Robert C. Solomon
Robert C. Solomon (1942-January 2, 2007) was a noted professor and scholar of continental philosophy.
Solomon was born in Detroit, Michigan. His father was a lawyer, and his mother an artist. After earning a B.A. (1963) at the University of Pennsylvania, he moved to the University of Michigan for an M.A. (1965) and Ph.D. (1967). He has held several teaching positions at such schools as Princeton University, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Pittsburgh. He spent his last 34 years at University of Texas at Austin, serving as Quincy Lee Centennial Professor of Philosophy and Business. Since 1986 Professor Solomon had helped the UT Business School as a teaching resource for business ethics courses. He was a member of the University of Texas Academy of Distinguished Teachers.
His interests were in 19th-century German philosophy, Hegel, Nietzsche, Sartre, phenomenology; ethics, and the philosophy of emotions.
Solomon published more than 40 books on philosophy, and was also a published songwriter. He made a cameo appearance in Richard Linklater's film Waking Life (2001), where he discussed the continuing relevance of existentialism in a postmodern world.
University of Texas reported on January 3, 2007 that Professor Solomon passed away on January 2, 2007 while traveling in Europe. He was 64 years old. His wife, philosopher Kathleen Higgins, with whom he co-authored several of his books, remains on the UT faculty. [1]
Selected publications
- Existentialism (McGraw-Hill, 1974)
- The Passions (Doubleday, 1976)
- In the Spirit of Hegel (Oxford, 1983)
- From Hegel to Existentialism (Oxford, 1987)
- Continental Philosophy Since 1750 (Oxford, 1988)
- About Love: Reinventing Romance for Our Times (Simon & Schuster, 1988)
- The Philosophy of {Erotic} Love, with Kathleen M. Higgins (University Press of Kansas, 1991)
- Ethics and Excellence (Oxford, 1992)
- The Joy of Philosophy (Oxford, 1999)
- (co-authored) What Nietzsche Really Said (Random House/Schocken, 2000)
- Spirituality for the Skeptic: The Thoughtful Love of Life (Oxford, 2002)
- The Big Questions: A Short Introduction to Philosophy (Harcourt Bruce Collede Publishers, 2002)
- Not Passion's Slave: Emotions and Choice (Oxford, 2003)
- What Is An Emotion?: Classic and Contemporary Readings (Oxford, 2003)
- Living with Nietzsche (Oxford, 2003)
- Thinking about Feeling: Contemporary Philosophers on Emotions (Oxford, 2004)
- Dark Feelings, Grim Thoughts: Experience and Reflection in Camus and Sartre (Oxford, 2006)