Biography

Wu Tianyue graduated from the Institute of Philosophy at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, and is a tenured associate professor in the Philosophy Department at Peking University. He has long devoted himself to reconstructing philosophical arguments in ancient and medieval historical texts as a way of exploring new intellectual resources for current reflections. In his early days of research, Wu attached great importance to Augustine’s discussion on free will and moral responsibility, and he currently focuses on the philosophy of mind and ethics in ancient and medieval Aristotelian traditions. Wu is the author of Voluntas et libertas: A Philosophical Account of Augustine’s Conception of the Will in the Domain of Moral Psychology (意愿与自由：奥古斯丁意愿概念的道德心理学解读, Peking University Press, 2010). This book chiefly discusses the psychological dimension of Augustine’s concept of the will, and adopts a philosophical perspective to explore the function of the will as a faculty of the soul. Through this lens, we can better understand why it is the will and not other mental activities that underlines our moral responsibilities. More than ten related English language papers have been published in Les Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales, Modern Schoolman, Review of Metaphysics, Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy, and other international academic journals. While working at the Peking University Berggruen Research Center, Wu will focus on “The Philosophy of Body and Bioethical Challenges of Cutting-edge Technologies”. Against a backdrop of increasingly grave ethical challenges facing emerging technologies, Wu aims to rethink “the body”, an ontological concept that has not received enough attention in recent discussions.