Edgar Morin - Wikipedia
Jump to content
Search
Search
Donate
Create account
Log in
Personal tools
Donate
Create account
Log in
Edgar Morin
32 languages
العربية<br>مصرى<br>Български<br>Brezhoneg<br>Català<br>Čeština<br>Deutsch<br>Ελληνικά<br>Esperanto<br>Español<br>Euskara<br>فارسی<br>Français<br>Galego<br>עברית<br>Bahasa Indonesia<br>Ido<br>Italiano<br>日本語<br>한국어<br>Polski<br>Português<br>Română<br>Русский<br>Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски<br>Simple English<br>Shqip<br>Svenska<br>Türkçe<br>Українська<br>Volapük<br>中文
Edit links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
French philosopher and sociologist (1921–2026)
This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.<br>Find sources: "Edgar Morin" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May 2026) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
Edgar Morin<br>Morin in 2024<br>BornEdgar Nahoum
(1921-07-08)8 July 1921<br>Paris, France<br>Died29 May 2026(2026-05-29) (aged 104)<br>Paris, France<br>Spouse(s)<br>Violette Chapellaubeau
(m. 1945–1970)
Johanne Harrelle
(m. 1972–1980)
Sabah Abouessalam<br>(m. 2012)<br>EducationAlma materUniversity of ParisPhilosophical workSchool<br>Continental philosophy<br>Antireductionism<br>Constructivist epistemology[1]<br>Anti-foundationalism[2]InstitutionsCNRS<br>EHESSMain interests<br>Epistemology<br>Complexity theory[2][3]<br>SociologyNotable works<br>La méthode (1977–2004, 6 vols.)Notable ideas<br>Polycrisis<br>Complex thought[4] Chaosmos[5]<br>Criticism of structuralism[6]<br>Criticism of Ludwig von Bertalanffy's systems theory[7] autos (auto-(geno-pheno)-eco-re-organization)[8]
Edgar Morin (/mɔːˈræn/; French: [ɛdɡaʁ mɔʁɛ̃]; né Nahoum ; 8 July 1921 – 29 May 2026) was a French philosopher and sociologist of the theory of information who has been recognised for his work on complexity and "complex thought" (pensée complexe),[9] and for his scholarly contributions to such diverse fields as media studies, politics, sociology, visual anthropology, ecology, education, and systems biology. He held two bachelors, one in history and geography and one in law,[10] and never did a Ph.D.[10]
During his academic career, Morin was primarily associated with the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris. Although less well known in the Anglophone world due to the limited availability of English translations of his over 60 books, Morin is renowned in the French-speaking world, Europe, and Latin America.[11]
Life and career<br>[edit]
Edgar was born in Paris on 8 July 1921, to Vidal Nahoum and Luna Beressi, Sephardic Jews from Salonica of distant Italian ancestry.[12] He was registered as David-Salomon Nahoum,[13][14][13][14] a name he was never known by; his parents settled on Edgar, which he later made official through an acte de notoriété.[15] They moved to Marseille,[16] and later to Paris. While he is of Sephardic Jewish origin, his family was secular and non-practicing for three generations.[17][15] His mother died when he was ten years old.[18]
In 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, Morin joined the libertarian socialist organization Solidarité Internationale Antifasciste.[19] Two years later, he joined the pacifist, anti-fascist, and left-wing Parti Frontiste.[20][21] When the Nazi Germans invaded France in 1940, Morin assisted refugees and joined the French Resistance.[22] He left Paris to the "free zone" Toulouse, where he continued to study law at the Toulouse Capitole University.[23] He joined the French Communist Party in 1941. He then joined Michel Cailliau's MRPGD (Mouvement de Résistance des Pronniers de Guerre et Déportés), which was a resistance movement against the German occupation of France. As a member of the French Resistance, he adopted the pseudonym Morin after a miscommunication during a meeting of resistance fighters in Toulouse, when he introduced himself Edgar Manin, in reference to Malraux's character in La Condition humaine. They misheard him as "Morin" and the name stuck.[24]
The MRPGD later merged into François Mitterrand's MNPGD (Mouvement national des prisonniers de guerre et déportés). Morin later became attaché to the staff of the 1st French Army in Germany (1945), then head of the "Propaganda" office in the French Military Government (1946). At the Liberation, he wrote L'An zéro de l'Allemagne (Germany's Year Zero), in which he described the mental state of the defeated people of Germany as being in a state of "somnambulism", in the grip of a "state of depression", hunger, and rumors. In 1945, Morin married Irène "Violette" Chapellaubeau (the couple had two children: sociologist Irène Nahoum-Léothaud and anthropologist Véronique Nahoum-Grappe) and they lived in Landau, where he served as a lieutenant in the French Occupation army in Germany.[25]
In 1946, Morin returned to Paris and gave up his military career to pursue his activities with the Communist Party. In 1948 and 1949, he wrote for the arts and entertainment section of the Patriote Résistant. Other literary contributions in...