May 30, 2026, 1:09 p.mMay 30, 2026, 1:09 p.m
Edgar Morin, one of the most influential French intellectuals of today, has died in Paris at the age of 104. As French media reported, citing his family, he died on Friday.
The philosopher and sociologist also became known with the book “The Year Zero,” which was translated into German. A Frenchman Sees Germany”, in which he describes the post-war period and the new beginning of German society immediately after 1945.
Edgar Morin, 2024.Image: imago-images.de
Born in 1921 as Edgar Nahoum in a Jewish family with roots in Greece, the young Parisian student became a fighter in the Resistance, the French resistance against the Nazis, later a communist, then a critical observer of all ideologies – and finally one of the most famous French thinkers of his time. The experience of war, illegality and existential threat remained formative for his later thinking.
Theory of complex thinking
After 1945, Morin initially moved around the communist intelligentsia before distancing himself from Stalinism. He became internationally known for his theory of complex thinking. Against any form of reduction, he held the view that reality consists of interconnections: between individual and society, order and chaos, knowledge and uncertainty.
Morin has received honorary doctorates from 38 foreign universities and has written around forty works that have been widely translated. Until his old age, Morin remained a voice in the intellectual debate about the present: globalization, ecological crisis, conflicts and wars.
(sda/dpa)