Robert C. Solomon

Bob Solomon's life ended suddenly in the airport in Zurich, Switzerland on January 2, 2007. A victim of pulmonary hypertension, he was dead at 64.

A former student said he was "more aware than most people how fragile and finite life is. He would tell students that if there were some things they wanted to do, to not hesitate to do them." And, he told them to be grateful every day.

"Gratitude, I want to suggest, is not only the best answer to the tragedies of life. It is the best approach to life itself. The proper recognition of tragedy and the tragic sense of life is not shaking one's fist at the gods or the universe in scorn and defiance. Whether or not there is a God or there are gods to be thanked, however, seems not the issue to me."

He was a teacher who clearly loved his calling. He reached  past the confines of his university (Texas) to teach countless autodidacts around the world who found him, and will continue to find him, through The Teaching Company. My great regret: I won't get to find him anymore at his favorite Austin pub, The Dog & Duck.

In my classrooms we'll continue to engage his instruction via Passion for Wisdom and Spirituality for the Skeptic.