Robert C. Solomon (September 14, 1942 – January 2, 2007) was a philosopher and business ethicist, notable author, and "Distinguished Teaching Professor of Business and Philosophy" at the University of Texas at Austin, where he held a named chair and taught for more than 30 years, authoring The Passions: Emotions and the Meaning of Life (1976) and more than 45 other books and editions. Critical of the narrow focus of Anglo-American analytic philosophy, which he thought denied human nature and abdicated the important questions of life, he instead wrote analytically in response to the continental discourses of phenomenology and existentialism, on sex and love, on business ethics, and on other topics to which he brought an Aristotelian perspective on virtue ethics. He also wrote A Short History of Philosophy and others with his wife, Professor Kathleen Higgins. Professor Solomon won many teaching honors, including the Standard Oil Outstanding Teaching Award in 1973; the University of Texas President's Associates Teaching Award (twice); a Fulbright Lecture Award; University Research and National Endowment for the Humanities Grants; and the Chad Oliver Plan II Teaching Award in 1998. His many works include About Love, Ethics and Excellence, A Better Way to Think about Business, The Joy of Philosophy, Spirituality for the Skeptic, Not Passion's Slave, and In Defense of Sentimentality. The passions: emotions and the meaning of life Solomon developed a cognitivist theory of the emotions as moral judgements about reality that inherently manifest a natural, pre-deliberative logic. As such, they are susceptible to rational appraisal and revision no less than our beliefs and propositions, and furthermore to strategic ethical reasoning. Emotions should not be suppressed or repressed by efforts at philosophic rationalism, which suffers a withering critique under his analysis, calling it "emasculated" and "absurd". It is our passions, according to R.Solomon, and not our reason, which are capable of demonstrating to us the meaning and purpose of life. Every emotion has an purpose or goal, even those that seem stupid or painful. Although the objects and strategies differ with each emotion, person, and relationship, the natural purpose of each is to maximize human dignity, the good for oneself and for humankind. Regarding the "air of paradox surrounding an attempt by philosophy to deal with the passions" and the "certain irony that surrounds an attempt by philosophy to deal with the question of the meaning of life", Solomon asks, "is not philosophy, itself,