It was with the deepest sadness that the campus community learned of the death of Professor John Cleary M.R.I.A. of the Philosophy Department at N.U.I.M and Boston College on 12 April. Rest in Peace.
There will be a Mass of Remembrance for John on Wednesday, 29 April, at 12.05pm in St. Mary's Oratory, St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, South Campus, to which everyone is most welcome.
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Professor Cleary was a brilliant supervisor and teacher -- the best! A patient, kind, and courageous man with a fine sense of humour. Altogether an exemplary figure who is sorely missed.
ReplyDeleteObit: BC Philosophy Prof. John Cleary
ReplyDeletecf. http://www.bc.edu/offices/pubaf/journalist/Cleary.html
CHESTNUT HILL, MA (4-14-09) - Irish native and BC Philosophy Prof. John Cleary, who spent his childhood on a farm without running water or electricity and his adulthood immersed in ancient philosophy, died on April 12 in his hometown of Dublin. He was 59.
Dr. Cleary battled liver cancer for the past few years and on April 9 had received a liver transplant, wrote Philosophy Department chairman Prof. Patrick Byrne in a letter to colleagues and students. But complications set in, said Byrne, and although a second procedure was performed Dr. Cleary did not recover from the surgery.
A funeral Mass for Dr. Cleary will be held on Thursday, April 16, in Portlaoise, Ireland.
"John enjoyed arguing and working out philosophical arguments for the pleasure of learning and, in a profession of institutionalized condescension towards the apprentice, he was rare in his genuine respect for his interlocutors of all ages and training," said Susan Bencomo, a friend and former student of Dr. Cleary who earned her master's degree from Boston College in 2004.
Dr. Cleary, who joined the University in 1982 — he also was on the philosophy faculty for the National University of Ireland, Maynooth — was best known as the founder and co-director of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy (BACAP). In 1984, he received a grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities to revamp what was then called The Greater Boston Colloquium for Ancient Philosophy, founded in 1978 by Brandeis University Professor Robert Hahn — a loose coalition of three or four universities in the Boston area, which each sponsored a lecture or two by scholars who happened to be visiting the area from other parts of the United States.
The NEH grant, based on Dr. Cleary's proposal, provided funds for promoting undergraduate education in classics and ancient philosophy through lectures, seminars and class visits by leading international scholars in the field. The colloquium was retitled BACAP, and Dr.
Cleary was its director until 1988, although he continued to play an active administrative role afterwards.
Dr. Cleary published extensively on the relationship between philosophy, mathematics and physics in the works of Plato and Aristotle. In 1996, he received a $30,000 National Endowment for the Humanities University Teachers Fellowship to pursue research on the theology of the Greek philosopher Proclus.
Academia might seem an unlikely destination for someone who had grown up in a remote part of Mayo, on Ireland's western seaboard, but Dr.
Cleary's father saved enough money to send him to boarding school, said Bencomo. The experience introduced Dr. Cleary not only to the world of letters, she said, but sparked his awareness of inequality in Ireland: When he moved to Dublin to attend college, he lobbied for the electrification of his home region.
The eight years Dr. Cleary spent as a primary school teacher — before pursuing his master's degree at University College Dublin, and then a doctorate at Boston University — gave him an enduring sense of humility, even though he went on to study under the tutelage of accomplished scholars such as Karl Popper, Alasdair MacIntyre and Hans Georg Gadame, according to Bencomo.
"He never demanded that students follow him or agree with him. I think he embodied the true spirit of teaching, which is to cultivate a confident lover of learning, because his respect for students and peers alike was always as his equal."
Dr. Cleary's wife Breda died in 2005. He is survived by his parents John and Bridget, sisters Mary Bridget (Sister Paula) and Josephine, brothers George, Brendan and Michael. Condolences may be sent to: The Cleary Family, c/o Mrs. Josephine McDonagh, Hawthorn Avenue, Castlebar, Co. Mayo, Ireland.
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ReplyDeleteFrom: Fran O Rourke [fran.orou...@ucd.ie]
Sent: 14 April 2009 00:10
The philosophical community in Ireland is mourning the sad death of Prof John Cleary (NUI Maynooth and Boston College) who passed away in the early hours of Easter Sunday.
John received a liver transplant last Friday, which his body rejected. He was put on an emergency list but his condition deteriorated and he did not recover from the second transplant operation.
John was a first rate scholar who made an enormous contribution. He will be particularly remembered as initiator of the Boston Area Colloquium for Ancient Philosophy. He was a most honourable person, learned and forthright in his views, sincere and very kind.
Those who knew John marvelled at his courage throughout his prolonged illness, borne with valour and fortitude. The death of his darling wife Breda a few years ago was a severe blow, but he remained positive in spirit and generous in his dedication to colleagues and students throughout an extremely difficult period.
Most recently John participated fully in the Dublin conference celebrating his very good friend Alasdair MacIntyre and was in splendid form; few were aware that at every moment he was on the alert for the hospital call. He spoke at the conference banquet and regaled the attendance with some very funny anecdotes. We will cherish these last memories.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam lách uasal.
Fran O'Rourke
School of Philosophy
University College Dublin
Dublin 4, Ireland
Notice of Passing - John Cleary
ReplyDeletecf. http://www.societyforancientgreekphilosophy.com/2009/04/notice-of-passing-john-cleary/
It is with sadness that we report to you the death of John Cleary this past Sunday from complications arising from a liver transplant. The official announcement of his death reads, in part: JOHN CLEARY, Harolds Cross, Dublin (and late of Ballycroy, Co. Mayo); Died April 12, 2009, at St. Vincents Hospital, (suddenly after a short illness, borne with great courage and dignity).
John was a long-time member of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy. He taught both at Boston College since 1981 and at the National University of Ireland – Maynooth since 1991. He was the author of many excellent books, including Aristotle and Mathematics: Aporetic Method in Cosmology and Metaphysics (published by Brill in 1995) and Aristotle on the Many Senses of Priority (published by Southern Illinois University Press in 1988), the editor of The Perennial Tradition of Neoplatonism (Louvain, 1997) and Traditions of Platonism: Essays in Honour of John Dillon (Ashgate, 1999), and author of numerous articles on ancient philosophy, including “Proclus as a Reader of Plato’s Timaeus”, in Reading Plato in Antiquity (edited by H. Tarrant & D. Baltzly, 2006) and “Proclus’s Philosophy of Mathematics”, in La Philosophie des Mathématiques de l’Antiquité tardive (edited by G. Bechtle & D. O’Meara, 2000). He was a founding editor of the Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy, was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy, served as executive secretary of Dublin Centre for Study of the Platonic Tradition, and was an active member of ISNS as well as SAGP. He was an influential scholar, an active citizen of our profession, and a truly good human being. He will be greatly missed.
Our thanks to Patrick Byrne, of Boston College; John Dillon, of Trinity College, Dublin; and John Finamore, of the International Society for Neoplatonic Studies, whose eloquent appreciation we have quoted (slightly edited) here.