Alain de Botton interview
Kay
by Mark Vernon -- Researching a piece on philosophy, ancient and
modern, for the FT Magazine, I spoke to a number of big hitters.
Here's something of my exchange with Alain de Botton.
MV: I'm not sure whether it's your own description but your philosophy
has been called the philosophy of everyday life. Why do you think a
philosophy of everyday life is worth doing?
AdB: Philosophers have traditionally been held back by notions of what
is a fitting philosophical question. For example, for much of the last
century, in the academic world, the question, 'what is the
relationship between words and things?' has been viewed as a central
issue. However, the question 'what is shyness?' has not been granted
such prestige - and has therefore been ignored (it wouldn't be a good
career move to chart this area). My fundamental belief is that the
range of legitimate philosophical questions is far greater than the
academy holds. Certainly questions of metaphysics are important, but
so too are issues to do with everyday life - like friendship, desire,
death, children and so on - issues that philosophers of previous eras
paid far more attention to than our own.
Furthermore, it is possible to argue that some questions are of
greater relevance to a greater number of people than others - this
isn't an argument to ban the less 'relevant' questions. But it should
mean that we ensure that the big and immediate questions are at least
not discriminated against, as they are at present within academia.
Why do I keep stressing academia? The reason is simple. Academia is
the only big player in the world of philosophy. It's more or less
impossible to make a living as a philosopher outside of academia.
Therefore, how academia defines philosophy will have a huge influence
on what the subject is day to day. This is not the case in a subject
like fiction, where there is no one body that 'owns' literature.
MV: As the best selling philosopher in the UK, I'm interested in how
you understand your audience. For example, what do you think people
are looking for in your writing? If, say, they are looking for answers
to the big questions of how to live, and so on, do you think
philosophy can deliver on that?
AdB: Like many writers, I don't think of what an audience wants and
then attempt to cater for it. This would be a recipe for disaster. I
follow my own desires, issues that puzzle and interest me - and then
if others take an interest, I am delighted. I think any discipline,
philosophy or anything else, has to be very cautious in promising to
deliver big answers to the big questions. Modesty is a prerequisite
when navigating such areas.
MV: How would you characterise the state of philosophy today?
AdB: 'Philosophy' is largely owned by the academy and defined by its
interests. These interests tend be narrow and the way one is allowed
to write in academia almost guarantees that no more than a handful of
people will bother to investigate subjects. That's why philosophy is
largely irrelevant in this country. However, there is clearly a great
appetite among people to know what philosophy is - people seem
incredibly willing to attend introductory classes on the subject and
read introductory books. My own feeling is that this curiosity is
generally abused.
MV: Why did you turn to philosophy, at least in part, to ask, first,
questions about love; and then why did you stick with it in your
subsequent books to ask about travel, status and architecture?
AdB: I don't think of myself as a philosopher - because I'm aware of a
large body of academic philosophers who see me as a 'bad philosopher',
not rigorous enough, not logical etc. I agree that I am very bad as a
philosopher if you define philosopher as they do. So I'd rather be
thought of as an interesting essayist than a 'bad' philosopher. My
role models are not Daniel Dennett and Donald Davidson, they are
Montaigne, Stendhal and the essayistic side of Virginia Woolf. Around
2000, when I wrote a book on philosophy, the academics became
hysterical that I was an interloper on their hallowed ground. I have
no interest on their patch, I wrote a series of essays around
philosophers modelled on Virginia Woolf's Common Reader essays - and
now see myself as an essayist. My last book on architecture was
certainly not a book on philosophy.
MV: What relationship do you think popular philosophy has to academic
philosophy, and vice versa?
AdB: I think the phrase popular philosophy is unhelpful - because it
suggests that there's real philosophy going on in academia which is
serious but ignored, and then there's the popular stuff out there
(done by people like you and me) which is the same thing but
translated for 'the masses', made more appealling, sugar coated etc.
This is to demean what people like you and I are trying to do.
I believe that my work - and yours, isn't popular philosophy, it's an
attempt to consider different questions from academia and in a
different way. It's certainly not a dummed down version of the serious
stuff going on in Oxbridge, because this stuff isn't going in
universities at all.
I can't bear the distinction between 'experts' who do the serious
stuff, and then the helpful friendly people who translate it for 'the
common people'. Of course there are 'duffers' guides' to people like
Wittgenstein etc. But that's what I would call 'introductions to .'
There's a category all of its own, not derivative of academic
philosophy, entirely independent of it, where writers tackle important
subjects in a lucid, sometimes personal way. This is a tradition I'd
identify with. The patron saint of this tradition is Michel de
Montaigne.
MV: Throughout history, philosophers have said philosophy is various
things - learning how to die, critiquing the present, no more or less
than the effort to think clearly? Could you sum up in a sentence what
you think philosophy is, and then why that particular emphasis so so
crucial?
AdB: Philosophy should not be defined by its subject matter. It's a
mode of thinking, dedicated to logical progression through an
argument.
So you can have a philosophy book about any subject on earth - just as
you can have a poem. The key point is how the material is handled,
this defines philosophy.
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Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational
purposes of research and open discussion. Contents do not necessarily
represent the opinions of the poster.
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