Memorial service held for UT professor

Friends, family and other members of the UT community gathered to remember philosophy professor Robert Solomon during a memorial service at the Campus Club Saturday.

Solomon died Jan. 2 during a layover at the Zurich airport in Switzerland. He was on his way to visit his brother in Rome.

Solomon's death was due to a congenital heart disorder that had given him problems throughout his life. Friends said this gave him an appreciation for the life he had.

"If his physical heart was lousy, his emotional one was strong," said Nicholas Asher, a philosophy professor and Solomon's colleague.

Printed on the program for Solomon's memorial service was a quote from his book, "Spirituality for the Skeptic": "Gratitude, I want to suggest, is not only the best answer for the tragedies of life, it is the best approach to life itself."

Asher read the excerpt and other passages of Solomon's writing. He also read from the Bible, work by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and Chinese philosophy during the memorial. Afterward, attendees shared their memories about Solomon.

"It's been incredibly touching," said philosophy professor Kathleen Higgins, Solomon's wife. "The turnout and the strong feelings of his friends is a testament to the kind of life he lived."

Higgins said UT's philosophy department organized the memorial.

The memorial guest book had more than 200 signatures from people who came from as far away as Ohio, Massachusetts, Florida and Toronto, Canada to attend the service.

"I've never seen a memorial service for a faculty member with this many people, and I've been here 40 years," said David Edwards, a government professor and longtime friend of Solomon.

Solomon's students remembered him as being open to different philosophies and for always doing the unexpected.

"Coming into class you didn't know what he was going to do," said John Schwartz, a former student. Schwartz remembers a class when they spent the entire first hour discussing the first paragraph of a piece by Aristotle.

"Dr. Solomon was very active in the lives of a lot of students," said Conrad Geiger, another former student of Solomon. "He had a zest for life that he showed with his interactions with his students."

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