Catalog All books
Daniel C. Dennett
Evolutionist theory of freedom
Billions of years ago, there was no freedom on earth, for the simple reason that there was no life. What forms of freedom have evolved since the first stirrings of life? Can freedom and free will exist in a deterministic universe? If we are free, are we responsible for our freedom, or is it governed by chance? Drawing on evolutionary biology and the cognitive sciences, Daniel Dennett provides a series of unorthodox replies to these traditional philosophical questions. It is generally held that what is determined is inevitable and that freedom can only exist in a non-deterministic universe. This is untrue, says Dennett. It is also held that in a pre-determined universe, we have no real choices: all we have is the illusion that we can choose. This too is false, argues Dennett. He then goes on to explain how, some day, we will be able to create robots endowed with free will. In this groundbreaking book, written in a striking, lively style, Dennett interweaves philosophical creativity with the latest scientific developments, and challenges a series of philosophical orthodoxies. Daniel C. Dennett is University Professor and Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, Mass., U.S.A. He is the author of Consciousness Explained and Darwin's Dangerous Idea.
Nady Van Broeck, Jacques Van Rillaer
Giving Psychological Support to Seriously Ill Children
An indispensable book to enable parents and caregivers to help children overcome the challenge of serious illness
Jean Rosa
From one Medicine to Another From a Craft Industry to High Techology
Jean Rosa belongs to the post-war generation that transformed French medicine from a state of powerless humanism all the more "humane" because it was so often helpless to one of scientific and technical efficiency. Unfortunately, in the process, medicine seems to have lost its human face. In this book, Rosa shows how he contributed to this medical revolution: on the one hand, through the "Debré Reform", which instituted teaching hospitals, thus firmly linking medical research with therapeutic and surgical treatment, and, on the other hand, by associating medicine with molecular biology. Jean Rosa is Emeritus Professor in the medical school of the University of Paris-XII and a member of the French Academy of Science
Kofi Annan
Interventions A Life in War and Peace
The story of Kofi Annan’s forty years at the centre of the world stage
Jean-Philippe Lachaux
The Attentive Brain Improving Concentration With the Neurosciences
Why study attention? Focused attention is rare and precious...
Louis Crocq, Sophie Huberson, Benoît Vraie
Managing Crises
In the existence of any group, business or nation, a crisis is a serious, uncommon event that suddenly imposes an emergency situation and the management of the vital issues at stake.
Antoine Danchin
The Delphic Boat What Genomes Tell Us
What is it that constitutes the unity and identity of a living creature ? This is the fundmental question of biology. The recent sequencing techniques provide a completely new response to this question, notably thanks to the knowledge of whole genomes. Antoine Danchin establishes a clear picture of this important biological discovery. He shows in particular that, just like the boat of Delphi, life is beyond prediction, and at the same time has an infinite capacity to create the unexpected. Antoine Danchin is the director of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the Institut Pasteur.