Bruno Latour, a leading French intellectual who died on October 9, posed a major challenge to modern philosophy’s key assumption: the existence of a distinction between the human subject and the world. His radical alternative suggestion of seeing the world as a collection of actors interacting with each other offered a new framework for understanding science, politics, and the environmental crisis, writes philosopher and Bruno Latour’s intellectual biographer, Graham Harman.

With the death of Bruno Latour from cancer on October 9, the world lost a prominent and paradoxical figure whose deepest contributions are not yet well understood. In one sense it would be absurd to call him “unappreciated,” given his receipt of the 2013 Holberg Prize and 2021 Kyoto Prize, his nearly 300,000 citations by other scholars, and his vast global network of admirers and co-workers. But like so many pivotal intellectuals, Latour was a peg who never quite fit the most prestigious holes. Blocked by enemies from potential appointments at Princeton and the Collège de France, he spent most of his career at the School of Mines in Paris before a late move to Sciences Po in the same city.