Philippe Descola was born in Paris and obtained a master’s degree in philosophy before studying anthropology under the supervision of Claude Lévi-Strauss. In 1983, he received his doctorate from the Ecole Practique des Hautes Etudes. He has lectured at the universities of Cambridge, Oslo, Vienna, São Paulo, Quito, and Oxford, among others. He has published extensively on cultural ecology, contributing an original approach to the study of the social construction of nature. He is presently a professor of anthropology at the Collège de France.