Harry Styles Befriends Famous Philosopher Who Calls Singer "A Very Intelligent Chap"

14 February 2013, 12:21

The One Direction man has struck up an unlikely friendship with one of the UK's top philosophers.

Harry Styles has befriended one of the UK's top philosophers - who claims the teen singer is "very intelligent" and should be educating his Twitter followers on Socrates and Aristotle.

The 'Live While We're Young' singer met Alain de Botton at a party and reportedly showed a key interest in such Greek sages such as Aristotle and Plato.

"He was very interested in finding out about philosophy," Alain told The Sun. "He seemed a very intelligent chap."

The philosopher also admitted that he would love to see the teen singer regularly speaking about the subjects to his millions of Twitter followers, following a post on his social networking account this week.

"In an ideal world, Harry Styles would be teaching his ten million Twitter followers a little more about Greek philosophy," he added. "The problem we have got is that the most famous people in the country tend to believe in things that are not particularly ambitious.

"My plan is to get people such as Harry to go on TV and recommend to everyone they read Proust and Hegel."

Questioned on the reasoning behind Harry's interest, he continued: "I was really pleased. I'd like to think it was a sign of his curiosity rather than poking fun." 

He also added a final thought on Harry and other famous individuals and the general public's preconceptions.

"We assume anyone famous isn't very clever and that the only people with intellectual ideas are sat in dusty Oxford colleges with beards," he said. "But successful and famous people are often very intelligent — or they wouldn’t be doing what they do."

One Direction are currently preparing to head out on their 2013 'Take Me Home' world tour – which kicks off at London's O2 Arena on 23rd February.

The band have been busy in rehearsals for the outing in recent weeks and have been teasing surprises for the live show.