“Love can be understood only “from the inside,” as a language can be understood only by someone who speaks it, as a world can be understood only by someone who lives in it.” -Robert C. Solomon
I was so fortunate to have Bob Solomon as a philosophy professor at U.T. At a time when a kind of bloodless objectivism was presented as the only acceptable path for an intellectually honest person, it was Professor Solomon who reminded us that emotions are not problems that hold us back from the pure air of rational clarity, they are what give our lives value and meaning. It was Professor Solomon who pointed out that the sulking atheism of some Existentialists was itself theocentric in a negative way. “They never forgave God for not existing,” he would say. Professor Solomon showed, as did Kant, that human reason, if left to it’s own devices, can be its own kind of dead end. Professor Solomon reminded us that the goal of wisdom is not some emotionally denuded notion of truth, but to live a good life. To do that, one needs both a healthy mind and a healthy heart. I still study philosophy with a passion, but thanks to Bob Solomon, I know wisdom is found not in merely thinking about about life, but in living with all our heart mind and strength.