The main areas of research of the current department members are:
Daniel Bell was born in Montreal, Canada, the eldest and most important son of a French-speaking mother and an English-speaking father. He went to McGill to major in psychology, but discovered in his final year that political philosophy is far more intellectually stimulating. From there he went to Oxford to pursue a master's and a doctorate in political philosophy, although his studies were interrupted somewhat when he met a fellow graduate student from mainland China who subsequently became his wife. Nonetheless, a revised version of his doctoral thesis entitled Communitarianism and Its Critics was eventually published by Oxford University Press.
The next stop was The National University of Singapore, where he taught political theory for three years. A co-authored book entitled Towards Illiberal Democracy in Pacific Asia emerged from this experience. After that he spent a wonderful year at Princeton University's Center for Human Values, although truth-seeking activities were once again temporarily put on hold following the birth of a 10 pound 4 ounce son. And now he is honored to serve as a member of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong. His impressions of the tutorial system are highly favorable - the tutorial is a wonderful way to get to know students !
Dr Bell's recent life has not, unfortunately, strayed far beyond the confines of academic research. He has co-edited The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights (Cambridge University Press) and his own book, East Meets West: Human Rights and Democracy in East Asia, has just been published by Princeton University Press.
I was educated in Beijing and Edinburgh, and then taught in Beijing for six years before taking up fellowships at several American universities and research institutions. My main areas of interest are in moral and political philosophy, with an emphasis on theories of justice. I believe that making sense of morality and moral philosophy itself in their social and historical context is as important as constructing normative and metaethical theories, and for this reason draw on a variety of philosophical traditions in my teaching and research. I am also interested in the rich analytical resources philosophy offers for understanding history and conducting social criticism, and have published a book in this vein, entitled Dialectic of the Chinese Revolution: From Utopianism to Hedonism.
Laurence Goldstein started teaching at the University of Hong Kong in 1976. He has taught at universities in the U.S.A., Scotland, New Zealand, Germany and South Africa. His main areas of research at present are the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language. He has just finished a book on Wittgenstein, and is currently working on a book about paradoxes in which he hopes to finally solve problems some of which have remained unsolved for over 2000 years. He has also been part of a group of scholars in Bergen, Norway, transcribing all of Wittgenstein's manuscripts to CD-ROM.
Under Laurence's skilful captaincy, the staff 5-a-side football team has never lost against the students, and we plan to keep it that way.
Chad Hansen first came to Hong Kong over thirty years ago where he became fascinated with Chinese language and culture and set out to understand and explain Chinese philosophy. Returning to the United States, he went to University where he majored in philosophy then went to the University of Michigan to study for a Ph.D. He studied Mandarin in Taiwan for a year then returned to Hong Kong after a decade for his dissertation research. He finished his dissertation at the University of Michigan and began teaching philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh in 1972 where he was enlightened two years later.
From there he went to the University of Vermont after the publication of Language and Logic in Ancient China. Later he was selected as University scholar for his second book, A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought. He has also served as visiting professor at The Universities of Michigan, Hawaii, Hong Kong, UCLA and Stanford before returning to HKU in 1991 where he was appointed Professor in 1994.
He is presently translating the Daode-Jing and writing a book on Comparative East-West Ethics and an introduction to Chinese Philosophy. Besides Chinese philosophy, his main interests are in comparative ethics, philosophy of law, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. He values the dynamism of Hong Kong as well as the language and especially the food.
Eric James came to Hong Kong in 1990. Prior to this he had been a lorry driver, a psychotherapist, a professional musician, and a lecturer for two years at the University of Oxford. His initial research was in the history and philosophy of science and mathematics, and he is now undertaking an intensive series of studies of William James which involve detailed investigations of the 19th century medical and physiological background of James' metaphysics. He is also interested, in general, in the historical interplay between medicine, physiology and philosophy since the early modern period.
Outside of academia Eric's life is dominated by jazz. He plays guitar and tenor saxophone and has installed a 16-track recording studio in his home. His first solo record is long overdue.
Joe Lau left Hong Kong after Form 5 and spent two wonderful years at Atlantic College in Wales. Having read too many books by Paul Davies, he decided to go to Oxford to do physics and philosophy. But while he was there, he became interested in the philosophy of mind. So he went to MIT for graduate studies in philosophy. He finished his Ph.D. four years later and came back to Hong Kong in 1994.
His research interests include mainly the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, in particular issues regarding the scope and limits of computational explanations of mental phenomena such as thinking and consciousness. He is now the director of the HKU cognitive science centre. When he is not working, he likes to go hiking, watch movies, surf the web, or conduct cooking experiments.
Dr Martin grew up on the relaxed and environmentally pure shores of Honolulu, Hawaii. After receiving his university and postgraduate training on the east coast of the United States, he came to HKU in 1980. His main philosophical interests are moral and social philosophy, and early Chinese philosophy, especially Confucianism. In his teaching Dr Martin's main courses include Topics in Social Philosophy, Theories of Morality, Philosophy East and West: Ethical Topics, and Early Modern Philosophy. Since 1993, Dr Martin has served as the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, after serving five years as Associate Dean. In his leisure time Dr Martin enjoys art collecting, travel and swimming.
Sally Perry was born in London. She joined the department in 1999. She studied for her undergraduate degree at the University of Stirling in Scotland and did her graduate work at Sheffield University. She has taught at both these universities. Sally's main philosophical interests are philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, aesthetics and philosophy of religion. Any spare time she can get she likes to spend with friends and family.