In Defense of Sentimentality (The Passionate Life)

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Philosophy has as much to do with feelings as it does with thoughts and thinking. Philosophy, accordingly, requires not only emotional sensitivity but an understanding of the emotions, not as curious but marginal psychological phenomena but as the very substance of life. In this, the second book in a series devoted to his work on the emotions, Robert Solomon presents a defense of the emotions and of sentimentality against the background of what he perceives as a long history of abuse in philosophy and social thought and art and literary criticism. The title piece reopens a classic debate about the role of sentimentality in art and literature. In subsequent chapters, Solomon discusses not only such "moral sentiments" as sympathy and compassion but also grief, gratitude, love, horror, and even vengeance. He also defends, with appropriate caution, the "seven deadly sins." The emotions, at least some emotions--are essential to a well-lived life. They are or can be virtues, features of the human condition without which civilized life would be unimaginable.

In Defense of Sentimentality (The Passionate Life) Review

Not since Colin Wilson, whose Outsider series of books opened to me whole new vistas of appreciation of 'literature', a (living) philosopher has evoked my interest and has elicited a similar appreciation of his way of thinking to the degree Solomon has. My esteem of the community of contemporary 'thinkers' and philosophers is fairly low, so Solomon comes as a pleasant surprise.

Solomon is a scholar who considers Nietzsche his 'mentor'--though he disagrees with him on various issues--and for those who shudder at the very mention name of the great 'amoralist, IDOS probably isn't good reading; because, though it is intensely 'ethical', it often asks the reader to assume a bird's-eye perspective in questions relating to 'morality'.

For those of 'rational' disposition--and by that I mean those who believe, at least implicitly, in Asimov's dictum ("A valid chain of reasoning leads to the determination of truth.")--the book probably is a waste of time, because they'd just be sitting there reading and getting neck strain from shaking their heads. (That's because Solomon constantly questions the assumptions whence a lot of apparently chains of valid reasoning start and therefore end up nowhere, least of all at 'truth'.)

I got neck-strain from nodding, because, although Solomon, as is the wont of philosophers, does go on at length about things he could have said briefer, I appreciate his proclivity for wanting to hold these things he's talking about up before our eyes and turning them this way and that, so we get to see all the angles. And I must admit, what is obvious to me may need some explanation for those who haven't spent time mulling this stuff over--me in connection with my fiction, of course.

The essays range from serious to laugh-out funny. In the latter category there's the one titled 'In Appreciation of the Seven Deadly Sins' which is at the same time comical as it is revealing; because it is here maybe that the readers sense of 'moral perspective' is stretched most, and in which the absurdity of social norms, attitudes and sheer hypocrisy and lack of perspective is laid bare.

In the 'pensive' category my favorites are those on the 'virtue' aspects of (erotic) love, as well as that one trying to sort out the vexed question of whether one loves for 'reasons' and what that statement actually means to begin with.

Solomon comes very close to providing an answer of sorts to the issue of who is whose slave--reason the emotions' or vice versa--and maybe, as he asks the question and within the tradition of, inter alia, Hume and Nietzsche, he actually answers it. I'm not quite satisfied, but in this instance it does not matter. I appreciate to see, for a change, a philosopher whose mind appears to be functioning as it should.

IDOS contain endless quotable lines, statements and insights, not a single one of which I disagree with. It may not be complete or the last word on the subjects raised, but which book on philosophy can possibly be complete--since philosophers are, like the rest of us, human beings of finite cognitive ability. Within those limitations--and Solomon would be the first to acknowledge them without being falsely modest--he is a man on whose manner of thinking and integrity of reasoning I can look upon with profound respect. It makes a nice change to find someone like that.

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