Lionel Naccache is a neurologist working at La Salpêtrière Hospital, in Paris. He is a doctor in cognitive neurosciences and a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure. His works include Le Nouvel Inconscient and Perdons-nous connaissance? (Editions Odile Jacob).

‘For more than twenty years, I’ve dedicated my clinical activities, research and writings to the exploration of subjectivity — to the exploration of that unique look that we each consciously cast on ourselves and on the world about us. That view is nourished by our own personal stories and by a wide variety of beliefs.
‘Besides our immediate familiarity with our subjectivity, a general, fundamental question remains: What is a subject in itself — that is, inside its own self?
‘This book is not an autobiography in the classical sense of the term, but it is nonetheless the result of a sort of decentralised autobiography, which means that after investigating the question of subjectivity, I proceed to an analysis of my subjective relationship to subjectivity, through the exploration of an essential facet of my identity: my Jewishness. If I feel so Jewish, it’s because I lay claim to a deep attachment to a work, the Talmud, that fascinates me and of which I offer you here my own, purely subjective, interpretation,’ writes Lionel Naccache.

• A new approach to the relations we keep with our own beliefs and our subjectivity.
• An introduction to the Talmud, through a journey of self-discovery.