A Guide to Happiness: "Montaigne on Self-Esteem"

Scooting on a motorbike around the native lands of Socrates, Epicurus, Seneca, Montaigne, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Alain de Botton talks to the people of all ages he encounters. He engages them in conversations about the central concepts each of these philosophers grappled with. Surprisingly, these were the same things that trouble many of us today: lack of money, the pain of love, inadequacy, anxiety, the fear of failure and the pressure to conform. Each of the half-hours is devoted to one of these philosophers:

104 - "Montaigne on Self-Esteem"

Plot: Episode 4: "Montaigne on Self-Esteem" looks at the problem of self-esteem from the perspective of Michel de Montaigne (16th Century), the French philosopher who singled out three main reasons for feeling bad about oneself - sexual inadequecy, failure to live up to social norms, and intellectual inferiority - and then offered practical solutions for overcoming them.

Michel de Montaigne lived in 16th Century France, long before modern psychology developed and the expression "self-esteem" was coined. In what ways was this contemporary psychological concept central to his worldview?