FEATURE21 September 2016

Alain de Botton in seven

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Swiss-born Alain de Botton is the author of multiple books exploring the philosophy of everyday life – covering everything from love, architecture, work and travel. His most recent publication is The Course of Love. He was involved in establishing The School of Life, in London, which he helps run, and In founding the architect organisation Living Architecture.

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1. You have established a career explaining philosophy to the general population – do you believe we don’t think deeply enough about everyday situations?

Alain de Botton: My career isn’t really about explaining philosophy; it’s about examining a range of emotional disturbances with the help of culture – including philosophy and many other sources. In general, we are extremely unknown to ourselves, which leads to all kinds of problems: we marry the wrong people, make the wrong job choices and can’t understand many of our feelings. A process of self-examination and introspection would help us all – but our culture is fatefully in love with distraction.

2. The rise of mindfulness – useful or useless?

AdB: Mindfulness isn’t my project – to caricature wildly, I’m more interested in examining feelings and unpacking them, than in emptying the mind. That said, anyone doing mindfulness has their heart and soul very much in the right place.

3Is it important to know oneself ...