Philippe Descola

Philippe Descola, FBA (; 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.

Background Descola first graduated in philosophy at the École normale supérieure de Lyon and later turned to anthropology, and became a student of Claude Lévi-Strauss (who had followed the same academic path).

His ethnographic studies in the Amazon region of Ecuador began in 1976 and were funded by CNRS. He lived with the Achuar from 1976 to 1978. His reputation largely arises from these studies.

Academic career As a professor, he has been invited several times to the Universities 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. From 2000 to 2019, he was chair of anthropology at the Collège de France.

Published works From his 2005 book Beyond Nature and Culture he has turned towards a more theoretical anthropology, reviving his philosophical studies to propose a new anthropological epistemology, influenced by the sociological work of his friend Bruno Latour. This new and controversial trend has been dubbed the "narrow ontological turn", and has been the subject of a fashion effect between 2014 and 2017, particularly in France.

In his book Spears of Twilight: Life and Death in the Amazon Jungle, Descola documents and explains the culture of the Achuar in terms of cosmology and metaphysics. 1997: Knight of the French Order of Academic Palms 2004: French National Order of Merit 2006: Foreign Honorary Members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2010: Elected as corresponding fellow of the British Academy 2010: Officer in the French Legion of Honor 2011: Édouard Bonnefous Prize from Academy of Moral and Political Sciences 2012: CNRS Gold Medal 2014: International Cosmos Prize 2016: Commander in the French Legion of Honor 2022: Winner of the Principality Prize in Monaco, presented for lifetime achievements and entire body of work by Les Rencontres Philosophiques de Monaco & the Prince Pierre Foundation.

English-translated bibliography (partial)

Titles in French Les Formes du visible, Paris:Seuil, 2021, Par-delà nature et culture, Paris:Gallimard, 2005, Le Sport est-il un jeu ?, Paris:Robert Laffont, 2022, Cultures, Paris:PUF, 2017, Étre au monde, Presses universitaires de Lyon, 2014, La composition des mondes, Les Grandes Civilisations,