Richard David Precht, born in 1964, is a philosopher, journalist, and author. After earning his doctorate at the University of Cologne in 1994, he was a research associate with a cognitive psychology research project in the Education Department for five years. In 2000 he was awarded the Journalism Prize for Biomedicine. His book on philosophy Who Am I – And if so, How Many? was received by the public and critics and has been on non-fiction bestseller lists for over five years. His books Love. A Disorderly Emotion, The Art of Not Being an Egoist, and Why Is There Everything and not Nothing? are bestsellers. He is presently an honorary professor of philosophy at the Leuphana University in Lüneburg and at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin. Since September 2012 he has been the moderator of the philosophy program "Precht" on the ZDF television network.