On the occasion of its 98th anniversary, we recall some of the great reflections and works of the author and philosopher

"Man is that mad animal whose madness has invented reason."

Edgar Morin it is actually Edgar Nahum. Born in France in 1921, he celebrates this Sunday the enviable figure of -attentive- ninety seven years. He has been one of the most influential philosophers of contemporary Europe, a forerunner of the ideas of complex thought.

His understanding of the world tries to encompass a multidisciplinary knowledge and analysis, based on the fact that different perspectives can cultivate a reasoning, at least more complete. We receive illusions and evidence, and we must know how to discern, based on the understanding of the two. The world is a whole, go, and you can not divide the trap.

"We have to select, focus on the real, but know what we focus and select … I cut what interests me from a reality and diffuses the rest. The important thing is to know permanently to remember that we simplify for practical, heuristic reasons, and not to extract the quintessence of reality. »

Morin has a Sephardic origin, in a France that would soon experience the invasion of Hitler's Nazi Germany. For that reason, in 1940 he fled with little more than what he had put to the south, in Toulouse, where he was part of the resistance joining the French Communist Party. There he helped refugees from the Spanish Civil War and began to enter Marxist thought. It is at that time that he decided to use the pseudonym Morin, leaving the paternal Nahum.

"Politics is the art of the uncertain, which leads us to a principle of generalized political uncertainty."

I would end up graduating in the Sorbonne in geography, history and law. And he moved away from military life, although he continued his activity with the Communist party. He was expelled in 1952 due to his uncomfortable position: he defended in different articles a very critical attitude towards Soviet communism. And that did not like anything. The same year he was admitted to the National Center for Scientific Research.

"Understanding does not prevent judging, judging does not prevent understanding."

Happy 97! - The most outstanding phrases of Edgar Morin _ cinema or imaginary manAt that time, its relationship with cinema stands out. Moment in which will publish, among others, the work Film or imaginary man. Prior to his reflection on mass culture, these first books attempt to investigate subjectivity and objectivity in what he describes as cinematographic 'data'. Psychology, time and understanding. Anthropological and sociological factors to establish a relationship between the subject and reality based on technology.

"Remember that no communication technique, from Internet phone, brings understanding itself. Understanding can not be typed. "

Happy 97! - The most outstanding phrases of Edgar Morin _ Towards the abyssThere are other outstanding works with which he has developed his thought. From his vision of complexity, Morin creates the concept of 'society-world'. An idea on which he worked in order to provoke a metamorphosis in the social gaze. According to him, people must learn to break the boundaries of concepts. Cover as much as you can the whole. In this way you will understand the importance of man in the cosmos, however small it may be. He explains it in his book Towards the abyss? Globalization in the 21st century. Other works of the author are Where is the world headed to? Y Brief history of barbarism in the West.

"If your past is experience, make tomorrow common sense."

And here our homage to Morin. Without saying it fits, we expect it to fulfill many more.



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