The first programme of Alain de Botton's six-part TV series, entitled Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness concerns Seneca, the Roman Stoic whose philosophy basically boils down to: don't expect too much and you won't be disappointed. This proved particularly apposite when the second preview tape I had been sent - Schopenhauer on Love - turned out to be blank. I was philosophical.
Much better to read the book, de Botton says, when I recount the story. "The TV series is pretty lightweight; it's only half an hour so you don't really get to grips with things - it's just a sort of taster. I think it may help some people to try looking at philosophy or just try out different perspectives on a problem. I have mixed feelings about it, but it was fun to do." Given that the programme took him to Turkey, Bordeaux, Athens, Switzerland and Rome, this attitude seems a tad ungracious. But then again, one shouldn't expect too much.
While the TV series is called Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness, the book, which covers exactly the same ground, has a more circumspect title: The Consolations of Philosophy. Because the study of philosophy, he explains, is less about increasing happiness than limiting unhappiness.
"You need to be a pessimistic optimist. You can have a dark view of the world and yet a certain kind of steely optimism in the face of that. So it doesn't necessarily have to be the naive joy that the world is beautiful. But more Schopenhauer's view, that life is grim, but with a twinkle in the eye."
Certainly grim is a good description of most of the lives in question. Seneca slashed his veins. Socrates drank poison. Schopenhauer died alone, convinced at the last that "human existence must be a kind of error". Although never appreciated by his family, Montaigne achieved a certain contentment in his rich man's castle. Only Epicurus, who set up a mini commune of like-minded types in the countryside, seemed to be genuinely happy. But even Epicurus cast a grim shadow, having been the subject, de Botton informs me, of Karl Marx's PhD.
We meet at de Botton's terraced house in the well-heeled hinterland between London's Knightsbridge and Chelsea, though on no account must I judge him by the contents, he warns, because everything belongs to his parents. Not that he thinks one shouldn't judge people by the little things. On the contrary. "You show yourself in little things - as much in little things as in great things. You show yourself in what you find funny or books you like to read. I don't think it's irrational to fall out with someone over what kind of shoes they're wearing or whatever."
The success of de Botton as post-modern author and TV personality is precisely this mix of serious analysis laced with handy hints on feeling better about yourself and understanding your relationships, though he admits that his own love life has yet to benefit from the insights of philosophy he dispenses to others. (To the female fans that crowd his public readings he is, apparently, Doctor Love.)
De Botton's voice and manner (tea and biscuits offered on arrival) proclaim him to be the product of an English public school education, but he was born in Switzerland and moved to London with his parents when he was 12 in 1981. He now considers himself English. "My first language is French but Switzerland is a horrible place and I would never want to go back."
His father is the financier Gilbert de Botton, now married to the contemporary art collector and recent benefactor of London's Tate Gallery, Janet de Botton. His mother lives in Washington. The family was always seriously rich.
When he arrived in England young Alain spoke practically no English. By the time he got to Harrow (Churchill's old school) he was a prime target for schoolboy cruelty. It was "absolutely terrible". He was pilloried not only for his accent but also, of course, the "funny name", which rapidly became "bottom".
"But I managed to develop a world-weary sense of `Oh you're not really going to call me that are you? I mean, you could if you wanted to . . .' So you have to cultivate survival skills at an early age. You have to be a bit of a clown and do other people's homework, otherwise you'd be beaten up."
The clowning apprenticeship served him well. His writings (and TV programmes) are lit by humour that is genuinely fresh. "Often humour, though it is seen as a light emotion, is based on dark insights. Jokes about people dying are often quite funny."
Alain de Botton is a strange young man. In many ways he is the epitome of the lovesick youth: pale, gaunt and damp eyed. That he appears more sage than swain is thanks to a fast-balding head and world-weary old/young face with its ever-smiling mouth and high-domed frown.
De Botton read history at Cambridge. His subsequent interest in philosophy was a direct result, he believes, of his miserable schooldays, and he hoped it would enable him to cope better with life's reverses, make him wiser. All rather un-English, it must be said. Nor does he have England to thank for his burgeoning career as the popular face of philosophy. It was the sale of German rights on his first book, Essays In Love, u (£50,000), that enabled him to chuck Harvard, where he was reading for a PhD in French 17th-century philosophy (see Chapter 5, Montaigne on Self Esteem), and return to London where his half-essay/half-novel writings were kept afloat by an I'll-write-anything brand of freelance journalism.
How Proust Can Change Your Life, published in 1997, certainly changed this. Jokey illustrations were added to what has now become his familiar mix of ideas, anecdote and weighty thought. While it was greeted lukewarmly this side of the Atlantic, dismissed by one critic as "popup Proust", it took the US by storm, thanks to an ecstatic review in the New Yorker by John Updike. And there is every reason to expect that this latest tome, also with jokey illustrations and a confessional take on de Botton's own life, will do the same.
Away from best-seller lists, however, de Botton's position is less happy. His lack of academic credentials (i.e. no PhD) reveals him, carpers claim, as a carpet bagger and makes a laughing stock of London University's philosophy department, where - depending on what publicity material you read - he is variously described as associate research fellow of the philosophy programme or director of the graduate philosophy programme. (Indeed, the biographical note on his latest book's dust-jacket was altered when the book was sent for re-printing due, Simon Prosser of Hamish Hamilton says, to unhappiness with the quality of illustrations.) De Botton himself says simply that he "runs a programme" at London University.
"They invited me. They thought I could help to bring them publicity and interest and students, which I have a bit. And I do occasional courses there, things that are slightly out of the mainstream of philosophy: aesthetics, philosophy of art, which isn't taught very well or isn't considered. It's not a big honour, nor a big financial thing, it's a little thing, it doesn't take up much of my time and they're quite nice people so we have a nice time."
So does he consider himself to be a philosopher? He frowns. "No one who earns their money by being a philosopher in a university would say I was a philosopher, so that forces me to say no."
So, is he happy? Clad in his perma-smile, he certainly looks it. And his love life, at least, is on the up, thanks to the TV series which introduced him to a lovelorn lass. But much of the time he feels despair, he admits. "Writing is really quite depressing. It is hard to be completely light about having to have a day in front of the computer. That is a reason for much of my unhappiness. You don't necessarily feel in control of your ability to write. You're thinking: well, am I going to be able to keep doing this? Am I good enough to be doing this?"
Philosophy: a Guide to Happiness begins at 7 p.m. on Sunday on Channel 4. The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton, published by Hamish Hamilton, £14.99 in UK, will be reviewed by John Banville in next Saturday's Weekend supplement. Alain de Botton will give a talk on both the book and TV series in Waterstone's, Dawson Street, Dublin, on April 4th, at 6 p.m.