Faculty

Faculty Members

Field of Philosophy

Yoshitsugu Igawa（井川義次）
Modern Chinese Intellectual History; History of East–West Intellectual Exchange

My primary research area is Chinese philosophy. In addition, I also study the realities of intellectual exchange between East and West from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Inspired by the movement of ideas across regions—naturalized citizens, the Silk Road, and many other forms of intellectual circulation across all directions—I became fascinated with Asian sources of knowledge such as the Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian), Water Margin, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, as well as Confucianism, Daoism, and even Buddhism, alongside the sharp logic of the Western world. My research began from a desire to understand whether and how these traditions actually intersected in historical fact.

Books & Articles
Monograph
The Westward Transmission of Song Learning: The Road to Modern Enlightenment（Jimbun Shoin, 2009）[in Japanese]
Co-authored / Edited
History of World Philosophy, Supplementary Volume（Chikuma Shobo, 2020）[in Japanese]Nobuo Horiike (General Editor), Fumiyasu Ishikawa & Yoshitsugu Igawa (Eds.), Eurasia of Knowledge series, Vol. 1（Meiji Shoin, 2013）[in Japanese]Yoshitsugu Igawa et al. (Eds.), Eurasia of Knowledge（Meiji Shoin, 2012）[in Japanese]

For research achievements and publications, please see the following:
▶ University of Tsukuba TRIOS

Koji Hashimoto（橋本康二）
Analytic Philosophy

I study the problem of what truth is, and how necessary truths are established.

Books & Articles
“Term Logic and Venn Diagrams: The Case of Euler,” Journal of Philosophy and Thought (University of Tsukuba), No. 46（2021）[in Japanese]“Truth and Falsity in Spatial Figures,” Journal of Philosophy and Thought (University of Tsukuba), No. 45（2020）[in Japanese]“Truth and Falsity in Mathematical Figures,” Journal of Philosophy and Thought (University of Tsukuba), No. 44（2019）[in Japanese]

Yoshishige Higaki（檜垣良成）
Modern Western Philosophy; German Philosophy

As research, I examine the history of Western philosophy up to the present, with Kant as a central focus. Philosophically, I devote myself to deepening understanding of—and actually practicing—dialogue as a “search for truth,” which has become extremely difficult in contemporary times. I consider the greatest problem of modern society to be the loss of a sense of reality with respect to “truth” in the Western sense.

Books & Articles
A Study on the Formation of Kant’s Theoretical Philosophy: Focusing on the Concept of “Reality”（Keisuisha, 2009）[in Japanese]Questions to Reason: Contemporary Kant Studies 10（Koyoshobo, 2007）[in Japanese]“Kant’s Ethics as a Theory of Motivation,” Annual Report of Ethics, Vol. 61（2012）[in Japanese]“Synthetic Judgments and Reality: Kant and the Establishment of the Analytic/Synthetic Distinction,” Shiso, No. 1135 [in Japanese]“Dialogue and Truth: For the Restoration of Education and Morality,” Journal of Philosophy and Thought (University of Tsukuba), No. 40（2015）[in Japanese]

Mikiko Yokoyama（横山幹子）
Analytic Philosophy

Drawing on philosophers such as H. Putnam, I have examined issues of realism and skepticism. In recent years, in connection with these topics, I have also worked on “the problem of perception.” In addition, I am interested in the relationship between philosophy and library and information science—another field that has taken “knowledge” as a central problem—particularly in relation to philosophical ontology and epistemology, and I pursue research in this direction as well.

Books & Articles
“Ontological Conflicts in Library and Information Science: A Comparison of Gnoli’s Ontological Pluralism and Hjørland’s Ontological Monism,” Library and Information Science（2020）, pp. 1–21.
Yokoyama Mikiko, “Rational Acceptability of Truth,” Annals, vol. 29（2020）, pp. 27–39. (Translation of the following paper originally written in Japanese: “Rational Acceptability and Truth,” Studies in the Foundations of Science, vol. 35, no. 1, 2007.)
“Putnam’s Generous Naturalism: Focusing on ‘Naturalism’,” Journal of Library, Archive and Information Studies, vol. 16, no. 2（2019）[in Japanese]“Putnam’s Critique of Disjunctivism and Liberal Naturalism,” Journal of Library, Archive and Information Studies, vol. 15, no. 2（2018）[in Japanese]“Genuine Perceptual Experience and Neural Activity,” Journal of Library, Archive and Information Studies, vol. 14, no. 2（2017）[in Japanese]“Where Is Knowledge Located?” in Yu Itsumura, Naoki Takubo & Takashi Harada (Eds.), For Those Learning Library and Information Science（Sekai Shisosha, 2017）[in Japanese]

Field of Ethics

Koji Ota（太田紘史）

Philosophy of Mind; Ethics

I engage with philosophical problems concerning the human mind and value. I would like to explore what kinds of views of humanity and values we implicitly hold, what contradictions or defects they may contain, and—if there are elements we still cannot let go of—what those elements are and why.

Books & Articles
“The Psychological Process Underlying Attitudes Toward Human-Animal Chimeric Brain Research: An Empirical Investigation,” Neuroethics, 17(15), 2024.
“Phylogenetic Distribution and Trajectories of Visual Consciousness: Examining Feinberg and Mallatt’s Neurobiological Naturalism,” Journal for General Philosophy of Science, 53: 459–476, 2022.
“Frankfurt-Style Cases and Moral Responsibility: A Methodological Reflection,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 29(3): 295–319, 2021.
“Neuroscientific Threat to Free Will as Non-veridicality of Agentive Experience,” Journal of Mind and Behavior, 41(2): 109–130, 2020.

Ken Chiba（千葉建）
History of Modern and Contemporary Western Ethical Thought; German Enlightenment Studies

Books & Articles
“An Introduction to the Archaeology of Inner Obligation: Wolffian Duty Theory as a Source of Kant’s Deontology,” Ethics (University of Tsukuba), No. 36（2020）[in Japanese]“How Is Weakness of Will Possible in Kant’s Ethics?” Journal of Philosophy and Thought (University of Tsukuba), No. 36（2018）[in Japanese]“Kant’s Virtue Ethics and the Problem of Emotion,” Journal of Philosophy and Thought (University of Tsukuba), No. 33（2015）[in Japanese]

Xiaolin Chang（常瀟琳）
Modern Japanese Intellectual History

My specialty is Japanese intellectual history. I am interested in questions such as the relationship between tradition and the present, and the relationship between the particularity and universality of civilizations. In particular, I study the thought of people in the Edo and Meiji periods of the 19th century, when encounters with Western thought posed major challenges to established views of human nature, social order, and the world.

Books & Articles
“Reason” and “Custom”: Mito Learning and Civilization Discourse in the Nineteenth Century（Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, The University of Tokyo, 2022）, 247 pp. (Recipient of the Special Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award, Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, The University of Tokyo) [in Japanese]“Between ‘Principle’ and ‘Custom’: The Development of Nakamura Masanao’s Thought in the Late Tokugawa Period,” Journal of Japanese Intellectual History Studies, No. 55, pp. 100–117（September 2023）[in Japanese]

Field of Religious Studies

Takeshi Kimura（木村武史）
Religious Studies

Religious Studies; Mythology; Indigenous Religions; American Religion; Sustainability, Technology, and Religion; Religion, Robots, and AI

Books & Articles

For research achievements and publications, please see the following:
▶ University of Tsukuba TRIOS

Taisei Shida（志田泰盛）Indian Philosophy; Classical Indology

Books & Articles

Monograph
“Hypothesis-Generating Logic in Udayana’s Rational Theology,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 39, pp. 503–520（June 2011）.

Co-authored
“Logic in India,” in History of World Philosophy, Supplementary Volume—Opening the Future（Chikuma Shobo, 2020）[in Japanese]“Udayana’s theory of extrinsic validity in his theistic monograph,” History of Indian Philosophy, pp. 214–222（Routledge, 2018）.

Hiroto Doi（土井裕人）
Religious Studies; Digital Humanities

Building on research into religious thought in the ancient Western world, I work on digital humanities and on grounding diversity from the perspective of philosophy and intellectual history.

Books & Articles
“The Vehicle of the Soul as a ‘Mediating Entity’ in Proclus,” in Shinichi Tsumagari & Ayako Hosoda (Eds.), A Religious History of Mediating Objects, vol. 2（Litton, 2020）[in Japanese]“On the Earliest Phase of the Reception of Neoplatonism in Japan: Between Philosophy and Religion,” Journal of Philosophy and Thought (University of Tsukuba), No. 45（2020）[in Japanese]“Developing Teaching Materials for Religious Studies through Visualization and Tangibilization and toward Their Applications,” Proceedings of the Symposium on Computers and the Humanities（2017）[in Japanese]

Takahiro Hirano（平野貴大）
History of Islamic Thought; Shi‘a Thought

My specialization is the history of Islamic thought, especially Shi‘a thought. I have examined the formation of doctrines of Twelver Shi‘ism, the largest Shi‘a denomination, and the doctrinal boundaries between Twelvers and other Shi‘a groups of the same periods. In recent years, based on commentaries on scripture as well as theological and legal texts, I have been working to elucidate Twelver Shi‘ism’s self-understanding and understanding of others from its early period to the present.

Books & Articles

For research achievements and publications, please see the following:
▶ University of Tsukuba TRIOS

Atsuhiko Horo（保呂篤彦）
Philosophy of Religion

Kant studies focusing on issues of religion and ethics
Studies on religious pluralism
Studies on Japanese philosophy and Japanese Christian theology

Books & Articles
An Introduction to Kant’s Moral Philosophy: Freedom and Morality（Koyoshobo）[in Japanese]
“Beyond ‘Religious Pluralism’ toward a New Philosophy of Religion,” in Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture (Ed.), Between Religions（Fubaisha）[in Japanese]
“On Human Dignity: Bioethics and Kant,” in Bulletin of Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University (Faculty of Education), Vol. 42 [in Japanese]
“Religious Pluralism as a Contemporary Demand,” in Keiin Mase (Ed.), For Those Learning Religious Pluralism（Sekai Shisosha）[in Japanese]
“Overcoming Radical Evil—In the Individual and in Humanity,” in The Japan Kant Society (Ed.), Japanese Kant Studies 9（Risosha）[in Japanese]
“A Consideration on the Preciousness of Life: The Contemporary Significance of a Religious View of Life,” in Bulletin of the Buddhist Culture Research Institute, Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University, No. 12 [in Japanese]
“Religion and Happiness in Kant,” in Journal of Religious Studies (The Japanese Association for Religious Studies), No. 380 [in Japanese]Translation (co-translation)
Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion（Kokusho Kankokai, March 2021）[in Japanese]

Takeshi Yokoyama（横山 剛）

Buddhist Studies仏教学

I study Indian Buddhism. Focusing on the Sarvāstivāda school—one of the most influential among the various early Buddhist schools—I examine how its thought contributed to the construction of Buddhist doctrinal systems, how later Mahāyāna Buddhists understood Sarvāstivāda doctrines, and how Sarvāstivāda teachings were transmitted in subsequent periods. Would you like to listen together to the words of people of long ago? What we consider certain in everyday life may not always be so. If you want to know something, to think deeply, or to adopt a different perspective than before, what matters most may be a kind of openness and sincerity.

Books & Articles

For research achievements and publications, please see the following:
▶ University of Tsukuba TRIOS