality: inclusive and reconciliatory. She is also interested in the innovative use of mathematical figures and other visual means in Renaissance works as “philosophical language.” Her most recent paper is entitled “‘Methodic Foundering’ or ‘Methodic Overcoming of Rationality?’ Metaphysics of Liberation in Karl Jaspers and Nicholas of Cusa”(2021). She is also the co-founder and President of The International Charles de Bovelles Society.

Within Islamic philosophy, Professor Tamara Albertini’s publications aim at reintroducing the vigor and vision of Muslim intellectual contributions from the classical period. More recently, she guest-edited Politics, Nature, and Society: The Actuality of North African Philosopher Ibn Khaldūn. Special issue of Philosophy East and West 69, 3 (2019). Her seminal article “The Seductiveness of Certainty. Fundamentalists’ Destruction of Islam’s Intellectual Legacy,” Philosophy East and West (2003) has been quoted in multiple annual Congress reports. Currently, she is completing her book on Rābi‘a al-‘Adawiyya, the famous Sufi from Basra.

Professor Albertini has been awarded many national and international fellowships and grants, including a NEH Travel Grant for Iran and Central Asia. She was honored with the Excellence in Teaching Award (2016), a Fulbright Scholar Award (2018/19, Bulgaria), and the Distinguished Scholar Award from Cairo University (2019).

Monika Betzler holds the Chair for Practical Philosophy and Ethics at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich (Germany). She specializes in moral psychology and normative ethics. Her current focus is on the ethics and philosophy of personal relationships and other kinds of attachments, such as personal projects.

Ph.D., Harvard University
Chinese Philosophy (Classical and Neo-Confucianism), Comparative Philosophy

A senior member of the Department since 1963, Professor Cheng has become an internationally well-known scholar-philosopher in Chinese philosophy and comparative philosophy. With a broad and deep background in the traditions of classical Chinese philosophy and Neo-Confucianism, he received his doctorate from Harvard University in the field of analytical philosophy and logic. He has received fellowships and grants from the National Science Foundation, the Pacific Cultural Foundation, the Stanford Institute in the Philosophy of Science, and the Fulbright Foundation. He has lectured worldwide in both Europe (Oxford, Berlin TU, and Scandavian countries) and China (Beida, Tsinghua and Renda) and has received numerous honorary titles. He is the founding president and now also the honorary president of the International Society of Chinese Philosophy. He also founded and serves as president of the International Society for Yijing Studies. Cheng founded the Journal of Chinese Philosophy in 1972 and has edited the Journal since then. For his important work in modernization and globalization of Chinese philosophy, he has received an Honorary Doctorate from the Far Eastern Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1995. Professor Cheng has authored and edited 21 books and over 250 articles in Western, Chinese, and comparative philosophy. He is currently working on a book on ontology in relation to onto-hermeneutics and a book on Kant and Confucianism.

Ph.D., Columbia University
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy; History of Aesthetics; Ethics

Jonathan Fine received his PhD from Columbia University and has been a Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy and the Humanities at Yale University.  His research and teaching focus on ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and issues between aesthetics and ethics.  Professor Fine is working on a monograph, Virtues of Appearance: Plato and the Pursuit of Beauty, examining how beauty for Plato steers who we aspire to be.  Some related work is published or forthcoming in such venues as Phronesis, Classical Quarterly, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, and A Cultural History of Beauty in Antiquity (Bloomsbury).  Interested also in medieval and early modern philosophy, he asks in his work and courses how concepts, including freedom, the self, and emotions, change within cultures over time and what we might learn from this today.

Ph.D., State University of New York at Stony Brook
Japanese Philosophy, Comparative Philosophy, American Philosophy, Metaphysics, Phenomenology, Aesthetics

Steve Odin joined the department in 1982 after completing his PhD degree in philosophy from State University of New York at Stony Brook.  He has taught as a visiting professor at Boston University (1989), Tohoko University (1994-95) and the University of Tokyo (2003-04). His research and teaching areas include Japanese philosophy, East-West comparative philosophy, American philosophy, Whitehead’s process metaphysics, phenomenology, existentialism, environmental ethics, and aesthetics.  Among his  publications are Process Metaphysics and Hua-Yen Buddhism (1982), The Social Self in Zen and American Pragmatism (1994), Artistic Detachment in Japan and the West: Psychic Distance in Comparative Aesthetics (2001), and Tragic Beauty in Whitehead and Japanese Aesthetics (2016). Among his awards are one-year grants for teaching and research in Japan, including two Fulbright Awards (1994-95 and 2003-04), Japan Foundation Award (2001-02) and National Endowment for the Humanities  (1987-88), as well as the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching at the University of Hawaii (1986), the Association of Asian Studies /Northeast Council for Asian Studies Award  (1998), the Templeton Foundation Award (2000) and the Niwano Peace Foundation Award (2001). He is a member of the UH Center for Japanese Studies.

Ph.D., University of Toronto
Indian Buddhism, Philosophy of Mind, Phenomenology, Cognitive Science

Prof. Smith earned both a B.A. (hons) and Ph.D. from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. His research is focused on the intersection of Indian Buddhist philosophy (with a particular emphasis on the Pāli tradition) and contemporary philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and moral psychology. Specifically, his work addresses the connection between embodied affect, consciousness, and attention. In particular, he is trying to understand how affective biases shape perceptual salience and what kind of normative obligations we might be under in light of that shaping process. Other related interests include pain and suffering, animal consciousness, and the nature of the self. His research has been published in the Journal of Indian Philosophy, Sophia, Review of Philosophy and Psychology, and Philosopher’s Imprint. Professor Smith was the recipient of the 2022 College of Arts, Languages & Letters Excellence in Teaching Award at UH Mānoa.

Ph.D., Boston College
Continental Philosophy, Aesthetics, Historical Ontology, Social and Political Philosophy

Joseph Tanke earned his Ph.D. at Boston College.  He has lectured and published extensively on issues and figures in Continental philosophy, aesthetics, and the history of philosophy.  His major publications include Foucault’s Philosophy of Art: A Genealogy of Modernity (Continuum, 2009) and Jacques Rancière: An Introduction—Philosophy, Politics, and Aesthetics (Continuum, 2011).  Professor Tanke recently completed (with Colin McQuillan) The Bloomsbury Anthology of Aesthetics (Bloomsbury, 2012), a new textbook for use in courses dedicated to aesthetics, the philosophy of art, and literary theory.  Additionally, Professor Tanke is interested in comparative aesthetics, social and political philosophy, and the historical ontology of pain within Western thought and medicine.

Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
B.A., summa cum laude, Amherst College
Ethics, Political Philosophy, Moral Psychology

George Tsai joined the Department in 2012, and is an affiliated member of the Center for Chinese Studies. From 2013-2014, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Philosophy at the Australian National University. His research interests are in moral and political philosophy, broadly understood to encompass contemporary and comparative perspectives on these subjects, as well as such related areas as moral psychology and philosophy of law. He has written on rational persuasion, blame, being supportive, intimate relationships, paternalism, exploitation, and the state’s taxation and expressive powers. He has published or forthcoming articles in venues including Philosophy and Public Affairs, Journal of Political Philosophy, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Social Theory and Practice, and Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility.

Yong Li is Professor of Philosophy at Wuhan University and an Associate Dean of School of philosophy.  Dr. Li works primarily in ethics and political philosophy, and focuses on Confucian ethics and comparative political philosophy. He serves as a book review editor for Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, an associate editor for Journal of Social and Political Philosophy, and a co-editor for the Book Series Routledge Studies in Contemporary Chinese Philosophy.  His recent book Moral Partiality was published by Routledge in 2022. His new book Confucian Comparative Political Philosophy is forthcoming with Routledge.