Alfredo Co

Alfredo Pimentel Co (; born on November 30, 1949) is a Filipino Sinologist and philosopher. He is the only contemporary Asian scholar to deliver a plenary lecture at the COMIUCAP conference, in 2008.

Early years and education

In 1967, Co was named "Outstanding Chinese Youth in the Philippines" by the Republic of China during his sophomore year in high school in Naga City. Co graduated with a philosophy degree at the Faculty of Arts and Letters at the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas in 1972 and earned a master's degree in 1974. He also earned a doctorate degree in 1976 at the same university.

Career Co holds two post-doctorates and two fellowships abroad. He was a Special Scholar of the "Soka University" to the International Asian Studies Program of the Chinese University of Hong Kong for his Post Doctorate on Chinese Classical Philosophy from 1977 to 1978. He took classes in French at the Universite de Poitiers, Technical French at Universite de Bordeaux, and Comparative Philosophy at the Paris Sorbonne University as a French Government Scholar from 1979 to 1981. He wrote a dissertation in French entitled: La notion de Yi chez Kong Zi et la concepcion de la liberte chez Jean-Jacques Rousseau: La Politique du devoir et la politique du droit (The Notion of Yi in Confucius and the Concept of Liberty in Jean-Jacques Rosseau: The Politics of Duty and the Politics of Liberty).

He founded the Philosophy Circle of the Philippines in 1972, and at present, he is the incumbent president of the Philippine Academy of Philosophical Research and the Editor of Karunungan – A Journal of Philosophy. He is also a member of the Federation Internationale des Societies de Philosophie based in Fribourg, Switzerland, the Asian Association of the Catholic Philosophers, and Vice President for Asia of the Conférence Mondiale des Institutions Universitaires Catholiques de Philosophie. Co is also consultant to CULTURE and Quest, a publication of the University of Calcutta, India; UNITAS, UNITAS journal of the U.S.T.; and BUDHI, a journal of Ateneo de Manila. He is currently a chair of the Philippine Commission on Higher Education's (CHED) Technical Committee for Philosophy and a full Professor of Philosophy in U.S.T.