Great schools of thought should talk

It was two o'clock in the afternoon when I phoned the hotel room to be greeted by unexpected - "Wei?"

I was calling 84-year-old Leonard J. Swidler, professor of catholic thought and interreligious dialogue at the Philadelphia-based Temple University in the United States to let him know I was about to knock on his door.

Two minutes later I was in his hotel room, and a wonderful hour's conversation on Confucianism and its dialogue with Western traditions began.