Robert Rowland Smith

Smith's most recent book is AutoBioPhilosophy: An intimate story of what it means to be human (4th Estate, 2018). The book combines the genres of autobiography and philosophy in order to explore themes such as fate, love, spirituality, death, friendship and creativity.

The Reality Test: Still relying on strategy? (Profile Books, 2014) draws on Smith's experience as a business adviser. It poses and seeks to answer forty-eight questions relating to business vision, market strategy, organisational performance and leadership.

'If we could see the wilder reaches of philosophy applied to real life, what then? Robert Rowland Smith has not only asked this question but answered it in this fascinating and deeply impressive book.' - Review by Marcus Berkmann for the Mail Online, Daily Mail, 24 February 2014

Smith sits on the board of the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology and of the Institute of Art and Ideas. He is a founding faculty member of The School of Life, and from 2013-2015 was a faculty member of the London Graduate School based at Kingston University. In 2017 he stepped down from the editorial board of Angelaki: journal of the theoretical humanities, an academic publication that he helped to found in 1993.

'Intriguing…thought-provoking.' - Review by Frank Dillon for Irish Times, 12 August 2013

In addition, Smith wrote the text for Artist Book by Israeli photographer Ori Gersht, entitled Gersht's Ghosts (Photoworks, 2012). He also contributed a foreword to the 2015 design publication, Patternity: A new way of seeing: The inspirational power of pattern (Octopus, 2015).

Smith has appeared in two films by the independent production company, Heraclitus Pictures. These are Do Not Read This (directed by Joanna Callaghan, HDV, 29 minutes, 2012), in which he plays the part of a publisher; and Love in the Post (directed by Joanna Callaghan, HDV, 75 minutes, 2014), in which he plays a university professor.

'A friendly guide to "the meaning of life's milestones" from birth, to learning to walk, starting school and on to passing your driving test, marrying and having a mid-life crisis, retiring and dying.' - Review by Lindesay Irvine for The Guardian, 19 February 2011

'...a very thoughtful and continuously entertaining picture of human behavior. Smith adequately and expertly matches the right classical mind or system of thought with each chapter subject without making it seem like a stretch. Rooted deeply in philosophy and psychology, the book is never too complex or confusing that anyone with a normal level of reading comprehension would have a problem with.' - Review by Curtis Silver for wired.com, 3 December 2010

Smith has written two works of popular philosophy: Breakfast with Socrates: The philosophy of everyday life (Profile Books, 2009) and Driving with Plato: The meaning of life's milestones (Profile Books, 2011). The former has been translated into twenty languages.

From 2009 to 2012, Robert wrote the To Be Or Not To Be column in the Sunday Times Magazine, that examined moral dilemmas. He recorded a weekly video blog for the online version of the same publication, looking at current affairs through the lens of philosophy. He has written articles for numerous other publications including Intelligent Life, The Independent on Sunday, The Guardian, The Observer, the New Scientist, Psychologies and Photoworks. He contributed articles to the first three editions of The Alpine Review published in Toronto by Louis-Jacques Darveau. He has also been profiled in The Sunday Telegraph and Time Out.

'Philosophy made accessible and applied to the quotidian...manages to be funny without underestimating the reader.' - Review by Emmanuelle Smith for The Financial Times, 26 October 2009

Smith left Oxford in 1998 to pursue a career in management consultancy, becoming a partner in a London-based firm in 2004. In 2009, Smith set up a company of his own in order to operate independently. He continues to be a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.

Robert Rowland Smith is a British author and philosopher. His books include Derrida and Autobiography (Cambridge University Press, 1995), Breakfast with Socrates: The philosophy of everyday life (Profile Books, 2009), and AutoBioPhilosophy: An intimate story of what it means to be human (4th Estate, 2018). He is a regular speaker at public and private events, addressing a wide range of topics that includes philosophy, psychology, politics and art. Alongside his literary career, Smith works as a business adviser and practitioner of Systemic Family Constellations.

Robert Rowland Smith is the author of seven books. Three of these are academic. Derrida and Autobiography (Cambridge University Press, 1995) was based on Smith's doctoral thesis, and won a Choice award for 'Outstanding Academic Title'. Death-Drive: Freudian hauntings in literature and art (Edinburgh University Press, 2010) is an examination of Freud's metapsychological works in relation to other theorists of death including Heidegger, Durkheim and Pascal. On Modern Poetry: From theory to total criticism (Continuum, 2012) also won a Choice award for 'Outstanding Academic Title'. The first part of the book examines theories of poetry; the second part is made up of close textual analysis of certain nineteenth and twentieth century poems.

Smith has spoken to audiences in the UK, France, Norway, the United States, Japan, Lithuania, Poland, Switzerland and El Salvador on subjects including love, enlightenment, the self and innovation. In 1992 he was invited by the British Council to undertake a lecture tour in Romania, and in the 1990s was closely involved with the Oxford Amnesty Lectures that brought leading thinkers to Oxford.

Smith was born on 21 January 1965. From 1975 to 1983 he attended Dulwich College in south London. He read English Language and Literature at Mansfield College, Oxford, where he was a Scholar, graduating in 1988 with a top First. From 1988-1990 Smith was a doctoral student at Wolfson College, Oxford, specialising in the work of French philosopher Jacques Derrida. In 1990 he was elected to a Fellowship by Examination ('Prize Fellowship') at All Souls College, Oxford. He was awarded a D.Phil. in 1991. While a Fellow of All Souls, Smith also held lectureships at both Mansfield College, Oxford and Hertford College, Oxford, and was a member of the English Faculty, lecturing on literary theory, modern poetry and Shakespeare.

'The Reality Test' cuts through turgid corporate "leadership speak" to get the heart of the matter - it should be required reading for any aspiring leader. If 'Fred the Shred' of HBOS had taken the Reality Test, perhaps we wouldn't be living through the biggest recession since the 1930s.' - Lord Victor O. Adebowale CBE, CEO of Turning Point