Mar 28, 2012
Claudia Cragg speaks here for
KGNU with philosopher and author
Alain de Botton about his latest book 'Religion
for Atheists'. De Botton argues "What if religions are neither
all true or all nonsense?' as the traditional debate between
believers and their non-believing debaters contend. De Botton
maintains that "this boring debate between fundamentalist believers
and non-believers is finally moved on" in his new book, which
boldly argues that the supernatural claims of religion are of
course entirely false and yet that religions still have some very
important things to teach the secular world. "Even if religion
isn't true," he says, "Can't we enjoy the best bits?" He explores
the book in this convesation looking at amongst other ideas the
potential of rituals in secular life and the need for modern day
non-religious 'saints' or people to look up to as everyday heroes.
One of De Botton's for example is
Warren Buffett.
Alain de Botton was born in
Zurich, Switzerland in 1969 and now lives in London. He is a writer
of essays that have been described as a 'philosophy of everyday
life.' He’s written on love, travel, architecture and
literature. His books have been bestsellers in 30 countries. Alain
also started and helps to run a school in London called
The School of Life, dedicated to a new vision of
education.
Alain started writing at a young
age. His first book,
Essays in Love [titled On Love in the US]was published when he
was 23. In 1997 he published his best-selling first non-fiction
book,
How Proust Can Change Your Life, based on the life and works of
Marcel Proust. This was followed by The Consolations of
Philosophy in 2000. In this, de Botton attempts to demonstrate
how the teachings of philosophers such as Epicurus, Montaigne,
Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Seneca, and Socrates can be applied to
modern everyday woes such as unpopularity, feelings of inadequacy,
financial worries, broken hearts, and the general problem of
suffering. The book has been both praised and criticized for its
therapeutic approach to philosophy. His next work was The Art of
Travel looking at themes in the psychology of travel: how we
imagine places before we see them, how we remember beautiful
things, what happens to us when we look at deserts, stay in hotels,
and go to the countryside.
Then in Status
Anxiety (2004), de Botton examines an almost universal anxiety
that is rarely mentioned directly: what others think of us; about
whether we're judged a success or a failure, a winner or a loser.
In
The Architecture of Happiness (2006), he discusses the nature
of beauty in architecture and how it is related to the well-being
and general contentment of the individual and society. He describes
how architecture affects people every day, though people rarely pay
particular attention to it.
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009) is a survey of ten different jobs, including accountancy, rocket science and biscuit manufacture, which includes two hundred original images and aims to unlock the beauty, interest and occasional horror of the modern world of work.In August 2009, de Botton replied to a competition advertised among British literary agents by BAA, the airport management company, for the post of "writer-in-residence" at Heathrow Airport. The post involved being seated at a desk in Terminal 5, and writing about the comings and goings of passengers over a week. De Botton was duly appointed to the position. The result was the book, A Week at the Airport, published by Profile Books in September 2009. The book features photographs by the documentary photographer Richard Baker, with whom de Botton also worked on The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work.