Bernard Lahire is a sociologist, a CNRS research director, a senior member of the Institut universitaire de France, and a member of the Max Weber Center as part of the “Dispositions, Powers, Cultures, Socializations” research team. He has published the book Pourquoi comprenons-nous le monde? (Why Do We Understand the World?) with La Découverte.
Pourquoi comprenons-nous le monde ?
Bernard Lahire
Éditions La Découverte
Sciences sociales du vivant
Building on the momentum of his previous works—Les Structures fondamentales des sociétés humaines (The Fundamental Structures of Human Societies, La Découverte, Sciences sociales du vivant, 2023), Vers une science sociale du vivant (Toward a Social Science of Life, La Découverte, Petits cahiers libres, 2025), and Savoir ou périr (Know or Perish, Paris, Seuil, Libelle, 2025)—Bernard Lahire returns with a brand-new book: Pourquoi comprenons-nous le monde? published by La Découverte and out on August 27, 2026.
The title of this essay alone may seem like a serious challenge, but it is far from intimidating Bernard Lahire, who makes it a habit—indeed, a mission—to remind readers in each of his books just how essential it is for each and every one of us to continue learning, knowing, and understanding in order to preserve the foundations of our society. Thus, at a time when misinformation and the questioning of scientific knowledge are gaining ground, he sets out to explore the “why” and “how” of our understanding of the world by drawing on a wide range of diverse disciplines: evolutionary biology, ecology, history of science, ethology, neuroscience, and anthropology.
Interview with Bernard Lahire
What is the target audience for this book, and what kind of readers did you have in mind when you wrote it?
It is an academic work that seeks to offer a fresh perspective on the relationship between life, technology, and science, but it is intended for a broader audience than just specialists. In all my books, I strive to adopt a “clear style” of writing, and unlike what one might think, it takes a lot of work and a precise understanding of what you want to say to achieve the greatest possible clarity. This pushes you to avoid unnecessarily complicating sentences, to find the right examples, to get straight to the point, and to refrain from trying to dazzle the reader with flashy rhetoric. My model in this regard is Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species: it is both a major scientific breakthrough and a book that is fairly easy to read.
What led you to write a book on this specific topic? What was the deciding factor (if there was one)?
One unique aspect of this book is that it was not planned at all (not even as a vague idea) and was not part of any ongoing project. When I began taking notes on the subject, I wasn’t working on this issue at all, but rather on forms of human and non-human government (in social species characterized by hierarchies, leadership, and “alpha” individuals or pairs). The book therefore gradually took shape in my mind, completely upending my entire work plan.
It all started one day when, out of sheer curiosity, I watched a video on biomimicry produced by the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris, and then listened to a podcast on the same topic. There, I discovered an entire field of scientific and technological research that draws inspiration from the “mechanisms” or “organizational patterns” of living organisms to develop technologies that are more effective, more energy-efficient, more robust, and more sustainable. What caught my attention most of all was the fact that non-human living organisms (plants and animals in particular) have “discovered”—through evolution and under the influence of natural selection—particularly ingenious solutions to environmental challenges.
In your quest to answer the question “Why do we understand the world?”, you draw on a wide range of disciplines. Can you explain why this multidisciplinary approach is essential?
The book could just as easily have been titled Why Does Life Seem to Have Already Invented Almost Everything? I am, in fact, trying to explain why the solutions developed by humans in the technical realm so often seem to echo mechanisms already present in the living world. And this first puzzle leads to a second one, which concerns the congruence of our knowledge with the reality it seeks to understand: why do we understand the world? This is a question that has been posed by many scholars, including the mathematician Eugene Wigner, the physicists Roger Penrose and Freeman Dyson, and Albert Einstein.
As a result, in order to solve these puzzles, I had to explore topics as diverse as biological, social, and cultural convergences; biomimicry; techno-inspirationism (which refers to the process of understanding the world through the lens of technology); the deep connections between different branches of mathematics; and the movement toward scientific unification that encompasses all fields of knowledge. Put that way, it sounds like a disorganized collection of unrelated questions. Yet the opposite is true: I am trying to show that the same underlying logic is at work in all these problems. It is therefore the logic of my research that compels me to draw on different fields of knowledge to solve a puzzle: sociology, history, and the anthropology of science and technology, as well as cognitive ethology, evolutionary biology, mathematical reasoning, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience. A multidisciplinary approach was not an option but an obvious necessity.
In your opinion, are the development of artificial intelligence and its current use by a very broad audience changing the way we think about and understand the world?
It all depends on the level at which we consider the issue. Artificial intelligence represents (and will increasingly represent) a colossal problem in terms of learning and the intellectual development of young people. It risks being better trained to think than students (from elementary school through higher education). This is an educational challenge that we will have to address in the coming years if we want to avoid a catastrophe.
But, on the other hand, there is an extremely interesting back-and-forth between neuroscience research and the development of artificial intelligence. Any progress in one field has a knock-on effect on the other, and vice versa. Artificial intelligence was able to advance once we understood that we needed to build artificial neural networks and train machines on vast datasets. But the effectiveness of artificial intelligence has exceeded all expectations—including those of its designers—and, in turn, helps us understand how our own understanding of the world works, which is based on detecting patterns in the world. We are therefore witnessing a giant leap forward in our understanding of thought processes—and even of scientific creation—unfolding right before our eyes.
On the one hand, we see mistrust and skepticism toward scientific knowledge; on the other, the development of artificial intelligence is generating an exponential increase in AI-driven information searches, driven by a desire to obtain an accurate and correct answer as quickly as possible—regardless of where it comes from. Isn’t this a paradox?
The “war on science” initiated by the Trump administration—but observable all over the world—should provoke widespread outrage. We must realize the enormity of the problem: today, in a country like the United States, creationism and Darwin’s theory of evolution can be taught side by side, which is an extremely troubling situation. Recent attacks on climate science, medical research, and—as always—the social sciences demonstrate the scope of this war. And even though France is less affected by this anti-science ideology (though it does exist), massive budget cuts to research are leading to similar consequences. By weakening our research capabilities, we weaken our collective ability to adapt and, at the same time, increase the dangers we face.
And, as you point out, we also make unrestrained and uncritical use of tools such as artificial intelligence or devices such as computers and cell phones—which are, among many others, products of modern science. On the one hand, we are suspicious of science and even attack it; on the other, we take advantage of everything it offers us. This kind of paradox can only arise in very “spoiled” societies, whose members benefit daily from scientific progress and no longer realize just how much they owe to it (in terms of comfortable living conditions, hygiene, health, and even increased life expectancy, etc.).
What message would you like readers to take away once they’ve finished the book?
I would like readers to view life, technology, and science with a much less jaded perspective than is usually the case. Relativism, which runs rampant in certain fields of knowledge, ultimately causes us to forget that not only do we possess extremely effective knowledge that aligns with reality, but that it is precisely this effectiveness and alignment that enable us to influence reality. Faced with the challenges of biodiversity loss, climate change, the unprecedented rise of inequalities of all kinds, and authoritarian regimes (nearly three-quarters of the world’s population lives under an autocratic or authoritarian regime), only scientific understanding of the mechanisms at work in these phenomena can enable us to implement realistic and effective countermeasures.