i run okuba and teach (primarily) mathematics at shukugawa hs and learning lab kobe
please contact me at kou[AT]kouokada.net
manuscripts
1. Inferentialism, Between Relativism and Dogmatism
1.1 Brandom's Inferentialism and Objectivity
1.2 Harmony: The Traditional Debate Revisited
1.3 Harmony for Natural Language
1.4 Constitutivism about Semantic Normativity
2. An Inferentialist Semantics for Bayesian Confirmation Theory
upcoming gigs 2026
7.10 jam session host @ negikura (kobe)
7.31 nobuko tsugami quartet @ layla (himeji)
9.22 solo @ sanjo (niigata)
10.15 ava chisholm group @ negikura (kobe)
10.18 duo (w/ ava chisholm) @ negikura (kobe)
12.4 jam session host @ negikura (kobe)
I study, make, and share text and music.
My academic background is in philosophy, having trained in universities in the U.S., France, and Portugal. My research focuses on the nature of normativity, especially as it arises in logic and ethics. I am currently developing the idea that concepts and actions get their content from the same kind of rules, namely, those that allow us to unify ourselves.
Alongside my philosophical interests, I am a practicing guitarist and composer with a focus on improvised musics, especially jazz. I have studied the latter with Zacc Harris, Nuno Ferreira, and Takumi Seino.
I am based in Kobe, Japan, where I teach mathematics at a secondary school, engage in Japanese-English translation work, and run okuba is a foreign languages bookstore and community space.