Catalog All books
Olivier Houdé
Human Intelligence is Not an Algorithm
An original theory that proposes a new model of intelligence centered on intuition, logic, but also inhibition, indispensable for correcting our cognitive biases.
Alain Braconnier
Parents Need Love, Too
Parents’ need for love and the notion of reciprocity in upbringing, advice for maintaining it.
Dominique Desanti, Jean-Toussaint Desanti, Roger-Pol Droit
Liberty Still Cherishes Us
In this book, the authors, Dominique and Jean-Toussaint Desanti, relate their lives of active political and intellectual commitment to Roger-Pol Droit. The story begins with Dominique and Jean-Toussaints first meeting, their lives as an open couple, their involvement in the French Resistance and, later, in the Communist Party, their support of the FLN during the Algerian war of independence, their participation in the events of May 1968 in France and the United States, and their espousal of the feminist movement. They also discuss the numerous works they have written literature in Dominiques case, philosophy in Jean-Toussaints. Their political path is one that was shared by many French intellectuals of their generation. The enthusiasm of many young people for left-wing causes had first been stirred by the Popular Front government. The Soviet victory at Stalingrad (rather than support of Marxist thought) later fanned this enthusiasm, with the result that many French intellectuals joined the Communist Party. Each event in the authors lives is recounted individually from each ones point of view, before being retold by both of them in unison. This manner of telling their story fully respects each writers personality and style, and has resulted in an especially intense book. Dominique Desanti is a journalist, essayist and novelist. Jean-Toussaint Desanti is a philosopher and professor emeritus at the University of Paris I-Sorbonne.
Christian Sautter
France Reflected in Japan Growth or Decline
Where does the formidable Japanese resistance to unemployment come from? How can their persistence be explained when Japan, like all developed countries, is faced with robotization, technological revolutions and, more recently, competition in the form of young populations in neighboring countries? This should give France pause for thought: as starkly contrasted as these two cultures may seem, France and Japan are sister countries. Thus reflected in the mirror of Japan, France can discover that its decline need not be fatal, and that it is up to France to break with a decrepit conservatism and embrace growth. Christian Sautter is the director of studies at the Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales (EHESS).
Claude Hagège
The Child who speaks two languages
At what age should we learn a second language? Which are the intellectual faculties which bilinguism helps to develop? What is the compared efficiency of language learning in childhood and in adulthood? In which case does a person forget a language, particularly a mother tongue? Claude Hagège tells us here that anybody can become perfectly bilingual and how Europe, which is not the continent where the most bilingual people are found, can multiply their number. Indeed, the challenge of bilingualism is at the heart of European union. C. Hagège, professor at the Collège de France, has published in particular L'Homme de paroles and Le Souffle de la Langue.
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.
François Gros
From Penicillin to genomics
The life of a scientist, one of the discoverers of how genes function, and an explorer of the future of biology