Catalog All books
Antoine Garapon
The Guardian of Promises Justice and Democracy
The multiplying cases, the explosion of litigations, the sensational trials which catch the attention of the public : all are evidence of a growth in power of the judicial system, which we expect to be, at the same time, the arbiter of morals, the guarantee of public morality and responsible for the salvation of the people. But why dont we ask what things it cannot provide ? Isnt the idea of a judicial democracy just an illusion, which serves to hide serious problems ? The power of the judicial system is more worrying than exciting. It is an indicator of the discreditation of the State at the same time as a reduction in social cohesion. In the face of the fragility of democratic society, this book is a thorough reflection on the exercise of public power, affirming that the real role of the judge is not to take the place of the politic, but to diffuse the risk of democratic implosion by remaining the guardian of the promises at the very heart of republican laws. Antoine Garapon, a former judge and member of the editorial team of the journal Esprit, is the head of the Institute of Advanced Judicial Studies.
Évelyne Pewzner
The Guilt of Man (Coll. Opus) Fault and Insanity in the West
Why is the obsessive horrified by a tiny stain ? Why does the depressive relentlessly search for a redemptive punishment ? When human behaviour translates the suffering and helplessness of an individual confronted with anguish and solitude to the collapse of that being, to a retreat inside a strange inner world, to the loss of all that which anchors him to life, it is not enough, in order to understand him, to connect up the events of his life. It is also necessary to situate that individual in the wider scale of cultural indictations, which play a determining role in the formation of the personality. In this way, Évelyne Pewzner undertakes to show in what sense, Western Christianity, which is intrinsically linked to the problem of evil, leaves in each of us an imprint of distress. Évelyne Pewzner is a psychiatrist, and a professor of psychopathology at the University of Picardie.
Jean Chavaillon
The Golden Age of Humanity Annals of the Palaeolithic Age
If myths tell the story of civilizations without writing, the myth of the golden age corresponds to a very precise period in the story of mankind: the superior paleololithic (between 35,000 and 9,000 B.C.). Even though different species of hominides coexisted in the same territories of Africa, there were no wars. Human groups were rare, they lived in an environment of abundance. They had time. Without art or religion, their life was carefree. All their knowledge was concentrated on the making of tools and in the mastering of fire. This is the everyday life of men from the Paleolithic which Jean Chavaillon describes in this fascinating book, illustrated by black and white reproductions. Jean Chavaillon, is a research director at the CNRS, a specialist in prehistory and a field worker.
André Miquel
Two Stories of Love (Work of the Collège de France) From Majnûn to Tristan
How does absolute passion express itself in Middle-Eastern and in Western societies?
Ilya Prigogine
The End of Certainties
As we come to the end of the century, the question of the future of science is often posed. I believe we are just at the beginning of a new endeavour. We are witnessing the development of a science which is no longer limited to simplified, idealised situations, but makes us face the complexity of the real world. This new science will allow human creativity to be experienced as the unique expression of a fundamental trait common to all aspects of nature. Ive tried to present this conceptual transformation, which implies the beginning of a new chapter in the fruitful relations between physics and mathematics, in a manner that will be comprehensible and accessible to all readers interested in the evolution of our ideas of nature. We are but at the threshold of a new chapter in the history of our dialogue with nature, writes Ilya Prigogine. Ilya Prigogine, winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, teaches at the Free University of Brussels and at the University of Texas, in Austin.