Richard David Precht was born as a son of a married couple (Hans-Jürgen Precht, 30 April 1933 in Hannover; Mother 1 August 1938 in Neuhof bei Berlin). He grew up in an alternative and unconventional-bourgeois family with five children including two Vietnamese adoptees whom the parents adopted in 1969 and 1972 symbolically against the Vietnam War.…
His father, a formal industrial designer, dealt with literature and also the setup and care of a larger private library. His mother was a housewife and very involved in Terre des hommes. The children grew up in an intellectual and idealistic left wing milieu. Having completed his higher secondary schooling Abitur at the Gymnasium Schwertstraße in Solingen, Precht did his alternative service as a parish worker. After this he studied philosophy, German studies and history of art at the University of Cologne. In 1994, he obtained a doctorate (Dr. phil.) in German studies. From 1991 to 1995 he worked as a scientific assistant in a cognitive science research project.
In 1997, Precht was Arthur F. Burns Fellow at Chicago Tribune. Two years later Precht received the Heinz-Kühn-Scholarship. In 2000-01, he was Fellow at the European College of Journalism and in 2001 he was awarded for journalism in the field of biomedical studies.
As an essayist Precht has written for German newspaper and magazines. From 2002 to 2004 he was columnist of Literaturen, a sophisticated intellectual literary magazine, and from 2005 to 2008 was freelance moderator of Tageszeichen, a broadcast program of WDR.
Precht today gives many lectures at universities and science congresses. In the 2008-09 Wintersemester, he gave a lecture series about the most important topics in philosophy at the University of Luxembourg.
Precht lives with his wife Caroline Mart, a television journalist and vice-chief editor of RTL Télé Lëtzebuerg, his son and three stepchildren in Luxembourg and Cologne.
