Catalog All books
Pierluigi Graziani, Daniela Eraldi-Gackiere
How to Stop Abusing Alcohol
Not only does alcohol abuse have serious consequences for physical and psychic health, it is also destructive of personal and social relationships. But putting an end to this form of drug abuse is particularly complex, because alcohol creates a dependence that is both physical and psychological, and because it is, in many cultures, closely linked to sociability. In trying to help alcohol abusers who wish to stop drinking, one is often confronted with resistance and denial. The authors, specialists in cognitive and behavioural therapies, describe methods that have been successfully used for many years in the treatment of alcohol abuse in a hospital setting. Pierluigi Graziani is a psychologist and lecturer on clinical psychology and psychopathologies at the University of Aix-Marseille-Ain, in Aix-en-Provence. Daniela Eraldi-Gackière is a psychologist.
Ann Premack, David Premack
The Baby, the Ape and Man
The issue of the differences and similarities between humans and their cousins the chimpanzees governs the definition of human identity. How can this difference be explained? By studying the learning process of chimpanzees and comparing it to that of children, Ann and David Premack were gradually able to discover a series of differences, none of which were radical but when put together showed a yawning gap between the two species. The results they obtained enabled them to reconstruct little by little the sum of the differences that make up human identity. Ann and David Premack are specialists in the study of primates.
Roger-Pol Droit
Recent News of Ordinary Objects
"Can you learn anything from ordinary objects the things you use in your daily life? The answer is: yes, more than you can imagine. During the course of one year, I assigned myself a sort of adventure: I kept a diary of my encounter with objects, and I suggest you do the same. Briefly, my goal was to try to find the words that are hidden inside objects, to discover the questions that lie at the heart of things. My journey took place in four stages: surprise, groping, panicking, feeling soothed. This experience, touched with humour and a hint of folly, also follows the itinerary of an unexpected spiritual journey," Roger-Pol Droit is a research fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Régis Debray, Jean Bricmont
In the Shadow of Lights A Debate between a Philisopher and a Scientist
What is the meaning for us today of the Enlightenment? Of positivism and of the social sciences? How should we envision the revolutions in physics, biology and the neorosciences? What are the future roles of ideology and politics, faced with the challenge of the present religious come-back? Is the notion of progress still relevant? Can a fundamental, universal anthropology be established? In their discussions, the authors Debray from a literary point of view, and Bricmont from a scientific one meet, confront and defy each other. In the course of their talks, they summon theory and practice, past and present, history and current events, facts and their own personal convictions, to give the reader a brilliant lesson against the dominant mood of nihilism. Régis Debray heads the European Institute of the History and Science of Religion. He is the author of numerous works, including God, An Itinerary. Jean Bricmont teaches theoretical physics at the University of Louvain. He is the co-author with Alan Sokal of Intellectual Impostures.
