Catalog All books
Nathalie Blanc
Animals in an Urban Environment
Those of you who live in an urban centre, do you think the rightful place of the animal is in the countryside ? Do you think that dogs are simply kept at the whim of lonely citizens ? That cats should not be allowed to roam the streets ? That there should be no more cockroaches to invade homes ? Yet, do you really want a city without nature ? Without green areas, but also without animals ? A sterilised city in other words.. Nathalie Blanc analyses here the role of the animal, and thus the living, in our urban societies. Nathalie Blanc is a researcher specialising in urban geography, at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.
Laurent Bègue-Shankland
Animals and Us Our Emotions, Our Prejudices, Our Contradictions
Through our relationships with animals, it is actually human psychology, with its ambivalences with regard to animals, that is the subject of this book: from empathy to abuse.
Florence Burgat
The Animal, My Relation
On one hand, men exploit, manipulate and slaughter animals. On the other hand, they let animals interfere with their lives, pollute them, and sometimes dominate them. Since the classical Age, Man has sought to define himself in his opposition to animals. Claiming for himself the most noble faculties - consciousness, thought, esthetic sense, morality - he represses his own animal side, notably his sexuality. But Florence Burgat goes beyond this negative statement. She walks in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's steps, claiming that men, like animals are sensitive beings, liable to suffer. On this basis, she proposes a new morality. Florence Burgat is a philosopher, and works at the Laboratory of Social Anthropology of the College of France.
Emmanuelle Pouydebat
Animal Intelligence
A surprising enquiry into the diversity of adaptive behaviour in the animal kingdom: memory, navigation, innovation, sharing and cooperation: who knows how to do what, and what exactly is the uniqueness of human intelligence?
Antoine Garapon, Frédéric Gros, Thierry Pech
And this is Justice Punishment in a Democracy
What is the meaning of a sentence? This is the issue that the present book faces squarely and directly, from the philosophical, ethical and political angles. The authors goal is less to confront different viewpoints than to defend a shared belief: a just sentence is one that restores bonds. Antoine Garapon is a former juvenile judge. Frédéric Gros is a philosopher. Thierry Pech is a researcher.
Manès Sperber
And the Bush Became Ashes
Novelist, essayist, and philosopher Manès Sperber is a major witness of the twentieth century. Born in 1905, he became the closest disciple of Adler, a Viennese psychologist known for his rejection of psychoanalysis. Driven from Berlin by the Nazis in 1933, he definitely broke with communism during the 1937 Moscow trials and established himself in the Parisian intellectual circles of Malraux, Camus, Koestler and Aron. Recognized in German countries as a major writer, his work has received many literary prizes. By publishing his three novels in one newly translated volume, Odile Jecob proposes a reference edition of this epic.
Éric Baratay
And Man Created the Animal History of a Condition
In this book, Baratay holds a mirror up to humanity. He reviews the changing status of animals throughout human history: from ancient myths about animal domestication to the invention of bullfighting, from the great pastoral epics to modern slaughterhouses, from the ancient role played by animals in the human imagination to modern laboratory testing. Eric Baratay is a historian specialising in the contemporary world and in the status of animals.
Pascal Picq
And Evolution Created Woman Sexual Coercion and Violence in Men
An accessible, compelling assessment of what has been learned concerning the relationships between the sexes/genders from an evolutionary point of view.
Pascal Picq
And at the Beginning there was Man... From Toumaï to Cro-Magnon
In forty years, the genealogical tree of human evolution has grown so extensively that it now spans six million years.
Pascal Picq
And at the Beginning there was Man...
In forty years, the genealogical tree of human evolution has grown so extensively that it now spans six million years. But fossils, the tree of evolution and the story they tell openly challenge all prevailing ideas about evolution; and though they have been shaken, these ideas have barely begun to change. In this book, Pascal Picq examines concrete, existing proof of our origins and then goes on to offer a new view of the human position in the evolutionary process. Pascal Picq is a senior lecturer in paleo-anthropology and prehistory at the Collège de France.
David Elbaz
and Alice Tao Remembered the Future
In his first novel, Le Vase de Pépi, David Elbaz blended quantum physics with Egyptian mythology to take us on a fascinating journey through time in the world of particles. The inspiration for his new novel is once again time-travel, but now his vivid physicist's imagination, always on the lookout for strange paradoxes, moves constantly back and forth between Ancient China and the future.
Alain Prochiantz
The Anatomies of Thought What do squid think about ?
When we watch a squid facing up to a predator, we see it recoil, agitate the tentacles, spray a jet of ink, and then make use of the temporary blindness of the predator in order to escape to a safe hiding place. Are we able to say what it is thinking ? Evidently, we know that this behaviour is not the result of a reflex unleashed by the sight of an enemy. The mollusc is not however conscious of its acts, at least not in the sense that we, as human beings, understand this term. It is true that we are the product of a evolution of species, and that, although this may not be welcome news for everyone, we share a common ancestry with the octopus, or even the fly. Even if the structure of our cortex, and the invention of language allows us to write about octopuses (or flies), and not the other way round, the fact remains that these evolutive roots, in the same way as other animal species, including invertebrates, have something to teach us about the nature of our thoughts. Alain Prochiantz
Douglas Hofstadter, Emmanuel Sander
Analogy:Surfaces and Depths A New Theory of Mind
Could analogy, which we use unconsciously every day, lie at the core of human thought?