[3] He has held numerous appointments in academia, and has authored several books and publications on philosophy and religion.
He has written a 'comic campus novel', Quality Time at St Chinian (2017).
[4] He received a First class degree from University College and then took a Ph.D. at Leuven in 1962.
[citation needed] He was a member of the staff of University College Dublin prior to being appointed Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology in 1980, Registrar in 1983 and President from 1986 until leaving in December 1993 to become Principal of the European University Institute, Florence, a post he held from 1994 to 2002.
[citation needed] He is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy of Religion at University College Dublin.