(Photo by Alvin Joseph Kasiban)
March 3, 2016, 9:19p.m. – THERE is a need to establish UST’s place in the global academe, one of the pillars of Philippine philosophy said in a lecture last March 2 in the Civil Law Auditorium.
Alfredo Co, a sinologist and one of Southeast Asia’s leading philosophers, said it was his personal mission to elevate UST in the philosophical spectrum.
“I thought then that when UST celebrates 400 [years] in 2011, the University should be able to establish its philosophical presence in the country by publishing tangible collected evidence to that philosophical historical matter,” Co said in his professorial lecture.
Co said he was able to gather a “collection of philosophical works done in the University for the past centuries.”
“We need to show [the] true accomplishment of a University of 400 years. We need to show that proof of academic productivity and the collection of past publications, and putting them together in [a] collected volume would take a long time,” Co added.
The Thomasian philosopher was given an eight-volume festschrift in 2010, the first time UST bestowed such a distinction to one of its scholars. The festschrift is a collection of Co’s writings as well as essays by various writers.
Co took his undergraduate, master’s and doctorate degrees in philosophy in UST. He founded the Philosophy Circle of the Philippines in 1972.
The professorial lecture, which had the theme “The University of Santo Tomas and the Birthing of Philosophy in the Philippines,” is a part of the UST Research and Endowment Foundation’s seminar series that aims to develop and promote social sciences and humanities in the Faculty of Arts and Letters. John Paul P. Corpuz
