PROF. ALFREDO P. CO, Ph.D
Dr. Alfredo P. Co is an eminent professor of Chinese Philosophy and Comparative Philosophy at the Pontifical University of Santo Tomas (UST), Manila, Philippines. He is the first Philosophy Professor Emeritus of this university since it was founded in 1611.
In 2009 he became the first professor to be honored with a Festschrift by the same university. The eight-volume Festschrift — a collection of his writings and celebratory essays by colleagues and former students — is considered a milestone in the history of Philosophy in the Philippines.
Dr. Co is also the president of the prestigious Philippine Academy of Philosophical Research, and Chair of the Technical Committee for Philosophy of the Philippine Commission on Higher Education.
Dr. Co graduated with a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the UST in 1976. He completed a post-doctorate degree on Classical Chinese Philosophy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (1977- 1978) as a special scholar of the Soka University of Japan. From 1979 to 1981, he took a second post-doctorate course in Comparative Philosophy at Sorbonne (Université de Paris
III and Université de Paris IV) as a scholar of the French Government; here, he wrote a thesis entitled La Notion de Yi chez Kong Zi et la Conception de la Liberte chez Jean-Jacques Rousseau: La Politique du Devoir et la Politique du Droi.
He was also a Special Fellow of the Pacific Cultural Foundation of Taiwan and of the International Society for Intercultural Studies and Research (India). He is the vice-president of the Conference Mondial des Institutiones Universitaires Catholique des Philosophie (COMIUCAP).
A well-published scholar, Dr. Co has had his works published in prestigious local and international journals. Aside from being a writer, he is also editor of Karunungan – A Journal of Philosophy.
As the foremost Sinologist in the country, he has been a visiting professor at De La Salle University, Ateneo de Manila University and University of San Carlos.
A much-sought-after speaker in international philosophy congresses, he has made presentations in Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, Thailand, France, Poland, Turkey, Canada, Russia and Italy, among other countries. He was appointed Chair Session on Confucian Philosophy for the World Congress of Philosophy 2018 Beijing by the Federation Internationales des Societes des Philosophie (FISP).
In 2018 Dr. Co was invited to speak in Turkey at the International Interfaith Dialogue of Three Monotheistic Religions: Judaism-Christianity-Islam, where he met His All Holiness Bartholomew of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
He has also visited Tsinghua University in Beijing where he lectured on Comparative East-West Worldviews; Poland’s John-Paul II Center where he lectured on “Catholicism in Asia: Discoursing the Impacts and Lessons of the Evangelization in China and the Philippines”; Alet-les Bain in southern France to lecture on “At The Agora, In The Wilderness, Across The Warring States: Landscape and Travel Across the Ancient Philosophical Discourses”; and the Vatican to lecture on “Rites and Languages: How to Transmit Faith to the New Generation” in connection with the International Congress of the Pontifical Urbaniana University on the theme “Listening to Asia: Pathways for Faith, Societies and Religions between Tradition and Contemporaneity” held at the Citta Vaticano.