He spent the next few years as a naval officer before finally receiving his doctorate (doctorat ès lettres) in 1968 from the University of Paris (with a thesis titled Le Système de Leibniz et ses modèles mathématiques), and began teaching in 1969 at the University of Paris I.

[5] These formative experiences led him consistently to eschew scholarship based upon models of war, suspicion, and criticism.

[6][7] He earned a reputation as a spell-binding lecturer and as the author of remarkably beautiful and enigmatic prose so reliant on the sonorities of French that it is considered practically untranslatable.

[citation needed] He took as his subjects such diverse topics as the mythical Northwest Passage, the concept of the parasite, and the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger.

[citation needed] He was an influence on intellectuals such as Bruno Latour, Robert Pogue Harrison, and Jonathan Bate.