Edgar Morin is a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
philosopher and sociologist who was born in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
on July 8, 1921 under the original name
Edgar Nahoum. He is of Judeo-Spanish (Sefardi) origin. He is known for the
transdisciplinarity-Overview:In scientific contexts the term 'transdisciplinarity' is used in various ways. In the German speaking countries the term is most often used for integrative forms of research . This meaning is in contrast to understanding 'transdisciplinarity' as a principle for a unity of knowledge beyond...
of his works, in that he covers a wide range of interests and dismisses the conventional boundaries between academic disciplines.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Morin's family migrated from the Greek town of Salonica (then part of the
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
) to
MarseilleMarseille , formerly known as Massalia , is the 2nd most populous French city as well as the oldest city in France...
and later to
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where Edgar was born.
Edgar Morin is a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
philosopher and sociologist who was born in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
on July 8, 1921 under the original name
Edgar Nahoum. He is of Judeo-Spanish (Sefardi) origin. He is known for the
transdisciplinarity-Overview:In scientific contexts the term 'transdisciplinarity' is used in various ways. In the German speaking countries the term is most often used for integrative forms of research . This meaning is in contrast to understanding 'transdisciplinarity' as a principle for a unity of knowledge beyond...
of his works, in that he covers a wide range of interests and dismisses the conventional boundaries between academic disciplines.
Biography
At the beginning of the 20th century, Morin's family migrated from the Greek town of Salonica (then part of the
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
) to
MarseilleMarseille , formerly known as Massalia , is the 2nd most populous French city as well as the oldest city in France...
and later to
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where Edgar was born. As a boy, he enjoyed reading, cinema, aviation and cycling. He began his work in philosophy with a study of diverse types of illustration of the 17th century. He first became tied to
socialismSocialism refers to various theories of economic organization advocating public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with a method of compensation based on...
in connection with the
Popular FrontThe Popular Front was an alliance of left-wing movements, including the French Communist Party , the French Section of the Workers' International and the Radical and Socialist Party, during the interwar period...
and the Spanish Republican Government during the
Spanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil War was a major conflict that devastated Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939. It began after an attempted coup d'état by a group of Spanish Army generals against the government of the Second Spanish Republic, then under the leadership of president Manuel Azaña...
. When the Germans invaded France in 1940, young Edgar fled to
ToulouseToulouse is a city in southwest France on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. With 1,102,882 inhabitants as of Jan...
, where he assisted refugees and committed himself to Marxist socialism. As a member of the
French ResistanceThe French Resistance is the collective name used for the French resistance movements which fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and the collaborationist Vichy Regime during World War II...
he adopted the pseudonym
Morin, which he would use for the rest of his life. He joined the
Communist PartyA political party described as a communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government. The name originates from the 1848 tract Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels...
in 1941, when the Party was being persecuted by the
GestapoThe was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning in April 1934, it was under the overall administration of the Schutzstaffel under Heinrich Himmler in his position as leader of the SS and Chief of German Police...
. He participated in the liberation of Paris in August 1944. The following year, Morin married Violette Chapellaubeau and they lived in
LandauLandau or Landau in der Pfalz is an autonomous city surrounded by the Südliche Weinstraße district of southern Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is a university town , a long-standing cultural centre, and a market and shopping town, surrounded by vineyards and wine-growing villages of the...
, where he served as a Lieutenant in the French Occupation army in Germany.
In 1946, he returned to Paris and gave up his military career to pursue his activities with the Communist party. Due to his critical posture, his relationship with the party gradually deteriorated until he was expelled in 1951 after he published an article in
Le Nouvel ObservateurLe Nouvel Observateur is a weekly French newsmagazine. It is the most prominent French general information magazine based in Paris in terms of audience and circulation ....
(then known as
France-observateur). In the same year, he was admitted to the National Center of Scientific Investigation (CNRS) on the recommendation of several intellectuals.
On joining the CNRS, Morin entered the field of
social anthropologySocial anthropology is the branch of anthropology that studies how currently living human beings behave in social groups. Practitioners of social anthropology investigate, often through long-term, intensive field studies , the social organization of a particular people: customs, economic and...
in the area of cinematography, exploring
surrealismSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, though he still had not abandoned socialism. He shared ideas with Franco Fortini, Roberto Guiducci,
Herbert MarcuseHerbert Marcuse was a German-Jewish philosopher, political theorist and sociologist, and a member of the Frankfurt School. Celebrated as the "Father of the New Left," his best known works are Eros and Civilization, One-Dimensional Man and The Aesthetic Dimension...
, and other philosophers. He founded and directed the magazine
Arguments (1954-1962). During the same period he was active in protesting the French involvement in the
Algerian War of IndependenceThe Algerian War, also known as the Algerian War of Independence or in , was a conflict between France and Algerian independence movements from 1954 to 1962, which led to Algeria gaining its independence from France...
. In 1959 his book
Autocritique was published.
In 1960, Morin travelled extensively in Latin America, visiting
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is a country in South America. It is the fifth largest country by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America, the fifth most populous country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean...
,
ChileChile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
,
BoliviaBolivia, officially Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is bordered by Brazil to the north and east, Paraguay and Argentina to the south, and Chile and Peru to the west....
,
PeruPeru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean.Peruvian territory was home to the Norte Chico...
and
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. The indigenous and Afro-Brazilian cultures made a strong impression on him. He returned to France where he published
L'Esprit du Temps.
That same year, French sociologist Georges Friedmann brought him and
Roland BarthesRoland Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes's work extended over many fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism and post-structuralism.-Life:Roland...
together to create the CECMAS (Centre for the Study of Mass Communication) that, after several name-changes, was to be become the
Edgar Morin CentreThe Edgar Morin Centre is a graduate teaching and research unit of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and of the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris...
of the EHESS, Paris.
Beginning in 1965, Morin became involved in a large multidisciplinary project, financed by the Délégation Générale à la Recherche Scientifique et Technologique (DGRST) in Plozevet. He spent 1965 doing investigation (along with his collaboraters) while living in a rustic cabin in Poulhan. Two years later, when the results were released, Morin was labeled a heretic by the DGRST due to the
transdisciplinary-Overview:In scientific contexts the term 'transdisciplinarity' is used in various ways. In the German speaking countries the term is most often used for integrative forms of research . This meaning is in contrast to understanding 'transdisciplinarity' as a principle for a unity of knowledge beyond...
nature of the work. This contributed to his increasing aversion to the academic world of Paris, and he spent more and more time working outside the city.
In 1968, Morin replaced
Henri LefebvreHenri Lefebvre was a French sociologist, intellectual and philosopher who was generally considered a Neo-Marxist.-Biography:Lefebvre was born in Hagetmau, Landes, France...
at the
University of NanterreParis West University Nanterre La Défense is a French university in the Academy of Versailles. It is one of the 13 successor universities of the University of Paris...
. He became involved in the student revolts that began to emerge in France. In May 1968, he wrote a series of articles for
Le MondeLe Monde is a French daily evening newspaper with a circulation of 371,803. It is considered the French newspaper of record, and is generally well respected, often the only French newspaper easily obtainable in non-Francophone countries....
that tried to understand what he called "The Student Commune." He followed the student revolt closely and wrote a second series of articles in Le Monde called "The Revolution without a Face," as well as co-authoring
Mai 68: La brèche with
Cornelius CastoriadisCornelius Castoriadis was a Greek-philosopher, economist and psychoanalyst. Author of the The Imaginary Institution of Society, co-founder of the Socialisme ou Barbarie group and 'philosopher of autonomy'....
and
Claude LefortClaude Lefort is a French philosopher and activist.He was politically active by 1942 under the influence of his tutor, the phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty...
.
In 1969, Morin spent a year at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. While at the institute, he became familiar with the revolution in
geneticsGenetics, , a discipline of biology, is the science of heredity and variation in living organisms. The fact that living things inherit traits from their parents has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding...
initiated by the discovery of DNA, which contributed to his views on cybernetics, information theory and a theory of systems.
In 1983, he published
De la nature de l’URSS, which deepened his analysis of Soviet communism and anticipated the
Perestroikais the Russian term for the political and economic reforms introduced in June 1987 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
of
Mikhail GorbachevMikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was the second-to-last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, serving from 1985 until 1991, and the last head of state of the USSR, serving from 1988 until its collapse in 1991...
.
Morin was married to
Johanne HarrelleJohanne Harrelle was a Montreal actress, model, and writer, and the first black woman to rise to prominence in Quebec and Canada's fashion world....
, with whom he lived for 15 years.
In 2002, Morin participated in the creation of the
International Ethical, Scientific and Political CollegiumInternational Ethical, Scientific and Political Collegium, also called Collegium International is a high-level group created in 2002.-Origin:...
.
Philosophical development
Morin's epistemological work can be seen as "revolutionary" because of his attempt to reconsider the relation-triangle: ideology-politics-science through what he calls "
complexityIn general usage, complexity tends to be used to characterize something with many parts in intricate arrangement. The study of these complex linkages is the main goal of network theory and network science...
". The "complex" being here not the opposite of simple but a "method" which "respects the mystery" of the universe knowing that "the simple is just, always, something simplified" by someone.
This titanic effort can be discovered in his six volume masterwork
La Méthode, not merely a scientific project but also a complex message from the heart of the 20th century.
According to Alfonso Montuori (in "Edgar Morin: A partial introduction", see below) "The 5 volume Method is perhaps Morin’s culminating work, a remarkable and seemingly inexhaustible treasure trove of insights, reflection, and a real manual for those who are interested in broadening the nature of human inquiry. Drawing on
cyberneticsCybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to control theory and systems theory...
,
information theoryInformation theory is a branch of applied mathematics and electrical engineering involving the quantification of information. Historically, information theory was developed by Claude E. Shannon to find fundamental limits on compressing and reliably storing and communicating data...
,
systems theorySystems theory is an interdisciplinary theory about the nature of complex systems in nature, society, and science, and is a framework by which one can investigate and/or describe any group of objects that work together to produce some result. This could be a single organism, any organization or...
, but also integrating all the work he has done before, from the work on imagination in his research on movies to his profound reflections on death, Method integrates Morin’s journey and provides the reader with an alternative to the traditional assumptions and method of inquiry of our time.".
Books
- 1951, L’Homme et la mort
- 1957, Les Stars
- 1969, La Rumeur d’Orléans
- La Méthode (6 volumes)
- 1977, La Nature de la nature
- 1980, La Vie de la vie
- 1986, La Connaissance de la connaissance
- 1991, Les Idées
- 2001, L’Humanité de l’humanité
- 2004, L'Éthique complexe
- 1970, Journal de Californie
- 1973, Le paradigme perdu: la nature humaine
- 1981, Pour sortir du siècle XX
- 1982, Science avec conscience
- 1983, De la nature de l’URSS
- 1988, Penser L'Europe
- 1990, Introduction à la pensée complexe
- 1993, Terre-patrie
- 1994, Mes démons
- 1994, La Complexité humaine
- 1997, Comprendre la complexité dans les organisations de soins
- 1999, L’Intelligence de la complexité
- 1999, Relier les connaissances
- 1999, La Tête bien faite
- 2000, Les Sept savoirs nécessaires à l'éducation du futur
- 2001, Journal de Plozévet, Bretagne
- 2002, Pour une politique de civilisation
- 2002, Dialogue sur la connaissance. Entretiens avec des lycéens
- 2003, La Violence du monde
- 2003, Éduquer pour l’ère planétaire, la pensée complexe comme méthode d’apprentissage dans l’erreur et l’incertitude humaine
- 2003, Les Enfants du ciel: entre vide, lumière, matière
- 2004, Pour Entrer dans le siècle XXI
- 2006, La Question Juive et Le Monde Moderene
- 2007, Vers l'abîme ?
- 2007, Où va le monde ?
Articles
- “The Noise and the Message”. Telos 33 (Fall 1977). New York: Telos Press.
Conferences
See also
- Sociology
Sociology is the scientific or systematic study of human societies. It is a branch of social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity, often with the goal of applying such...
- Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of human beings, everywhere and throughout time....
- Transdisciplinarity
-Overview:In scientific contexts the term 'transdisciplinarity' is used in various ways. In the German speaking countries the term is most often used for integrative forms of research . This meaning is in contrast to understanding 'transdisciplinarity' as a principle for a unity of knowledge beyond...
- Holism in science
Holism in science, or Holistic science, is an approach to research that emphasizes the study of complex systems. This practice is in contrast to a purely analytic tradition which purports to understand systems by dividing them into their smallest possible or discernible elements and understanding...
- Constructivist epistemology
Constructivist epistemology is an epistemological perspective in philosophy about the nature of scientific knowledge. Constructivists maintain that scientific knowledge is constructed by scientists and not discovered from the world. Constructivism believes that there is no single valid methodology...
External links