Philip J. Ivanhoe

Yesterday morning I had an appointment to meet with Philip J. Ivanhoe over at BU. It was an interesting meeting; it turns out that Kwong-Loi Shun was one of his tongxue. (Professor Shun is not in an administrative role for the University of Toronto; I had taken a class on ethics with him while I was at Cal.) Professor Ivanhoe studied with David Nivison. He is a strong advocate of the study of various cultural traditions within the university curriculum, commenting that most of the universities in the Boston area (with the exception of Harvard, which has a strong East Asian studies program) are rather eurocentric. While he is not a relativist, he believes that there is more than one good way of living (and this is true to an extent--after all, being a priest is not the same as being a layman and so on), and suggests that the Chinese intellectual tradition has much to offer (like it's technical language) to contemporary discussion in philosophy and ethics.

He has a keen interest in virtue ethics--we even had a discussion about Alasdair MacIntyre. He sees many affinities between early Confucianism and classical Greek ethics, Aristotle and Aquinas--from his comments (for example, he was speculating on what would happen if his son became a priest), it seems that he is Catholic, though he says he doesn't share many of the same beliefs as Fr. Edward Malatesta, S.J. (I'm not sure which teachings he disagrees with.) I didn't come out and ask him if he is Catholic.

It is evident thta he appreciates Chinese culture very much, especially its emphasis on filial piety. He is married a Chinese woman. (After our meeting we met his wife and they proceeded to go get coffee, holding hands. "How sweet." He even speaks in Mandarin with her... this would impress Fujian gal.)

His enthusiasm for the Chinese intellectual tradition is manifest, and makes me wish I could do something more in that area, and in philosophy in general. Still, after the meeting I left wondering if I have a future in philosophy, or if my vocation lies elsewhere.

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