Nice story from Chris Gondeck ‘90.

Bob Solomon was the professor we all wanted to have. Passionate, a great communicator, and a top notch scholar. I still think that his 1975 book, The Passions, is one of the greatest books on the emotions ever written, and if you ever get a chance to purchase the courses that he and his wife recorded for The Learning Company, I highly suggest you do so. I am planning on putting the Adam Smith show back on the feed for the rest of the summer.

Looking back, it was so gracious of him to spend time with me, particularly early on when nobody knew me from Adam. I still remember my family being puzzled why I was reading Adam Smith during Christmas 2005, and one of my favorite party moments was when I told a philosophy professor here in Portland that I had done two shows with Bob Solomon. His jaw dropped, because, trust me, in the world of philosophy,Bob Solomon was a big deal. This professor asked me how on earth I got him to do not one, but two shows. My response? “I asked.”

There is a famous anecdote about him that I will leave you with. At one point, Bob was in medical school, and not enjoying it at all. He was fed up and looking for some sign, and he wandered into the wrong lecture hall one day and heard a professor lecture on Nietzsche. The professor repeated the famous question Nietzsche asked, “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?”

He quit medical school the next day and began his career in philosophy.

A chance to spend 4 years at Williams, over and over again? Gratitude is the only reasonable response.