Alain de Botton

Author of "The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work"

Alain de Botton appears in the following:

A Healthier Way to Think About Sex

Friday, April 17, 2015

Alain de Botton, the Swiss philosopher whose new book is the kind you "read in bed and weep quietly as your partner sleeps beside you," examines the ways we think about sex.

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Can You Trust The Media?

Monday, February 17, 2014

Over the last few years, technology has transformed how we understand and consume the news. A few decades ago, most of us read the morning paper or tuned in to the evening news, but t...

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Alain de Botton on Art for Mental Health's Sake

Tuesday, December 03, 2013

He's already shown "How Proust Can Change Your Life" and written about "The Architecture of Happiness" -- now, Alain de Botton, writer, philosopher, founder of London's The School of Life, and co-author, with art historian John Armstrong, of Art as Therapy (Phaidon, 2013), turns to fine art and specific works that can make us better people and how museums can help.

"Art as Therapy" App: Android / IPhone

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Non-Believer's Religion

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Alain de Botton, writer, philosopher and author of Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion, looks at what religion offers, even to the agnostic and atheist.

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'Religion for Atheists': How to Get Past An Argumentative Impasse

Monday, March 05, 2012

Religion plays a fundamental role in daily life, and in political life, to believers and non-believers both. And while wars have been fought and era-defining antagonisms built for centuries between opposing religions, the relatively recent antagonism between believers and non-believers has reached something of a fever pitch. You can trace it to the Enlightenment, but the likes of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens have brought the argument to a head … or maybe to a standstill. Is any kind of progress possible in a debate between religious-believers and atheists? Or is there just a never-breakable impasse between the two worldviews?

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Plane Living

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Writer and philosopher Alain de Botton discusses his new book A Week at the Airport and what he learned as "writer-in-residence" at Heathrow airport.

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For Stranded Passengers, Imagining a World Without Planes

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

European officials struck a deal yesterday to reopen most of Europe's air space to plane travel as early as this afternoon, assuming Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano continues to subside. This would end the worst peacetime travel disruption in history, a travel crisis that has left thousands of passengers stranded for days and cost the airline industry hundreds of millions of dollars. But in the midst of the chaos and inconveniences, one philosopher took a moment to reflect on what our world would look like without airplanes.

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Live to Work/Work to Live

Monday, June 08, 2009

We spend much of our adult lives at work--yet what makes employment meaningful is not well understood. Alain de Botton, writer, philosopher, and author of The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, takes a look at the modern idea that you can do well by doing good.

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Driven

Monday, June 08, 2009

Six states have made it legal for same-sex couples to marry. State Senator Liz Krueger wants to make New York the seventh, but there’s fierce opposition—namely from Senator Reverend Ruben Diaz. Also: State Senator Daniel Squadron talks about his push to bring a residential parking permit system to New York ...

Love, Work and the Meaning of Life

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

With millions of jobs lost in this economy, people are reflecting on how important their jobs are -- and not just for the obvious financial reasons. Philosopher Alain de Botton has be...

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The Architecture of Happiness

Friday, October 27, 2006

Tacky architecture can make us cringe. Avant-garde buildings can make us think, "huh?" But according to Alain de Botton, author of The Architecture of Happiness, a well-designed building can be more sublime than most aphrodisiacs. Kurt Andersen asks de Botton which buildings put a smile of ...

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