In a London café, Anja Steinbauer chats with the philosopher who invented the word ‘idiosyncratic’.
I have a deep problem with any official titles and so on. I’m not proud of it. When someone calls me professor I take it automatically as an irony.
A most obvious fact about you is that you are not just a philosopher but a famous philosopher – a rare thing. What does it mean to you to be famous? Is fame important?
First of all, fame is very relative. I have, as you know, many enemies: people who think that I’m just a clown, people who think that beneath my amusing nature there is some evil proto fascist or Stalinist dimension and so on. So I think my so-called fame is basically just a way to keep me at a distance and not engage seriously with what I am doing. What I’m really proud of is, you know my crazy book Less Than Nothing, the one that is almost the length of the Bible? It sold very well. That gives me hope that we nonetheless shouldn’t underestimate the public. The publishers put pressure on me to write a nice best seller on Donald Trump. But why should I? He’s not interesting as a person; he’s a boring idiot.
But are you worried about your books becoming coffee table books? You know, people buy them but don’t actually read them?
This story is from the October/November 2017 edition of Philosophy Now.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the October/November 2017 edition of Philosophy Now.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
"Stand Out Of My Light"
Sophie Dibben watches Alexander the Great meet Diogenes the Cynic.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
Hilarius Bogbinder looks at a man who wanted to make Peace from Warre.
The Philosophy of Work
Alessandro Colarossi has insights for the bored and understimulated.
Towards Love
George Mason on love as shared identity.
Hume's Problem of Induction
Patrick Brissey exposes a major unprovable assumption at the core of science.
A Philosophical History of Transhumanism
John Kennedy Philip goes deep into the search for (post-) human heights.
How to Have a Good Life
Meena Danishmal asks if Seneca's account of the good life is really practical.
Horseplay in Hibernia
Seán Moran explores equine escapades in Eire and elsewhere.
Philosophy & Hurling: Thinking & Playing
Stiofán Ó Murchadha knowing how we know.
Philip Pettit & The Birth of Ethics
Peter Stone thinks about a thought experiment about how ethics evolved.