Philippe Descola

Updated on Jan 06, 2024

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Region French philosophy Role Anthropologist		Name Philippe Descola School Structuralism

Born 1949 France Era Contemporary philosophy/Social anthropology Notable ideas The four ontologies (animism, totemism, analogism, naturalism) Main interests Anthropology, Epistemology, Ethnology, Ontology Books Beyond Nature and Culture, The Ecology of Others, In the society of nature Similar People Claude Levi‑Strauss, Maurice Merleau‑Ponty, Gilles Deleuze, Pierre Bourdieu, Giorgio Agamben
Education Ecole Normale Superieure Influenced by Claude Levi-Strauss

Philippe descola interviewed by alan macfarlane 3rd february 2015

Philippe Descola (born 19 June 1949) is a French anthropologist noted for studies of the Achuar, one of several Jivaroan peoples, and for his contributions to anthropological theory.

Philippe Descola httpslettrecdfrevuesorgdocannexeimage303

Approaches to the anthropocene a conversation with philippe descola and bruno latour

Background

Descola started with an interest in philosophy and later became a student of Claude Lévi-Strauss. His ethnographic studies in the Amazon region of Ecuador began in 1976 and was funded by CNRS. He lived with the Achuar from 1976 to 1978. His reputation largely arises from these studies. As a professor, he was invited several times in the University of São Paulo, Beijing, Chicago, Montreal, London School of Economics, Cambridge, St. Petersburg, Buenos Aires, Gothenburg, Uppsala and Leuven. He has given lectures in over forty universities and academic institutions abroad, including the Beatrice Blackwood Lecture at Oxford, the George Lurcy Lecture at Chicago, the Munro Lecture at Edinburgh, the Radcliffe-Brown Lecture at the British Academy, the Clifford Geertz Memorial Lecture at Princeton, the Jensen Lecture at Frankfurt and the Victor Goldschmidt Lecture at Heidelberg. He has chaired the Société des Américanistes since 2002 and the scientific committee of the Fondation Fyssen from 2001 to 2009, as well as holding memberships in many other scientific committees. He has also be elected Honorary fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute and received in 2015 the honoris causa doctorate from the University of Montreal, Canada. Descola is currently chair of anthropology at the Collège de France. His wife, Anne-Christine Taylor, is an ethnologist.