Richard David Precht: Am I beautiful?
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Mr. Precht, how would you describe your appearance to a blind man?
Richard David Precht: I would say? a little too big ingredients in a little too small space. Big eyes, big nose, big mouth.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Are you beautiful?
Richard David Precht: I do not perceive myself that much, perhaps because I was small and thin during puberty. Back then I was already interested in philosophy, chess and exotic fish. Do you know the African elephant-fish? He has the largest brain in relation to body size and ...
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: ... something that interested you as a teenager?
Richard David Precht: Yes. All this still interests me. Elephant fish are kept in the aquarium.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Au cheek. It sounds like you were a nerd as a teenager!
Richard David Precht: What?
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: A "nerd", the sort of teenager who plays computer games, wears uncool clothes, has bad skin and is interested in everything but girls.
Richard David Precht: So, if that's a nerd? is, then there are a few signs. I did not have any skin problems, and computers never interested me. I would have rather said "Type Professor". I was interested in girls, but the girls did not care for me. My idol in puberty was Woody Allen? he was short, he had glasses, he talked a lot and hectic, and he nevertheless came to the women. However, I did not learn flirting from him. The Woody Allen style did not fare as well with the girls in my hometown of Solingen as I did in the 1970s in New York. In a sense, I had to learn flirting through second chance education. It took me a little longer than most of the others and had only 20 my first girlfriend. But that also had advantages.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Which?
Richard David Precht: Because I was so successful with girls so late, I started a journey inside. I was completely uncool: I did not smoke, hardly listened to music and did not drive a moped. But the lack of "arrive at the girls? It trained me to analyze myself and think about life.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: And that's really cool after all.
Richard David Precht: If you say so. Besides, girls and women are not just interested in looking passable ...
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: ... pardon, you do not look "quite passable"? They are beautiful, human children.
Richard David Precht: Well.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Definitely.
Richard David Precht: I do not think so.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: It's true. Is it hard to say "I'm beautiful"?
Richard David Precht: Yes, that's hard to overstate. Do we want to continue the interview? (laughs) So: What I meant to say is that it's not just about looking good, but about something else too, like charm. And of course I did not have that, I was untrained, untrained. Although I always had a great self-confidence, but not in dealing with women, but especially in terms of my education. We had a library of 2,000 to 3,000 books at home, I was pretty well read and aware, but I lacked charm.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: At what point came the awareness that you look good?
Richard David Precht: Well, I never found myself ugly, for example, I knew each other without glasses, but it was not until the end of the teenage years that my environment perceived me as good-looking. Some girls liked my hands.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: What distinguishes your hands?
Richard David Precht: They are fine-nerved, but strong.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Was there a point where you wanted to look different?
Richard David Precht: No, there never was. I am not so dependent on the picture that others have of me.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Wow, who can say that? The mirror? once compared you to the French actor Jean-Pierre Léaud, who in the sixties often played the beautiful intellectual with a crown, a cigarette and a turtleneck. Do you like such comparisons?
Richard David Precht: Of course that flatters me, although I do not want to say that the comparison is so true. Incidentally, I saw the Truffaut films, in which Jean-Pierre Léaud plays along, at the age of 17. But as you probably already noticed, the whole topic of beauty is rather unpleasant for me. Because I know that many people associate a good look with superficiality. And that becomes especially problematic if you succeed.People automatically think that this is related to the look that has helped one's face. In France, for example, that's not a problem, there are also good-looking intellectuals whose looks are not designed against them.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Your beauty was not a hindrance to your success. You've been on many talk shows, your face became part of the advertising campaign for your book.
Richard David Precht: I am aware that I fit into the concept of television editors. But I am not an art product of the media. It was always important what I say, not just what I look like. Although I realize that it was not hindering for the book that I just ...
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: ... am beautiful?
Richard David Precht: ... look neat.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: They just said that the Germans get hard intellect and good looks together. Why is that?
Richard David Precht: We have an ivory tower culture at the universities. I can remember that during my studies in literature I was one of the few who received the? Literary Quartet? have seen. The program was at the university as frowned upon, as superficial, unakademisch. There is fears of contact when something is up to date or presented in the mass media. In philosophy, that's the way it is too pretty? The device is under suspicion. The intellectuals in my university year were pretty strictly uniformed: black shirt, black jeans, glasses. At that time I was running around with jackets and a tie, more like a business administrator. Maybe in response to my parents picking my clothes from flea market boxes. I always had the fashion that was just over. And then I changed that at the university.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: What do you have to say as a philosopher about beauty?
Richard David Precht: Beauty is something that can not be understood, I would neither exaggerate nor trivialize it with divine attributes.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Very diplomatic. In your last book as well as in the current book, you combine philosophy with brain research. What does brain research say about beauty?
Richard David Precht: I distrust any research that believes it can identify a particular region of the brain that is supposed to be fully automated in recognizing beauty. And I also doubt the thesis that we find symmetrical faces beautiful in particular. For the scientists who support this approach rely on studies that have mostly been done on computer screens. It lacks the expression in the eyes, the soft smile, it lacks the dimples, the smell of the people, the mood. All this is important for the beauty of a person. In short, symmetry is overestimated. Immanuel Kant has written that the most average seems to us the most beautiful. I doubt that. Take the new Bond actor ...
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: ... Daniel Craig.
Richard David Precht: Exactly. He would have no chance in the tests on the computer screen to be considered beautiful, but he is a sex symbol.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Does love blind you?
Richard David Precht: Being in love makes you blind. You can not see the blemishes. We are inundated with phenethylamine, dopamine and endorphins. Our critical mind is undermined. This condition lasts about half a year, after which we experience the other conscious, but it may well be that we find the small blemishes then particularly beautiful. I have known my wife for four years and am still very much in love. And I think it's incredibly beautiful.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: What does she look like?
Richard David Precht: Very nice, I do not want to say more, that's too private.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Does your look intimidate women?
Richard David Precht: No idea, I'm not looking for a bride. The women who come after my readings are usually older than me and do not seem intimidated. The younger ones, who could be intimidated, rarely come. If anything, maybe the things I say may intimidate women. But I'm not the kind of guy who prattles on parties all the time. But on the contrary. I live in Cologne and can also have carnival talks.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: You sound very confident, but at the same time you do not seem to care what you look like. Are you vain?
Richard David Precht: No, I spend little money on clothes, I bought two suits for the television appearances after the success of my last book, that's it.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Your beauty will also wither one day. Are you afraid of that?
Richard David Precht: No, because I feel no pressure to look good. I would even say that time is running for me. My threat? if you want to call it that? was rather my youthfulness. Because if you say something clever at the age of 20 years, everyone thinks everyone is a nerd or wise old or both. This has already changed and will continue to change if I fall outside.
Richard David Precht, 44, is a philosopher and author. His new non-fiction book has just been published: "Love: A Messy Feeling" (17.95 Euro, Goldmann-Verlag). Here you can read as an excerpt the introduction. The most well-known book is "Who am I - and if so, how many?"
