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The Joy of Philosophy: Thinking Thin versus the Passionate Life
The Joy of Philosophy is a return to some of the perennial questions of philosophy--questions about the meaning of life; about death and tragedy; about the respective roles of rationality and passion in the good life; about love, compassion, and revenge; about honesty, deception, and betrayal; and about who we are and how we think about who we are.
Recapturing the heart-felt confusion and excitement that originally brings us all to philosophy, internationally renowned teacher and lecturer Robert C. Solomon offers both a critique of contemporary philosophy and an invitation to engage in philosophy in a different way. He attempts to save philosophy from itself and its self-imposed diet of thin arguments and logical analysis to recover the richness and complexity of life in thought. Solomon defends the passionate life in contrast to the life of thoughtful contemplation idealized by so many philosophers, attempting to recapture the kind of philosophy that Nietzsche celebrated as a "joyful wisdom."
Recapturing the heart-felt confusion and excitement that originally brings us all to philosophy, internationally renowned teacher and lecturer Robert C. Solomon offers both a critique of contemporary philosophy and an invitation to engage in philosophy in a different way. He attempts to save philosophy from itself and its self-imposed diet of thin arguments and logical analysis to recover the richness and complexity of life in thought. Solomon defends the passionate life in contrast to the life of thoughtful contemplation idealized by so many philosophers, attempting to recapture the kind of philosophy that Nietzsche celebrated as a "joyful wisdom."
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
12 people are currently reading
107 people want to read
About the author
Robert C. Solomon
124 books172 followersRobert C. Solomon (September 14, 1942 – January 2, 2007) was a professor of continental philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin.
Early life
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 to study medicine, switching to philosophy for an M.A. (1965) and Ph.D. (1967).
He held several teaching positions at such schools as Princeton University, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Pittsburgh. From 1972 until his death, except for two years at the University of California at Riverside in the mid-1980s, he taught at University of Texas at Austin, serving as Quincy Lee Centennial Professor of Philosophy and Business. He was a member of the University of Texas Academy of Distinguished Teachers. Solomon was also a member of the inaugural class of Academic Advisors at the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics.
His interests were in 19th-century German philosophy--especially Hegel and Nietzsche--and 20th-century Continental philosophy--especially Sartre and phenomenology, as well as 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. He developed a cognitivist theory of the emotions, according to which emotions, like beliefs, were susceptible to rational appraisal and revision. Solomon was particularly interested in the idea of "love," arguing against the notion that romantic love is an inherent state of being, and maintaining, instead, that it is instead a construct of Western culture, popularized and propagated in such a way that it has achieved the status of a universal in the eyes of many. Love for Solomon is not a universal, static quality, but an emotion, subject to the same vicissitudes as other emotions like anger or sadness.
Solomon received numerous teaching awards at the University of Texas at Austin, and was a frequent lecturer in the highly regarded Plan II Honors Program. Solomon was known for his lectures on Nietzsche and other Existentialist philosophers. Solomon described in one lecture a very personal experience he had while a medical student at the University of Michigan. He recounted how he stumbled as if by chance into a crowded lecture hall. He was rather unhappy in his medical studies at the time, and was perhaps seeking something different that day. He got precisely that. The professor, Frithjof Bergmann, was lecturing that day on something that Solomon had not yet been acquainted with. The professor spoke of how Nietzsche's idea asks the fundamental question: "If given the opportunity to live your life over and over again ad infinitum, forced to go through all of the pain and the grief of existence, would you be overcome with despair? Or would you fall to your knees in gratitude?"
Solomon died on January 2, 2007 at Zurich airport. His wife, philosopher Kathleen Higgins, with whom he co-authored several of his books, is Professor of Philosophy at University of Texas at Austin.
Early life
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 to study medicine, switching to philosophy for an M.A. (1965) and Ph.D. (1967).
He held several teaching positions at such schools as Princeton University, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Pittsburgh. From 1972 until his death, except for two years at the University of California at Riverside in the mid-1980s, he taught at University of Texas at Austin, serving as Quincy Lee Centennial Professor of Philosophy and Business. He was a member of the University of Texas Academy of Distinguished Teachers. Solomon was also a member of the inaugural class of Academic Advisors at the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics.
His interests were in 19th-century German philosophy--especially Hegel and Nietzsche--and 20th-century Continental philosophy--especially Sartre and phenomenology, as well as 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. He developed a cognitivist theory of the emotions, according to which emotions, like beliefs, were susceptible to rational appraisal and revision. Solomon was particularly interested in the idea of "love," arguing against the notion that romantic love is an inherent state of being, and maintaining, instead, that it is instead a construct of Western culture, popularized and propagated in such a way that it has achieved the status of a universal in the eyes of many. Love for Solomon is not a universal, static quality, but an emotion, subject to the same vicissitudes as other emotions like anger or sadness.
Solomon received numerous teaching awards at the University of Texas at Austin, and was a frequent lecturer in the highly regarded Plan II Honors Program. Solomon was known for his lectures on Nietzsche and other Existentialist philosophers. Solomon described in one lecture a very personal experience he had while a medical student at the University of Michigan. He recounted how he stumbled as if by chance into a crowded lecture hall. He was rather unhappy in his medical studies at the time, and was perhaps seeking something different that day. He got precisely that. The professor, Frithjof Bergmann, was lecturing that day on something that Solomon had not yet been acquainted with. The professor spoke of how Nietzsche's idea asks the fundamental question: "If given the opportunity to live your life over and over again ad infinitum, forced to go through all of the pain and the grief of existence, would you be overcome with despair? Or would you fall to your knees in gratitude?"
Solomon died on January 2, 2007 at Zurich airport. His wife, philosopher Kathleen Higgins, with whom he co-authored several of his books, is Professor of Philosophy at University of Texas at Austin.
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March 15, 2012
If there is one unifying goal in all the books Robert Solomon published during his life, it appears to have been the rehabilitation of the personal and the emotional in the field of philosophy. Reacting against what he sees as the 'thinness' of Anglo-analytic philosophy (i.e. its tedious focus on minutia at the expense of the bigger picture), in the "Joy of Philosophy" Solomon argues for the need to reorient the focus of philosophy back to such timeless subjects as love, justice and death, even if such topics have been declared beyond the scope of philosophy by its most prominent practitioners over the last century or so. His passion for philosophy - and his belief that it should be a universal pursuit, not confined by the stifling dictates of establishment philosophers - is, here as elsewhere, frankly infectious.
He has clearly been influenced by the impassioned, rarely methodical philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, whom he quotes liberally throughout this book. Like Nietzsche, Solomon inveighs against that which has been lost to philosophy as the field's focus has narrowed, hermetically sealing itself in a self-reductive language of its own making, and turning its gaze ever more inward. He also laments the continuing marginalization of the emotions in philosophy (in favour of the "coldness" of logic and reason), and its growing incapacity to appeal to, or connect with, its own students.
However, this book is not merely a work of criticism, it really does make a strong case for the rehabilitation of "thick" philosophy on its own merits. Emotions, he says, are as much a conscious disposition towards the world as that of reason or the senses, so how can any epistemology be complete without taking them into account? How, indeed, can we posit a theory of personal identity without recourse to the emotions? Along the same lines, how can any treatment of ontology be complete without a full account of the phenomena of death, given its persistent and ubiquitous intrusion into basically any consideration of the subject? How can we ignore the role of tragedy and comedy in the unfolding of human life? How can we construct a theory of justice without the tacit admission that emotions play a decisive (and rational!) role in the process?
Such big questions - the kinds too rarely addressed in modern philosophy - are the ones that Solomon tackles with aplomb in this book. If you can remember the kinds of burning questions that first got you interested in philosophy in your teens - but can also remember, to your dismay, how quickly you abandoned such questions after actually being exposed to the tediousness of philosophy as it is often practised - then this book may be just the tonic you need.
He has clearly been influenced by the impassioned, rarely methodical philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, whom he quotes liberally throughout this book. Like Nietzsche, Solomon inveighs against that which has been lost to philosophy as the field's focus has narrowed, hermetically sealing itself in a self-reductive language of its own making, and turning its gaze ever more inward. He also laments the continuing marginalization of the emotions in philosophy (in favour of the "coldness" of logic and reason), and its growing incapacity to appeal to, or connect with, its own students.
However, this book is not merely a work of criticism, it really does make a strong case for the rehabilitation of "thick" philosophy on its own merits. Emotions, he says, are as much a conscious disposition towards the world as that of reason or the senses, so how can any epistemology be complete without taking them into account? How, indeed, can we posit a theory of personal identity without recourse to the emotions? Along the same lines, how can any treatment of ontology be complete without a full account of the phenomena of death, given its persistent and ubiquitous intrusion into basically any consideration of the subject? How can we ignore the role of tragedy and comedy in the unfolding of human life? How can we construct a theory of justice without the tacit admission that emotions play a decisive (and rational!) role in the process?
Such big questions - the kinds too rarely addressed in modern philosophy - are the ones that Solomon tackles with aplomb in this book. If you can remember the kinds of burning questions that first got you interested in philosophy in your teens - but can also remember, to your dismay, how quickly you abandoned such questions after actually being exposed to the tediousness of philosophy as it is often practised - then this book may be just the tonic you need.
Displaying 1 of 1 review