Solomon obit

I hope the Austin American-Statesman doesn't mind me reproducing this obituary to one of the University of Texas' favourite sons...

Obituary

Robert C. Solomon Sept. 14, 1942 - January 2, 2007

Renowned UT philosophy professor dies suddenly in Zurich

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Friday, January 05, 2007

Once a month or so, Robert Solomon and his friend James Pennebaker would meet for beer and conversation at a Guadalupe Street watering hole, the Dog & Duck. Most of the time, Solomon, a philosophy professor at the University of Texas, and Pennebaker, a UT psychology professor, would talk about what people usually talk about at bars: "The nature of emotions, from both a philosophical and a neuroscientific perspective," Pennebaker recalled Thursday.

Beer and neuroscience -- they could almost be the watchwords of a life that Solomon's friends and colleagues say was marked by a passion for intellectual seriousness and a love of fun. One former student, the filmmaker Richard Linklater, cast him in a cameo role as himself in the 2001 film "Waking Life."

Solomon's own life ended suddenly this week in Switzerland. Solomon, 64, an internationally known scholar who had taught at UT since 1972, died Tuesday morning in the Zurich, Switzerland, airport. According to his wife, Kathleen Higgins, also a philosophy professor at UT, Swiss medical authorities cited the cause of death as pulmonary hypertension.

She and Solomon were on their way from Austin to Rome to visit his brother Jon, a classics professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who was leading a group of students on a tour of Roman ruins.

"We had gotten off a flight and were in the process of trying to figure out where we needed to go for our connecting flight," Higgins said by phone from Zurich, where she was making arrangements to bring Solomon's body back to America. "He said he was dizzy and collapsed."

Solomon received medical attention immediately but was dead within minutes. Higgins said her husband had a congenital heart defect -- "basically, a hole in the heart" -- that gave him trouble throughout his life.

As Solomon told the American-Statesman in 2005, he arrived in Austin 35 years ago on something of a lark.

"I was young and adventuresome, I guess, so I took lots of one-year jobs and two-year jobs just because I wanted to see the world," Solomon said. "I came to Texas expecting it was an interesting place and I'd spend a couple semesters here and then go back to New York." Instead, he fell in love with the town and stayed.

During his decades at UT, Solomon developed expertise in at least three scholarly areas: existentialism, the role of the emotions, and business ethics. His interest in existentialism began as a young man and continued well past the era when most philosophers took the topic seriously. Solomon believed that the existentialists -- most notably, Sartre, Camus and Nietzsche (whom he considered an early existentialist) -- addressed fundamental questions of life that much of modern philosophy had left behind.

His interest in emotions, by contrast, predated the current vogue for such studies; when he first started contemplating the philosophy of emotions, few philosophers were interested in the topic. Now, there are academic conferences virtually every week.

"His work on emotions was at the cutting edge," said David Sosa, chairman of UT's philosophy department.

And Solomon's interest in business ethics brought him into the real world in a way that few philosophers dare: He worked as a paid consultant for corporate executives on ethical issues. By his own admission, he learned as much as he taught.

All three fields point toward Solomon's insistence that philosophy must engage with the age-old issues and questions that puzzle undergraduates and public leaders alike: "Why are we here? What is the good? How do I live?"

This passion made Solomon a much-loved teacher -- his former students spoke of him glowingly, and he was featured in several "Superstar Teacher" video courses for the Teaching Company.

"I think his vitality impressed everybody," Higgins said. "Making thinking be an important part of life and something that added to life's splendor and mystery was really a model for a lot of people and captivated many, many students."

"He was one of those people who took his own life and life in general very seriously, and yet he had a whole lot of fun," said LBJ Library director Betty Sue Flowers, a longtime friend of Solomon's. "He died too young, but I bet he packed many lifetimes into the time he had."

Solomon is survived by his wife; two brothers, H. Andrew Solomon of Austin and Jon Solomon of Urbana, Ill.; and five nieces and nephews.

There will be a private memorial service later this month; the philosophy department is planning a conference in Solomon's honor in the fall.

In lieu of flowers, contributions in memory of Solomon may be made to Oxfam International.