The philosophy department’s Green Honors Chair lecture scheduled for today was canceled because the speaker had to tend to his ill mother-in-law, a TCU philosophy professor said.Owen Flanagan, a philosophy professor at Duke University, was to speak to students about how meditation affects the brain during his speech, “The Bodhisattva’s Brain: Neuroscience, Virtue and Happiness.”

Phillip Galvin, a TCU philosophy professor, said he was disappointed Flanagan could not attend the lecture, but he understood the situation.

“It is unfortunate that it he was unable to come, but it was entirely appropriate,” Galvin said. “You have to tend to your responsibilities.”

Galvin said the department might try to reschedule Flanagan for the Green Chair’s fall lectures, but he was not certain if the department would choose Flanagan as its speaker.

– Dan McGraw