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The French philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin, creator of the theory of complex thought, passed away on Friday in Paris at the age of 104, according to reports from media such as BBC and El País. His family confirmed the news to the newspaper Le Monde the following day.
Morin was the last representative of a generation of thinkers shaped by the upheavals of the first half of the 20th century: World War II, Nazism, Stalinism, and decolonization.
His wife, Sabah Abouessalam Morin, stated: "Until his last days, Edgar Morin remained attentive to the world, to others, and to the great human challenges that fueled his thinking. Today, the void he leaves is immense. But his courage, his loyalty to people and ideas, his moral standards, and his hope continue to be with us," reported the BBC.
He was born on July 8, 1921, in Paris as Edgar Nahoum, the son of a Sephardic Jewish family from Thessaloniki, Greece. When he was around ten years old, his mother died of a heart attack, an experience that the philosopher would forever describe as an "internal Hiroshima," as noted by El País.
In 1941, he joined the French Communist Party and the Resistance against Nazism, adopting the pseudonym "Morin." He was expelled from the party in 1951 due to his criticisms of Stalinism, a process he detailed in his book Autocrítica (1959). He never ceased to consider himself leftist, but his break with communist dogmatism profoundly shaped his intellectual journey.
His most ambitious work, The Method, was published in six volumes between 1977 and 2004. "The more we know about human beings, the less we understand them. The dissociations between disciplines fragment them, strip them of life, flesh, and complexity," he wrote in that work, as reported by the AFP agency.
In 1999, UNESCO commissioned The Seven Knowledge Areas Necessary for Education of the Future, which became a global pedagogical reference, particularly influencing Latin America and the Caribbean. He taught in Santiago, Chile, in the 1960s and at the University of San Diego, California, and received the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from more than 30 universities.
Throughout his career, he published more than 40 books, translated into numerous languages, including Introduction to Complex Thinking, Lessons from History, and The Well-Ordered Mind. He was also the inventor of the term "yé-yé" to describe French youth culture, coined in two articles published in Le Monde in July 1963.
Morin's complex thought received academic attention in Cuba, becoming part of debates on science, bioethics, and epistemology at the Institute of Philosophy and the University of Havana. However, this influence contrasts with the reality of an educational system that has historically favored ideological orthodoxy over critical reflection.
In 2025, students from the Higher Institute of Design publicly denounced authoritarian attitudes and the repression of critical thinking in that institution: exactly the opposite of what Morin defended throughout his life.
Likewise, there has been a frequent repression and expulsion of educators who advocate for academic freedom and refuse to uncritically repeat the ideological slogans of the Communist Party. Recent cases of dismissal include Abel Tablada de la Torre, architect and full professor at the Faculty of Architecture of CUJAE and Professor Roberto Viña Martínez of the Higher Institute of Art, which are just two close examples from a long list.
The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, bid farewell to the great academic with these words: “Soldier of the Resistance, activist and free man, writer and thinker of the century, defender of nature and peoples, Edgar Morin was humanism personified. With his kindness and curiosity, he continually illuminated our path. Complex thinking, fruitful life, universal spirit.”
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