Catalog All books
Jean Picq
Religious Freedom in the French Republic Restoring the Spirit of French Secularism
‘Laïcité’ has been at the heart of numerous debates in France. The author argues here for a multifaceted, open secularism.
Pascal Picq
Mrs Neanderthal Meets Homo sapiens
This enthralling fable is the springboard for Pascal Picq’s questionings about today’s world and its contradictions
Massimo Piattelli Palmarini
Retraining Judgement How to avoid fooling yourself
How can we reason more effectively ? Everyday, we solve countless problems and take decisions by trusting our intuition, our common sense. Often, it is not only our passions, our emotions that lead us astray, it is the mind itself which tricks us, without us even being aware of it. How can we avoid these traps ? By driving out into the open, with the help of Massimo Piattelli Palmarini, the natural illusions and unconscious mechanisms which occupy our minds, and by working to help our judgement in the same way as psychoanalysis works to improve our emotional lives.
Massimo Piattelli Palmarini
The Art of Persuasion
In love as in politics, in history as in everyday life knowing how to persuade people is a valuable skill. How can one person convince another to renounce his or her opinion, freely and willingly, without appealing to authority, pity or trust? What essential rules must one follow, and what psychological motives must one play on in order to produce this effect ? Using the most recent discoveries in psychology and reasoning as a starting point Massimo Piattelli Palmarini show us how to anticipate the motivation and mental paths of others and so to be even more persuasive. Massimo Piattelli Palmarini is the head of the Department of Cognitive Sciences at the Instituto San Raffaele, in Milan.
Jean Piaget
Of Education
What is the teacher's role and how important is it in a child's education? Should this role include the shaping in the child's mind of the tools with which to grasp and comprehend the world? How should activities be presented so as to be easily understood by children? What are the difficulties that children encounter when resolving mathematical problems? Pedagogical methodology, the role of the educator, and the child's autonomy : these are some of the subjects that Piaget reflected on throughout his life and which remain central to educational concerns today.
Anita Phillips
A Defence of Masochism
Running a marathon, harbouring the fantasy of being raped, eating a painfully spicy meal in an Indian restaurant writing a university thesis, feeling constantly overcome with a desire to be altruistic, happily allowing a woman wearing sharp heels to tread on your chest, being passionately in love with someone who isnt even aware that you exist, swimming in the North sea at the end of November" Writer, editor and animator for a literary publication, Anita Phillips gives art classes in several English universities.
Béatrice Philippe
The Jews and French Identity
How Jews in France successfully integrated without denying their identity
Edmund Phelps
Mass Prosperity
A profound reflection, at the meeting-point of economics and psychology, on the forces of innovation and economic well-being and the motivations of both. A view of innovation that confronts many accepted ideas — the Schumpeterian view of the entrepreneur, the development of science as a source of innovation, and so on — and which needs to be debated.