Biography
Bongrae Seok is associate professor of philosophy at Â鶹ĘÓƵ. He received his BA from Seoul National University (South Korea) and his MA and PhD from the University of Arizona, where he studied philosophy and cognitive science. As a postdoctoral research fellow in the Neural Systems, Memory, and Aging program at the University of Arizona, he conducted research on the functional specialization of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. His primary research interests lie in philosophy of mind, moral psychology, neuroaesthetics, and Asian comparative philosophy. He has published books and articles on cognitive modularity, cultural psychology, Confucian moral psychology, moral nativism, and moral reasoning. His recent books Embodied Moral Psychology and Confucian Philosophy (Lexington, 2013) and Moral Psychology of Confucian Shame: Shame of Shamelessness (Rowman Littlefield, 2016) analyze Confucian moral philosophy from the perspectives of embodied emotion, social cognition, and moral intuition. His current work focuses on interdisciplinary and comparative topics (including embodied and affective moral intuition, taxonomic reasoning, mindfulness meditation, and neuroaesthetic of music) that bring traditional topics of philosophy to the forefront of cognitive science. In addition to philosophy, he studies the classical art and music and gives lectures and presentations in local museums. He currently serves O’Pake Center for Ethics, Leadership, and Public Service as associate director and ACPA (Association of Chinese philosophers in America) as vice president.