The Passions: Philosophy and the Intelligence of Emotions

by Robert C. Solomon

This 24-lecture course attempts to understand our emotions--how they provide insight and meaning--and the extent to which we are not passive but active regarding them. Our emotions, according to a recent theory, are imbued with intelligence, and a person's emotional repertoire is not a mattter of fate but a matter of emotional integrity.

Parts 1 and 2 in separate containers.
12 audiocassettes (720 min.) : analog, stereo, Dolby-processed + 2 course guidebooks.

Contents:
Lecture 1. Emotions as engagements with the world.
lecture 2. The wrath of Achilles.
lecture 3. It's good to be afraid.
lecture 4. Lessons of love: Plato's Symposium.
lecture 5. We are not alone: compassion and empathy.
lecture 6. Noble? Or deadly sin: pride and shame --
lecture 7. Nasty: Iago's envy, Othello's jealousy --
lecture 8. Nastier: resentment and vengeance --
lecture 9. A death in the family: the logic of grief --
lecture 10: James and the bear: emotions and feelings --
lecture 11. Freud's catharsis: the hydraulic model --
lecture 12. Are emotions "in" the mind? --
lecture 13. How emotions are intelligent --
lecture 14. Emotions as judgments --
lecture 15. Beyond boohoo and hooray --
lecture 16. Emotions are rational --
lecture 17. Emotions and responsibility --
lecture 18. Emotions in ethics --
lecture 19. Emotions and the self --
lecture 20. What is emotional experience? --
lecture 21. Emotions across cultures: universals --
lecture 22. Emotions across cultures: differences --
lecture 23. Laughter and music --
lecture 24. Happiness and spirituality.

Genres: Philosophy, Psychology, Nonfiction, Audiobook, History, Science, Reference

12 pages, Audio Cassette

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Robert 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.

Reviews

[Amirography · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are points about this book that I want to make:
1. This book was hardly about emotional intelligence. it was mostly about the author's existential view on emotions.
2. As the author states, he is not a scientist. But apparently, he uses science. Which I would argue that at the most generous considerations, he sometimes uses pseudoscience. And he doesn't use them well. Which takes us to the next point.
3. He does not use any rational, formal or logical method of arguing, if at all. This book can be best described as a paraphrase-quote-box of different claims, out of context. Which is not unexpected, as he is...
4. He is an existentialist. Which stereotypically, equates with a rebellious rejection of logic, science and analytical philosophy. Which granted, is popular amongst the younger audience. Yet it fails to satisfy basis of their claims and often is filled with astonishing ratio of fallacy/arguement. They are not just wrong. They cannot be falsified, nor can they present a coherent philosophical theory. As they obsessively rely on intuition, which is not expected as someone whose job descirption is "To think and argue".

This book may inspire a delusion of deep taught -as do most of existantial works- and/or might give novice reader of this topic some belief of knowledge; but it fails to deliver a good, empirical and logical account of emotions. I strongly dis-recommend this works.

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The lecturer clearly demonstrates how our emotions are a subset of our feelings and are how we engage with the world. Emotions are not things or facts. Our emotional intelligence allows us to process the world and to deal with the world. The more we understand ourselves the better our ‘eudomania’, right actions that result in well being, an Aristotelian word the lecturer used from time to time.

Heidegger, Nietzsche, Sartre, Freud, Hume, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Plato and Aristotle made frequent appearances in these lectures. Is it as he quoted Wittgenstein, ‘A depressed person lives in a depressed world’ or do our emotional intelligence and our own self awareness make us sometimes too self reflective?

Hume will say that ‘reason is a slave to our passions’ and we should enjoy our passions when we can, while the Buddhist think our passions enslave us too, but we should just accept that as it is and not let the world get to us. Each gives primacy to experiences over our reason as the foundation for understanding but give different suggestions for dealing with the world.

I’ve recently have been reading all of the people I mentioned in the above paragraph. This lecturer was able to tie them all together and bring recent research and his own spin on what our experiences mean and show why they are just as relevant today as they were in their own day.

Aristotle (who is frequently quoted in these lectures) would say that good habit, good practice and good behavior make us good and give us practical wisdom (phronesis). The lecturer gave a good example, if one misbehaves after having drunk too much, Aristotle would not blame the drinking, but he would blame the person for having drunk when they should have known better due to their own lack of character from wont of phronesis due to lack of good habits, good practices and good behaviors.

There are many fine points that are presented in these lectures and I found them somewhat a delight and edifying to listen to. I did not think I was going to like them at first since he talked about ‘universal emotions’ as if they were definitely real and gave too much credence to evolutionary psychology. He later in the lectures made those more of a nuanced position. He quotes a lot from Antonio Damasio and his theories and I would recommend his book ‘Strange Order of Things’ (probably one of my favorite books for this year) which was published after these lectures were made.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only was able to listen to half of this book, because when I bought it in a Library book sale I didn't realize it came in two parts. With that fact on the table I would like to say that I enjoyed this lecture. I've listened to Robot C. Solomon before, specifically his lecture series on existentialism which I would absolutely recommend to anyone, and so approaching this lecture I knew there would be a real quality of work.

This lecture is not perfect, and to be honest there was always this feeling that Solomon was not digging as deep into the material as he could have. There is a real intellectual effort here, and I definitely learned a lot, but this lecture tended to be broad and general. The source material, and the approach to discussing emotions has real value, but the material just lacks a certain depth to make it feel like a relevant and vital lecture. Robert Solomon doesn't disappoint, but he does skim what is a terribly relevant argument in an age where emotional intelligence is more important than ever.

[Marcus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent lectures on a subject that impacts us all... which... if better understood can improve the overall texture of a life tremendously. What is the difference between an emotion and a feeling? Do we love what we find beautiful or find beautiful what we love? Do emotions have a place alongside the practice of reason and logic? These are some of the big questions this lecture series addresses. The subject matter is "wiggly" and the lecturer does an admirable job of making the material understandable... yet this series would definitely benefit from multiple listenings. The goal of the lecturer is to help us understand the concept of becoming a person of "emotional integrity" which I think is an admirable goal for anyone seeking to use their life well.

[Hank Pharis · Rating 1 out of 5]

We all deal with emotions all day every day. But when we read serious attempts to explain them they are highly debated and extremely complicated. This author surveys historical explanations of the emotions. Some of it is interesting but in the end disappointing.

[James Love · Rating 1 out of 5]

The presentation was underwhelming. The author/lecturer used weak examples and while dismissive of religious beliefs attempted to use examples from the Bible that were very poorly constructed or researched for the topics.

In one example he quotes the Bible and the story of Adam and Eve when discussing shame. He glosses over the issue, leaving out important contextual items that could have created a better argument. He glossed over St. Thomas Aquinas in the Ethics lecture and totally ignored the fact that most of Aquinas' Ethics were based on the Bible.

He never mentioned the specific text of Sartre or other philosophers used as an appropriate source citation in his lectures. Maurice Merleau-Ponty's The Phenomenology of Perception would have been a much more appropriate source.

It was more of a tepid lectures on Existentialism and Emotions versus a series of lectures on Emotions and how we can understand them. He rarely got into the ways that emotions help us to understand others and should be used to bond the different cultures versus alienating ourselves from others.

[Menglong Youk · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't learn from this course as much as I wanted to. Maybe it is too difficult for me or my brain is not capable of absorbing new ideas on this issue. I am still doubtful about what it means when people use the words "emotional intelligence," which has now become so popular.

What I could take back from the course is that, not all emotions are only positive or only negative. For example, fear may be the emotion we all try to avoid, but fear also keep people safe from involving in dangerous activities that could cause them their life. The course also explore the drama of other emotions like anger, love, compassion, pride, envy, vengeance and grief, each of which was discussed by using examples from various philosophers throughout the history.

And for the second and third part of the course, I learnt very little. Not that the course is bad, but because my knowledge is not enough to contemplating and scrutinizing the meanings of the lectures.

[Myrtha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although the lectures were interesting and informative hence the 5 stars, and the lecturer is a pleasant narrator , I had a hard time following the lectures.

[Heather Hoyt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great overview. I enjoyed quite a lot of this.

[Greg Talbot · Rating 3 out of 5]

I still regularly listen to Robert C. Solomon's "No Excuses" lectures, a profoundly moving set of lectures about existential thought through five major philosophers. It's Solomon at his best, tying together history, logic, reasoning and self-responsibility to arrive at a theory of integrity.

The passions is a multi-perspective look at how emotions move us, and how they affect us. I found the conclusions and perspectives to be fairly broad and obvious. These lectures had a particular blandness about "emotional intelligence" that i think most adults could sous out.

Always great to hear Solomon's voice in lectures. Just not a very riveting set of work.

[Timo · Rating 3 out of 5]

the second or third work I've consumed on this topic over the past year. Vitally important, I think, as we enter the unknown phase of developing AI; to pretend that our thinking is rational and not emotional is a big mistake if we try to duplicate such thought in computers.

But more than that, understanding our own reasoning requires us to understand our substrate. We are not substrate independent, and never can be.

But this presentation left something to be desired. It lacked a certain spark. Emotion? ;)

[Hakan Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the books that I've read that had to do with emotions were science based (mostly psychology). I haven't had much exposure to a philosophical understanding of emotions. In all actually this ended up being more of a historical understanding of emotions because Philosophy has been around much longer than psychology. There was also a good effort of recognizing eastern philosophy, though it was still mostly western philosophy. I'm definitely glad I picked up this book and have more context to our cultural understanding of emotions and the intelligence of emotions.

[Piero · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was trained and I work as a CBT Therapist and as such I am always interested in emotions. It is both funny and important.

It is funny because between Cognition, that is thoughts, mental images, memories and impulses, and Behaviour, covert - that is mental - or otherwise: a muscular movement visible to other people, there seems to be no room for emotions.

It is of particular interest because most of the issues that people seem to want help for when they come to me has to do with emotions. Or, if I had to frame through a CBT lens "emotional dysregulation".

I give my patients a model of emotions which has the virtue of simplicity. There are 8 emotions, I say, of course there are more, but we could argue that most emotional experiences can be boiled down to one or a combination of them, these are: anger, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise, and happiness - as well as two other social emotions, that means that their triggers are social in nature, which are guilt and shame.

In time, I feel more dissatisfied with this presentation that appears to me crude and simplistic. Even if I do say straight away that this model appears to be only a working model, proposed for practical reasons, and not, by any stretch of the imagination, a complete guide to emotions, I still feel that my own whole idea of emotions could use a shakeup, a nuancing, a deepening, and a broadening. By the gods how shallow does my understanding of emotions appear to me! I was therefore urged internally to use around 17 hours of my time to listen to the whole lectures on Audible.

One of the first things that surprised me was the fact that for Solomon emotions are all "lumped together" with behaviours. So vengeance is an emotion. I would have thought of it as an anger connected to shame that had a distinct behaviour strategy, apt to signify the settling of the score for the person. The shame needs to be regulated, that is possibly reduced, and the anger gives the energy to act upon the plan. This plan can be simple when the anger is hot, complex and prolonged when the dish needs to be served cold. The point I want to make here is: emotional experience for me is a result of certain circumstances that have been judged with a certain meaning by the person in her particular context and culture, to which follows the bodily experience the emotion entails, and then follow a set of behaviours that serve to regulate the emotion. To make it more schematic it is a circle: bodily feelings -> appraisal & meaning -> behaviour and so on. It is not important where it begins or ends since it is a closed circle, or moving wheel, you can get into it from any point of its circumference. Sometimes a more conscious judgment initiates the dance, in other times I recognize the sensations, my heart beating hard for instance, to understand that I am feeling something.

Now Solomon talks about everything lumped in together and this in a way has made me question my dividing things into neat antecedents, behaviours and consequences. My question here is: am I not being Neo-Cartesian there by dividing thoughts, something that I distinguish as mental, immaterial, and behaviours, something that pertains to the tangible, material world?

When I insist to my patients that emotions can only be felt into and through the body, that each emotion, at least each basic emotion, has its own sensorial signature, am I adopting without knowing, William James' empiricism? And am I ignoring Cannon's rebuttal? Sensations are so few in the body that we cannot distinguish love from influenza on the basis of bodily sensations alone.

When Solomon says that emotions are things that we do and not things that happen to us, what is the "I" that he or I refer to? If the "I" he refers to is our experience of being including all that is evidently there but we cannot perceive, like that well from which all our thoughts come from, he is distinctively right. The one who gets angry is also me, I am also doing it even if I think that being angry may not be in my best interests right now given my circumstances.
If, instead, the idea of "I" that I - and the ancients - includes only the experience of being me, my inner chatterbox that seems to be thinking and taking voluntary decisions, then emotions are things that happen to me, I am their victim when not in line with my values and objectives. And how much enhancing, empowering, is instead the idea that I am much more that what I think I am, and that I do my emotions, that they allow me to engage fully into my life? Wouldn't such an idea be better for one's life?

In short, Solomon speaks another language than mine, what I talk about as coping mechanisms or behavioural strategies, he talks about action tendencies. I don't see completely eye to eye to his thesis about emotions, and I didn't expect this to be the case.

BUT...

I loved every moment of these lectures. I felt that my ideas on emotions have been shaken up, nuanced, deepened, and indeed broadened. Therefore I recommend this for anyone who wants to think about these immense and mysterious mastodons of our experience that sing to our lives and that can be only gleaned, but never fully, at the very edge of consciousness.

5/5 Stars

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was pretty good, but it's definitely not the first Teaching Company course I'd recommend anyone try. It was pretty significantly dated in two ways, one interesting and one not great. Starting with the not great part, it felt like listening to what I imagine/stereotype it was like to attend a seminar from an Oxford don in the nineteenth century. The lecturer had genuinely spent a career as an academic thinking about these things, had dramatically (to him) changed his mind a couple times, was deeply fixated on a problematic thinker from history that he couldn't help himself from bringing up constantly (here, Nietzsche (of course)), spent a lot of time talking about "the good life" (what I remember Paul Kurtz calling "eupraxophy") which he defined as attending operas and having deep conversations with other Oxford-don-types, etc. That was fun, but also grated over time ... this course is twenty years old, but it felt 120 years old. It also resulted in a fair amount of meandering in the course of the lectures. He claimed to have had a structure to the lectures overall as well as a plan for each individual lecture, but the hell if I can articulate what it was ... it felt like he was convincing himself in saying that repeatedly, or perhaps trying to convince his editor at the Teaching Company and/or his department chair at his university. The poor guy died like fifteen years ago so I feel a little bad dunking on his grave here, but I'm trying to convey what it's like listening to this here in 2024.

Onto the interesting part. I decided to pick this lecture series because my company has been on a "psychological safety" and "emotional intelligence" kick the past few years, and I noticed this lecture series came out WAY before Amy Edmondson and all the ancillary/copycat executive consultants and Harvard Business Review thinkpieces and management buzzwords. So, I was curious what "emotional intelligence" meant both before it became a corporate America buzzword and beyond the context in which I hear about it, which more-or-less amounts to "how to control yourself and stay professional when someone is a flagrant douchebag to you at work." And, for those purposes, this was pretty great. First off, it covered emotions and reactions way beyond the corporate experience, love and rage and envy and joy and no end of other emotions that make being human human. It brought in intellectual history back to ancient greece and the Buddha and Confucius, always fun to me and also validating that humans have been grappling with the things I grapple with for as long as we've written things down (and of course surely longer, just not recorded). And it brought it fun stuff like Homer and Shakespeare, unlike my work seminars and back to the Oxford don comments above. That was entertaining, and I would encourage you to check this out if your workplace also has starting hiring Amy Edmondson acolytes to give seminars and train your executives.

Interesting and entertaining, but also VERY imperfect as articulated above.

[Victor · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not a modern lecture in philosophy, though it does refer to classical notions of philosophical thought. This is not a course in language though English language learners might take some value from the lectures regarding the nuances of English language meaning when describing emotions. This series is not rooted in modern science in a meaningful way. All this would be ok if there was depth to the lectures but ultimately I failed to find enough stimulating content. It didn’t challenge my thinking nor did it introduce new questions that could be invested separately.

There was potential near the end of the book. The author discusses personal will as it relates to emotions. But unfortunately the lack of scientific scrutiny gives the student very little to work with other than the authors feelings and wants. The author does well until the point when he makes broad statement that are supposedly obvious, undermining his subsequent claims. Though these beliefs don’t seem unreasonable, many have not aged well in the 10-15 years since this series was developed, and some concepts had already been outdated.

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

This was quite informative, with a lot of interesting ideas for further analysis and reflection. I particularly liked the idea that rationality cannot be divorced from emotions, and that emotions are intelligent and essential to meaning-making.

The negative parts of this were the fact that Solomon approaches such deep subjects at such a high level of abstraction that many of the passages seem that they are his opinion or pseudo-science. This might be dangerous if the reader doesn't approach the topics with a critical eye - conscious of the context. An example is - he references many philosophers when talking about emotions, however most philosophers just happen to be European and male; therefore, inadvertently, other perspectives are ignored even if he does try to balance this out a little in later chapters.

[Don Heiman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently purchased and listened to Prof Robert Solomon’s 2006 Part 1 Teaching Company course “The Passions: Philosophy and the Intelligence of Emotions.” The 12 lecture part 1 audio cds and Course Guidebook are exceptional. Robert begins the part 1 course with a discussion about how emotions engage us with the world. He then talks about the wrath of Achilles, Plato’s “385-370 BC Symposium”, and Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics. These lectures helped me understand historical notions about the the meaning of love, compassion, empathy, pride, and shame. Robert then discusses resentment, the logic of grief and the Freudian concepts of emotions and feelings. The course guide has a wonderful timeline, annotated bibliography, and very helpful glossary of terminology. The Course-guide lecture presentations are exceptional and easy to understand. (P)

[C.A. Gray · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this "Great Courses" lecture series, as the topic is one I (ostensibly) find fascinating. Unfortunately, I got almost nothing out of it that I didn't already intuitively know. The first series of lectures breaks down various emotions, describing what they are and what they are not, and each made the argument that the emotions themselves have a kind of logic to them; they are not irrational. Later lectures raise such questions as how does music convey emotion, and what makes humor funny--but in my view, none of these questions really get answered so much as expounded upon.

[Haoyan Do · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book so much that I do not wish the book to end. It talks about all different kind of emotions. I don't have time to write a long review right now but I will come back to write a longer review. One tiny disagreement I have with the author at the end. The author says people from different cultures don't laugh at each other's jokes. That's true only to an extent. And just as often, people from different background do laugh at each other's jokes. This being said, I do agree with the author that jokes can be dangerous territory and can easily be misunderstood and can easily offend people.

[Tozheg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enlightening and eye opening. Interesting dive into the notion of emotions. Very very long and perhaps best to take time to listen and reflect. It can feel like sitting in a series of course lectures, which I kept catching myself getting distracted and not paying proper attention.

[Viking · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read the version from The Great Courses. A few interesting snippets, but if you have feelings, you basically already know most of what's going to be said in this book.

[Brian Barnett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Philosophy of the emotions is fascinating. Why haven't I studied it before?!

[Cristina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another one for the "unfinished" shelf... Listened to about 40%... boring...

[Hersh Sangani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really insightful analysis of emotions that make you think of them in a different way.

[Hendrik Strauss · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good thing, getting told, what you believe to be true intuitively. Cleared uncertainty in that way, made me a bit more reflective of my emotions, I guess, but as a fellow reviewer wrote “If you have emotions, you propably won't get your mind blown“.

Solomons main scheme is that of emotions not being there without cause and representing an entanglement with the world.
Emotions can't be wrong in this perspective, even if they cause actions maybe unwarranted or worse, by rational thought and deserve to be looked at seriously in determining guilt.
They are a reaction to a certain state of information and not necessarily congruent with affective actions as there is still the person manifesting these behaviors.
->people are able to disconnect and reflect their passions.
While that is more easily said than done, good thing it has been said.
I don't regret taking this course but would have done so if I paid more than 10 bucks on it.

[Binula · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great summary of current philosophical thought on a number of emotions and a comprehensive discussion on their role in our lives. The book is well set out, easy to read (listen to) and the ideas are expressed clearly and concisely. This was the first book I’ve read that discusses emotions through a predominantly philosophical lens, in contrast to a purely scientific one, which I found fascinating and insightful.

[John Ledingham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Liked solomon's distinctions between feeling and emotion and general elaboration on a sartrean concept of emotion as project. His integration of modern neuroscience felt lacking and some of his pseudoscience assertions felt quaint and dated today. But a great and personable orator and a joy to listen to in the distant wake of a heartbreak and during the burgeoning of a new romantic relationship, largely while doing the busy work of constructing an outdoor road system

[Natasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leave it to a philosopher to address every facet of a topic, all the while leaving you confused as to which of the differing opinions is the most valid. Not a whole lot of practicality-- but as a series of interesting, enjoyable, brain-stretching, curiosity-inducing lectures, it's worth a listen.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great introducing to a very interesting subject. I learned so much about myself thriugh these lectures. I couldn't be happier with this course ir endorse it more enthusiastically.