Speaker: Prof. Chienkuo Mi
Title: Learning to Be a Person: The Epistemological Way of Great Learning
Time: Wed, June 20, 2018, 2:00 pm
Location:606-6317,  The meeting room of School of Politics & Public Administration, Dushu Lake campus 

Speaker Biography:
    Prof. Chienkuo Mi is Nankai Chair Professor of Philosophy (Tianjing Thousand Talents, 2017-2020) at Nankai University, Tianjin, Professor of Philosophy at Soochow University,Taipei, and Visiting Professor of Philosophy (2017, Fall Semester) at Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has published widely in Chinese and English on topics in epistemology,philosophy of language, and Chinese philosophy. His recently published works include Naturalized Epistemology and Philosophy of Science (with Ruey-lin Chen, Rodopi 2007) and Moral and Intellectual Virtues in Western and Chinese Philosophy: The Turn toward Virtue (with Michael Slote and Ernest Sosa, Routledge 2015). His recent research brings together issues in virtue epistemology and Chinese philosophy.

ABSTRACT:
    The title “Learning to Be a Person” contains three crucial elements in which the issues involved are all normative in their nature. First of all, with respect to the idea of “learning”, we should explain “why we learn”, “what we learn” and “how we learn” (the 3W questions). Secondly, for the idea of “person”, we have to distinguish it from the concept of “human”. We don’t need to learn to become a human being,because we are born biologically as a human being already. However, we do need to learn in order to become the kind of person we want to be. And finally, the idea of “to be” as a relation between learning and becoming a person also deserves a close and careful examination. Whether the connection between “learning” and “being a person” is a causal one, a teleological one or an essential one, will turn out to have some great impact on the discussions in question.