Jean-Michel Besnier is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Sorbonne University, where he directed the Master's degree in Editorial Consulting and Knowledge Management, as well as the 3559 “Contemporary Rationalities” research team. He was a member of CREA (Centre de recherches en épistémologie appliquée, École polytechnique laboratory and CNRS joint unit) for some twenty years. He was scientific director of the “Santé connectée et Homme augmenté” research cluster at the CNRS Institute of Communication Sciences. He taught at Compiègne University of Technology (UTC) from 1988 to 2001, first as an MCF and then as a Professor. He was head of the Technology and Human Sciences Department for three years. From July 2009 to April 2011, he was Scientific Director of the Science and Society Sector at the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research's Directorate General for Research and Innovation (DGRI). He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the IHEST (Institut des hautes études en sciences et techniques) and was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Cité des sciences et de l'industrie (Universcience). He served two terms on the CNL (Centre national du livre), where he chaired the Commission littérature scientifique et technique
Among his latest publications: Histoire de la philosophie moderne et contemporaine (Livre de poche), La croisée des sciences (Le Seuil 2006), Demain les posthumains (Fayard 2010 and Pluriel 2012), L'homme simplifié. Le syndrome de la touche étoile (Prix 2012 du Nouveau Cercle de l'Union, Fayard 2012), Un cerveau prometteur. Conversations sur les neurosciences (with F. Brunelle and Florence Gazeau, éditions Le Pommier 2015), La sagesse ordinaire (éditions Le Pommier 2016), Les robots font-ils l'amour? Le transhumanisme en 12 questions (with Laurent Alexandre, éditions Dunod 2016, ré-éd.Poche 2024) and Le sport, trop vite, trop haut, trop fort? (éditions Robert Laffont 2021).
