Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

$0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
AutoBioPhilosophy cover art

AutoBioPhilosophy

By: Robert Rowland Smith
Narrated by: Robert Rowland Smith
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
activate_primeday_promo_in_buybox_DT

Summary

AutoBioPhilosophy is an astonishingly frank and original autobiography that explores the fundamental question of what it means to be human.

Robert Rowland Smith’s life story involves a love triangle, office politics, police raids, illegal drugs, the academic elite and a near-death experience. It sees him grappling with the tragic fate of his father, going through a double divorce and encountering a living divinity. We witness him confronting his demons but also looking out for angels.

A former Oxford don, Robert uses these deeply personal experiences to generate philosophical insights that will resonate with everybody. What are the recurring patterns, unconscious motives and social forces that govern our behaviour? Through his experiences, and referencing writers from Shakespeare to Freud, he offers new models and ways into human psychology.

As we are led into Robert’s private world, we gain an understanding of what it means to be human that is relevant to all.
©2018 Robert Rowland Smith (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
People with Disabilities Philosophers Ethics & Morality
Show More Show Less

Critic reviews

Praise for Driving with Plato: "This is a fascinating and deeply impressive book." (Daily Mail)

"Smith has the suave wit of the professional intellectual." (Financial Times)

"I'll never drive the same way again. Or have a midlife crisis the same way again, for that matter. This book is elegant proof that philosophy doesn't have to be fusty and musty." (A. J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically)

What listeners say about AutoBioPhilosophy

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.co.uk reviews

Amazon reviews
Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Damian Roberts

A thinking person's biography

I almost gave this a miss because of the title. I'm glad I didn't. This is a great biography and a unique and accomplished piece of writing. I loved it.

As well as sharing his own fascinating journey through the first fifty or so years of his life, the author draws on psychology and philosophy to weave in deep reflections on what it is to be human.

It works because Robert Rowland Smith clearly knows his craft and his life provides rich material to explore the fundamental passions, obsessions, fears, irrationalities and flaws that shape the course of our lives and determine who we really are.



Report this

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful