In France there’s an entire group of ‘TV Philosophers’ who go on various political talk shows and opine on the latest political and social issues of the day from a philosophical perspective, and write a ton of books. Probably the most famous ones are [Bernard Henri-Lévy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard-Henri_L%C3%A9vy?wprov=sfla1) and [Michel Onfray](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Onfray?wprov=sfla1)(they tend to spout complete verbal diarrhoea nowadays, but that’s beside the point…). These tend to be distinct from political pundits.

I just find it really odd as it’s just not a concept at all in the UK. I mean sure you get talking heads who appear on TV a lot, but they’ll always be considered writers/columnists in other fields as opposed to actual philosophers. The only famous person I can think of who actually calls himself a philosopher is [Alain de Botton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_de_Botton?wprov=sfla1).

So, is this just a French thing, or are the Brits/Anglos the odd ones out here?

36 comments

  1. There’s [Esa Saarinen](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esa_Saarinen) who’s mainstream famous as well as his former student [Pekka Himanen](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pekka_Himanen) who’s well-known but not exactly a similar media personality.

    My uncle is a philosopher (who gets his income from teaching philosophy at a university). Years ago he did a series of programs for a public radio station where he talked about various philosophical questions as they related to current events. So far from a celebrity but maybe a format sort of similar to the French kind.

  3. Richard David Precht and Svenja Flaßpöhler (she is recent). Both they argued against too much hate against critics of the corona measures. Also Flaßpöhler is a critic of too much woke radicalism (but not totally against it).

  4. [Jürgen Habermas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Habermas) is well and alive at 92 years.

    He is not as present anymore as he was in younger years. But he wrote an [essay](https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/juergen-habermas-strukturwandel-der-oeffentlichkeit-in-der-2-0-version-a-2e683f52-3ccd-4985-a750-5e1a1823ad08) recently looking back and interpreting his former work.He was a bit under fire in 2021 for taking a prize given by the United Arab Emirates government, but then [chose not to](https://www.zeit.de/kultur/literatur/2021-05/juergen-habermas-buchpreis-abu-dhabi)

    We have a pop philosopher also that is a lot in TV, but honestly, many people like him but he is not as highly thought of in his science [Richard David Precht](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_David_Precht) He is a lot in TV, but, I feel its more like, if there were philosophy pundits as in sports, he would be one. Even hosted a philosophy show for some years.

    The other highly famous living German philosopher next to Habermas is [Peter Sloterdijk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sloterdijk) Postmodernist, aligned himself heavy with conservative to hard-conservative positions after 2000s.

  5. The only really popular celebrity philosopher I can think of, is Svend Brinkmann. A pop-philosopher through and through, often criticised, in my opinion rightly, for making vulgar analysis, often oversimplified, bordering on populism, while other criticise him for lacking a clear understanding of the self and the value of self-realisation. Often his works are “just” collections and regurgitations of points made by other philosophers, stitched together into a form of feel-good philosophy, never really making any real critical points, or exploring subject matters more deeply.

  6. Of the famous ones in the world, I can only remember Dugin.
    But his fame is quite scandalous. His geopolitical treatise is used by propagandists to defame Russia. They take the work of a rather marginal publicist and attribute these thoughts to the whole of Russian politics.
    There are also philosophers of the same level, but they are popular and well-known in certain circles. Although some of their thoughts are scattered all over Russia.

  7. From a French point of view, all of the people mentioned above are not “real” philosophers, I mean maybe they were in the past, maybe some of the studies they did in the past were related to philosophy, but the kind of shit they do or say on TV is far from being philosophy.

    TV is the complete opposite of philosophy.
    Someone on TV (a medium where time is counted) cannot make a proper demonstration, the time is too precious and this person is likely to be cut or interrupted.

    There’s nothing on TV but showmen.
    I think the proper way to name these people is “editorialist” as said in OP post. I think they are called “philosopher” because French people like unnecessary title that sounds intelligent.
    But it’s not the only country. I moved to Germany and I still don’t get why people with a PhD are called “Doctor”. I have a MSc, I don’t ask people to call me “Master” for f*ck sake.

  8. I really really want to say Paź Padilla and Miguel Bosé, renowned philosophers and scientists… But really, we will have to settle for Gustavo Bueno (son).

  9. Since popular media is mostly separated between Dutch and French speakers, my comment will be about Flanders specifically.

    There are some philosophers who are invited semi-regularly in the media, like [Ignaas Devisch](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaas_Devisch?wprov=sfla1), whose area of expertise is medical philosophy, [Maarten Boudry](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maarten_Boudry?wprov=sfla1), who is an opponent of pseudoscience, or [Jean-Paul Van Bendegem](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Paul_Van_Bendegem?wprov=sfla1), who is a philosopher in regards to science and mathematics.

    There was also the recently deceased [Etienne Vermeersch](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etienne_Vermeersch?wprov=sfla1), who was a staunch atheist and one of the driving forces behind Belgium’s laws legalising abortion and euthanasia.

  10. There are many writers/columnists and also a few university professors who often share opinions on like everything on tv and in newspapers and magazines. They often are trained historians. Philosophers not so much.

    Since 2011, a philosophers’ assocation chooses a ‘[Thinker of the Fatherland](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denker_des_Vaderlands)’ among leading academics in Dutch philosophy. He or she usually also does some appearances in the media but it is not like your average Dutchie actually knows who holds this years’ title of honor.

  12. Other than de Botton, the UK also has John Gray, though notably both are freelance writers rather than academics. And there are some well known historians too, like Mary Beard, Simon Schama and Niall Ferguson (though Beard is the only actual academic).

    Historically, academic philosophers were more mainstream: eg Isiah Berlin, Freddie Ayer, Bernard Williams and Anthony Quinton were all fairly well known in their day.

  13. [Leonidas Donskis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonidas_Donskis) was probably the closest we had. But he was less of a celebrity and more of a legit public intellectual, who, people respected, even if they didn’t agree with him all the time (he was a liberal).

    IMHO ther’s a strong petite bourgeoisie culture in Lithuania. People look up to Intelligentsia, as independence movement was based on it in the late 80’s. Say, unlike the UK, where being part of “posh” culture carries a lot of negative stigma, as it symbolizes oppression, classism and etc.

  14. In Britain, philosophy is not usually taught in schools, whereas in France it is a mandatory subject for the baccalauréat, so perhaps this explains some of the difference.

  15. The UK seems to have largely abandoned the format of intellectuals discussing things on TV. My memories of the 80s was that late at night on BBC2 you could often find a circle of academics discussing ideas. I can’t say how many of the participants were philosophers rather than sociologists, historians, etc. There was an overlap with the thriving arts scene (Melvyn Bragg, Jonathan Millar, even Clive James and Barry Norman).

    Today, though the UK still has many prominent philosophers, both popular (John Gray, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Alasdair McIntyre) and more obscure (you certainly won’t have heard of them), they don’t seem to turn up on TV as much.

    But academics from other disciplines still do, especially historians and archaeologists, it seems. For some reason (cuts under Thatcher, adults by the right on critical thinking, the distaste British people seem to have developed for the “French theory” that was popular in the 90s and 2000s, ” dumbing down”, the BBC’s fraudsters retails to stay “relevant”) the place of the Arts and Humanities has been downgraded in UK life and in the public broadcasting media in particular.

    For some reason, the British idea of the intellectual is now someone like Stephen Fry (a jolly clever and learned chap in his way, but primarily an entertainer, not a thinker of substance, as I’m sure he’d be the first to admit) rather than Bertrand Russell.

    Personally I don’t mind. With You Tube etc there are plenty of sources for me to get my philosophical fix, but I am rather nostalgic for the days in which you could switch on the telly and come across a dramatisation of Plato’s Symposium by accident.

    I tend to agree with the philosopher Mark Fisher, who sees a missed opportunity in the sidelining of what he calls Popular Modernism: a blanket term that includes everything from demanding drama and critical theory on the TV, to experimental non-commercial popular music and film. The current situation is one often described as “flattening” with everything judged by the same yardsticks of “relevance” and “commercial viability”.

  18. How popular is Bernard-Henri Lévy in France?
    I remember him first appearing in Ukrainian public sphere following Euromaidan. I don’t think many Ukrainians, or even those who are interested in politics, know him, but he definitely made his mark supporting the push for democracy. It is interesting to see his name mentioned. Is he relevant at home?

  19. We don’t have them like they do in France. We have a few though. I believe Alexander Bard, of Army of Lovers fame, used to be introduced as philosopher when appearing on TV to comment on all kinds of issues.

  21. Good question, I honestly can’t think of a single one. Or really even any famous Irish philosophers that are dead, except Edmund Burke.

  22. Why are there no Slovenes in this thread!? I think Žižek is the philosopher star in more or less the whole world…

    ​

    In Croatia, we have few that were popularized by a show “Fifth day”, most notably the Raspudić couple, that now got into politics…

  23. In Italy we have Massimo Cacciari but actually no one cares about his thoughts, we like him because his well groomed beard and his political career. And Umberto Galimberti, whose books and thoughts are equally unknown to the public. He is famous only because he took Umberto Eco’s place as writer on a popular magazine. So to summarize we have some but they are not really celebrities because of their philosophy

  28. In the German speaking world Richard David Precht is an at least “popular” philosopher. He’s German, but I wanted to name him anyway as I haven’t seen his name on here.

  29. > they tend to spout complete verbal diarrhoea nowadays

    Exactly. It’s the same in Germany.

    We call it *Logorrhoe* over here.

  30. Until recently in Poland we had Leszek Kołakowski . Sadly, he passed some years ago. Now, there is no one in sight of even remotely similar caliber.

  31. This is not living, but some big time ago, we had a poet, that had DID, and also did some great philosofy. Every book he wrote, he wrote under another alias, not like todays “did” people. He was so great, he made one of coca-cola’s first slogan in portugal

    If you wish to know more about him, search “Fernando Pessoa” in google

  32. Julia Kristeva for Bulgarians (though she lives and writes in France). She’s quite popular in literature circles.

  33. Very French thing to have TV philosophers; UK has TV anchors for games and US have TV anchors, priests and motivational speakers… All have celebrities status more than anything;

  36. Literally the only Swiss philosopher that is well-known is Carl Jung. Philosophy is my hobby, which makes this even more befuddling. I know Swedish and Slovenian (well, who doesn’t know him) philosophers before I have even once read about a Swiss one.

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