This Special Issue of Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres contains papers based on the contributions presented at the Conference "Defining Life" held in Paris (France) on 4-5 February, 2008. The main objective of this Conference was to confront speakers from several disciplines--chemists, biochemists, biologists, exo/astrobiologists, computer scientists, philosophers and historians of science--on the topic of the definition of life. Different viewpoints of the problem approached from different perspectives have been expounded and, as a result, common grounds as well (...) as remaining diverging arguments have been identified. In addition to individual talks, two large roundtables gave ample room for speakers to discuss their diverging viewpoints. This volume collects almost all the contributions presented during the Conference and provides a rich spectrum of renewed answers to the ever-standing question "What is Life?". Besides the arguments directly regarding this question, more philosophical or historical reflections are also proposed in this issue that were not presented during the Conference. This volume also offers a synthesis written by J. Gayon taking each contribution into account. To conclude this foreword, we would like to thank all the participants and speakers who made this Conference a most stimulating event. Each provided novel ideas to "Defining Life" while highlighting the extreme difficulty to reach a consensus on this topic. We are also very grateful to the French CNRS Interdisciplinary Program Origines des Planètes et de la Vie (Origins of Planets and Life) for its generous support, as well as to the National Museum of Natural History in Paris for hosting the Conference. We also thank Alan W. Schwartz for generously offering this space for publishing the Proceedings of the Conference. (shrink)

Lacker (1981) and Lacker & Akin (1988) developed a mathematical model of follicular maturation and ovulation; this model of only four parameters accounts for a large number of results obtained over the past decade or more on the control of follicular growth and ovulation in mammals. It establishes a single law of maturation for each follicle which describes the interactions between growing follicles. The function put forward is sufficient to explain the constancy of the number of ovulations or large follicles (...) in a female as well as the variability of this number among strains or species and for either induced or spontaneous ovulators. According to the model, the number of ovulations or large follicles lies between two limits that are themselves simple functions of two parameters of the model. Moreover, Lacker's model exhibits interesting characteristics in agreement with results obtained by physiologists: in particular, it predicts that the number of ovulating or large follicles is independent of:1. the total number of maturing follicles, 2. the process of recruitment of newly maturing follicles towards the terminal maturation (Poisson or other), 3. the form of the LH or FSH secretion curves as functions of the systemic level of oestradiol. The model further predicts that 4. selection and dominance of follicles result from the feedback between the ovary and the hypophysis through the interactions between follicles; these interactions are expressed by the maturation function of the model. 5. recovery from atresia is possible for a follicle: from decreasing, the rate of secretion of oestradiol may increase. 6. the revised model suggests a renewal of follicles during the sexual cycle, as waves of follicular growth. Lacker's model is a model of strict dominance; it maintains a hierarchy of the follicles as soon as they start their final maturation to the ovulations as that is observed in bird or reptile ovary. Such a strict hierarchy is possible but it is probably not a general situation in all mammals. We therefore modified the maturing function of the follicle in order to make it compatible with the observations of physiologists: follicles always interact as in the initial model but they individually become old, the hierarchy of follicles can be modified with time and the largest follicles do not indefinitely grow as in the initial model. (shrink)

IntroductionWe aimed to study post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in breast cancer patients during the coronavirus disease pandemic.Materials and methodsWe included BC patients receiving medical treatment during the first COVID-19 lockdown in France. PTSD symptoms were evaluated using the Impact of Event Scale-Revised questionnaire. Quality of life [Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General ], cognitive complaints [Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy–Cognitive Function ], insomnia [Insomnia Severity Index ], and psychosocial experiences during lockdown were also evaluated. Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify (...) clinical factors and psychosocial factors associated with PTSD symptoms.ResultsAmong the 253 included BC patients, 46% had metastatic cancer and 52% were treated by chemotherapy alone. COVID-19-induced adjustments in medical oncology practices were experienced by 27% of patients. No case of COVID-19 was reported; 23% of BC patients had PTSD symptoms. Compared to other patients, patients with PTSD symptoms had more fears relative to COVID-19 infection, had more feeling of isolation, and had more prescription or increased use of psychotropic drugs. In the multivariable model adjusted for clinical factors, fears relative to COVID-19 and increased use of psychotropic drugs were independently associated with PTSD symptoms. Besides, patients with PTSD symptoms had poor quality of life, and more cognitive complaints and insomnia.ConclusionPost-traumatic stress disorder symptoms were observed in 23% of BC patients during the first COVID-19 lockdown in France. Psychological supports are needed for patients treated during the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

A well-established narrative in the history of science has it that the years around 1800 saw the end of a purely descriptive, classificatory and static natural history. The emergence of a temporal understanding of nature and the new developmental-history approach, it is thought, permitted the formation of modern biology. This paper questions that historical narrative by closely analysing the concepts of development, history and time set out in Karl Ernst von Baer’s study of the mammalian egg (1827). I show that (...) Baer’s research on embryogenesis aimed not simply to explain temporal changes, but to inscribe the formation of new individual organisms into a continuous, unending organic process. I confront Baer’s views with other explanations of embryogenesis arising in the 1820s and 1830s, especially those of Jean-Baptiste Dumas and Jean-Louis Prévost and of Theodor Schwann. By highlighting divergences between these scientists, especially as to their view of the role of gender differences in reproduction, I argue that biology evolved not from a homogeneous concept of developmental history but out of various, even opposing, views and research programmes. Thus, the birth of biology did not imply the end of all natural history’s thought models. (shrink)

Phil Powrie _Jean-Jacques Beineix_ Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2001 ISBN 719055334 240 pp.

Around 1716, the French astronomer and academician Joseph-Nicolas Delisle took up a new project: the twinned topics of Chinese chronology and astronomy. Unable to access Chinese sources and not knowing any fellow savants who shared this particular interest, Delisle methodically made extracts and compiled data from the existing European literature. Among Delisle's papers at the Observatoire de Paris still exist the results of this research, including a list of the books he found relevant. This paper develops a close reading of (...) Delisle's notes from this period to stage his journey into a recondite arena of technical and textual analysis, and to examine the scholarly practices and generic conventions through which early modern European savants confronted the Chinese astronomical tradition. (shrink)

Les guerres d'Italie - qui débutent en 1494 - et les bouleversements qui s'ensuivent à Florence (où se met en place, après la chute des Médicis, la république du Grand Conseil), amènent Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540) à réfléchir sur l'évidence« naturelle» du concept de libertàftorentina. Sa méthode - «ne pas se laisser à ce point tromper par les mots qu'on ne considère plus les choses» - lui fait abandonner la question du bon gouvernement pour lui substituer celle des effets qu'il (...) produit et le pousse à mettre en lumière, «sous la douceur du nom de liberté», les enjeux politiques. Dès lors, il n'y a plus d'évidence naturelle de l'aspiration à la libertà, mais la nécessaire analyse de la conjoncture politico-historique, de la « condition des temps ». (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Impact of Aristotelianism on Modern PhilosophyJean-Robert ArmogatheRiccardo Pozzo, editor. The Impact of Aristotelianism on Modern Philosophy. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004. Pp. xvi + 336. Cloth, $69.95.The status of a "great" philosopher is to stand out for centuries, asking questions in such a way that the answers can never be definitive. Not so many of them are able to stand such a severe (...) proof. Aristotle phrased some questions we are still groping to answer. It was a very good idea to ask thirteen scholars to deliver a lecture series at the Catholic University of America during the Fall 1999 about the reception of Aristotle's theory of intellectual virtues (Nich. Ethics VI). The speakers did not stick to this issue, and enlarged their purpose to a general approach of Aristotle's receptions in various moments of Western modern philosophy.Edward Mahoney complements Charles Schmitt's basic introduction to Aristotle and the Renaissance, with some very valuable pages about Cardinal Bessarion's contribution to the Byzantine debate aroused in 1439 by Plethon's comparison between Plato and Aristotle (in favor of the former). Along with Charles Schmitt, Antonino Poppi is the best specialist of the Paduan tradition, and wrote a very qualified paper about Zabarella (1533-89), who shaped Aristotelianism into the rigorous science of the schoolbooks: for centuries, Aristotle is read through Zabarella's glasses. Apart from a bird's view on recent Galilean studies (where Alistair Crombie is not mentioned), William A. Wallace makes his point about Aristotle's influence on Galilean logics, linking Galileo's 1640 letter to Liceti (where he states that, in matters of logic, he has been an Aristotelian all his life) to the scientist's deep knowledge as revealed by the logical questions in one of the juvenile treatises (ms 27 in Florence, more thoroughly studied in Wallace's book, Galileo's Logic of Discovery and Proof [Dordrecht, 1992]). John Doyle, a specialist of Late Scholastic Philosophy, figures out a [End Page 209] strange character, the French Jesuit André Semery (1630-1717), who taught for thirty years at the Collegium romanum. In a very anti-Aristotelian way, he holds a definite belief in metaphysical beings of reason. The boundary between what we can think and say is quietly stepped over, when Semery and other Jesuits begin to think about thinking, opening a very modern path which leads to Brentano and Quine. Christia Mercer states that Leibniz's combination of a Platonist epistemology with an Aristotelian conception of nature brings a very innovative view in ethics. A very forceful paper by Richard L. Velkley compares Rousseau's politics to Aristotle's view of man (the paper became a chapter of his 2002 impressive book Being after Rousseau), while Riccardo Pozzo gives a short presentation of Aristotle's reception in modern Germany, and an elaborate analysis of Kant's debt to Aristotle for the intellectual virtues. Hegel's appropriation of Aristotelian intellect is presented by Alfredo Ferrarin, while Michael Davis reconstructs Nietzsche's path from Aristotle to the tragedy and back, in a very convincing way. Husserl (Richard Cobb-Stevens), Heidegger (Stanley Rosen), Wittgenstein (Daniel Dahlstrom) and Gadamer (Enrico Berti) conclude brilliantly the series, showing how the thought of the Stagirite fertilized contemporary philosophers, in a permanent dialogue of disagreement or borrowing, never at rest, and never leaving anyone indifferent. The old Greek man remains a vivid debater for our age of anxiety.Jean-Robert ArmogatheThe University of Paris-SorbonneCopyright © 2005 Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc.... (shrink)

Dans les textes de Machiavel, la question de la guerre est souvent l’horizon même de la question de la politique. La politique et la guerre y sont en permanence mêlées, souvent indissociables ; cela dans les relations que les États établissent entre eux, mais aussi à l’intérieur même des États, des provinces et des cités. Il ne s’agit pas ici de couvrir l’ensemble de ce champ des liens entre la politique et la guerre, tâche impossible à mener dans le cadre (...) d’un article, mais seulement de traiter un des aspects de cette question : il s’agira de voir comment la polémique de Machiavel contre les armes mercenaires et auxiliaires et en faveur des « armes propres » est un des axes structurants de l’ensemble de l’œuvre, un des éléments qui donnent sens aux textes. L’erreur consistant à ne pas avoir compris l’importance des « armes propres » et le rôle déterminant de l’infanterie est un des « péchés des princes » de l’époque des guerres d’Italie ; dans l’écriture des textes de Machiavel on ressent un effort constant pour faire comprendre comment on pourrait racheter, « rédimer » (redimere), ces péchés. C’est cet effort que cet article tente de mettre en évidence. (shrink)

The essays collected in this issue all stem from talks delivered at the International Conference, Aesthetic preferences, language games and forms of life: from Ludwig Wittgenstein, which was held on 23-25 January 2013 in the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Education at the University of Florence. Contributions are here published in the same order they were presented at the Conference. With fruitful variety of approach, the entire thematic spectrum of the relationship between Wittgenstein and aesthetics is covered: 1) (...) the question of the presence of specific aesthetic issues in Wittgenstein’s works: from aesthetic judgment to the concept of the beautiful (J.-P. Cometti, G. Tomasi, G. Matteucci); 2) the question of the aesthetic paradigm as the key to understanding Wittgenstein’s philosophical research as a whole as well as the philosopher’s unmistakable style (F. Desideri, S. Säätelä, S. Borutti, F. Valagussa); 3) the issue concerning the crucial difference between showing and saying and the thin boundaries between sense and nonsense (V. Sanfélix, L. Distaso, M. De Iaco); 4) the peculiar, but extremely relevant, question concerning the relationship between music and language (J. Schulte, A. Arbo); 5) the question of the expressive character of the work of art and of the linguistic nature of poetry, considered as a vantage point for the pursuit of the analysis of linguistic facts, as well as the issue of the literary form of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, with its deeply romantic character (M.W. Rowe, G. Di Giacomo); 6) the controversial issue of "seeing-as" and of its role within theories of depiction and pictoriality (K. Stock, A. Voltolini, E. Caldarola, E. Terrone). (shrink)

Ce compte rendu a déjà paru dans E-rea [En ligne], n° 6.1, 2008. F. Gaillet-de-Chezelles, Wordsworth et la marche : parcours poétique et esthétique, Grenoble, Ellug, 2007, 423 p. Spécialiste de la période romantique, et de William Wordsworth en particulier, Florence Gaillet-de-Chazelles a développé dans Wordsworth et la marche : parcours poétique et esthétique une approche critique qui s'inscrit très bien dans celle de la collection « Esthétique et représentation : monde anglophone », - Recensions.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Impact of Aristotelianism on Modern PhilosophyJean-Robert ArmogatheRiccardo Pozzo, editor. The Impact of Aristotelianism on Modern Philosophy. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004. Pp. xvi + 336. Cloth, $69.95.The status of a "great" philosopher is to stand out for centuries, asking questions in such a way that the answers can never be definitive. Not so many of them are able to stand such a severe (...) proof. Aristotle phrased some questions we are still groping to answer. It was a very good idea to ask thirteen scholars to deliver a lecture series at the Catholic University of America during the Fall 1999 about the reception of Aristotle's theory of intellectual virtues (Nich. Ethics VI). The speakers did not stick to this issue, and enlarged their purpose to a general approach of Aristotle's receptions in various moments of Western modern philosophy.Edward Mahoney complements Charles Schmitt's basic introduction to Aristotle and the Renaissance, with some very valuable pages about Cardinal Bessarion's contribution to the Byzantine debate aroused in 1439 by Plethon's comparison between Plato and Aristotle (in favor of the former). Along with Charles Schmitt, Antonino Poppi is the best specialist of the Paduan tradition, and wrote a very qualified paper about Zabarella (1533-89), who shaped Aristotelianism into the rigorous science of the schoolbooks: for centuries, Aristotle is read through Zabarella's glasses. Apart from a bird's view on recent Galilean studies (where Alistair Crombie is not mentioned), William A. Wallace makes his point about Aristotle's influence on Galilean logics, linking Galileo's 1640 letter to Liceti (where he states that, in matters of logic, he has been an Aristotelian all his life) to the scientist's deep knowledge as revealed by the logical questions in one of the juvenile treatises (ms 27 in Florence, more thoroughly studied in Wallace's book, Galileo's Logic of Discovery and Proof [Dordrecht, 1992]). John Doyle, a specialist of Late Scholastic Philosophy, figures out a [End Page 209] strange character, the French Jesuit André Semery (1630-1717), who taught for thirty years at the Collegium romanum. In a very anti-Aristotelian way, he holds a definite belief in metaphysical beings of reason. The boundary between what we can think and say is quietly stepped over, when Semery and other Jesuits begin to think about thinking, opening a very modern path which leads to Brentano and Quine. Christia Mercer states that Leibniz's combination of a Platonist epistemology with an Aristotelian conception of nature brings a very innovative view in ethics. A very forceful paper by Richard L. Velkley compares Rousseau's politics to Aristotle's view of man (the paper became a chapter of his 2002 impressive book Being after Rousseau), while Riccardo Pozzo gives a short presentation of Aristotle's reception in modern Germany, and an elaborate analysis of Kant's debt to Aristotle for the intellectual virtues. Hegel's appropriation of Aristotelian intellect is presented by Alfredo Ferrarin, while Michael Davis reconstructs Nietzsche's path from Aristotle to the tragedy and back, in a very convincing way. Husserl (Richard Cobb-Stevens), Heidegger (Stanley Rosen), Wittgenstein (Daniel Dahlstrom) and Gadamer (Enrico Berti) conclude brilliantly the series, showing how the thought of the Stagirite fertilized contemporary philosophers, in a permanent dialogue of disagreement or borrowing, never at rest, and never leaving anyone indifferent. The old Greek man remains a vivid debater for our age of anxiety.Jean-Robert ArmogatheThe University of Paris-SorbonneCopyright © 2005 Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc.... (shrink)

Christopher Buondelmonti, famous «traveller, geographer, cartographer», priest of Florence, spent the last years of his life at Rhodes, where he served as dean of the cathedral chapter in 1430. This article reminds the substantial work that has been devoted to him in recent years. Then, it states much of what is known of the Latin Church of Rhodes, in particular of its cathedral chapter, in the early years of the fifteenth century. Finally, two acts of 1430 on Buondelmonti, dean (...) of this chapter, are presented here. (shrink)

Dans la péninsule italienne, à une quarantaine d’années de guerres incessantes fait suite, à partir de 1494, une longue période de paix relative jusqu’à la fin du xviiie siècle. Florence, Venise et Rome sont alors les trois espaces culturels et politiques où naissent les réflexions les plus importantes – et les plus « européennes » – sur la question de la guerre et sur le déploiement d’un « après-guerre ». Après la pensée florentine qui articule politique de conquête et (...) nécessité de la conservation en temps de guerre, « l’après-guerre»s’inscrit dans une tension potentielle, sinon permanente, entre l’impossibilité de la paix et l’acceptation de la domination politico-militaire. La compréhension des effets de cette situation peut passer par l’éloge de la neutralité et de la pacification des rapports de force, notamment dans la pensée vénitienne. Dans cette perspective, la paix constitue un cadre à la fois imposé et en mouvement. Le questionnement concerne du coup ce que la guerre transmet à l’après-guerre. Puisque la guerre est une expérience radicale, une expérience de la limite, elle est du coup porteuse d’un savoir qui acquiert une nécessité : de ce fait, ce savoir continue d’informer la réflexion, même quand la conjoncture s’est modifiée du tout au tout. Ainsi, même lorsqu’on fait passer les raisons de la conservation avant celles de la conquête, on ne remplace pas la guerre par la paix. On a cessé de penser qu’après la guerre était la paix : bien au contraire, on a placé la guerre au principe de la paix. (shrink)

L'espere humaine est conflictuelle et gregaire, menacee de toutes parts par la montee aux extremes de la violence. Aussi se trouve-t-elle confrontee a ce probleme urgent: comment vivre ensemble sans s'entre-tuer? Le politique est l'ordre humain en charge de ce probleme, et son objectif est la paix par la justice. Dans ce bref precis didactique, Jean Baechler prouve que le seul moyen d'eviter la guerre et de resoudre des problemes communs dans un monde dangereux et imprevisible est de s'efforcer (...) a l'union politique, meme si celle-ci est bien evidemment extremement difficile a realiser. (shrink)

Although informed consent models for prescribing hormone replacement therapy are becoming increasingly prevalent, many physicians continue to require an assessment and referral letter from a mental health professional prior to prescription. Drawing on personal and communal experience, the author argues that assessment and referral requirements are dehumanising and unethical, foregrounding the ways in which these requirements evidence a mistrust of trans people, suppress the diversity of their experiences and sustain an unjustified double standard in contrast to other forms of clinical (...) care. Physicians should abandon this unethical requirement in favour of an informed consent approach to transgender care. (shrink)

By attending to how people speak about their gender, we can find diverse answers to the question of what it is like to have a gender identity. To some, it is little more than having a body whereas others may report it as more attitudinal or dispositional—seemingly contradictory views. In this paper, I seek to reconcile these disparate answers by developing a theory of how individual gender identity comes about. In the simplest possible terms, I propose that gender identity is (...) how we make sense of our gender subjectivity, the totality of our gendered experiences of ourselves. Gender identity is constituted by gender subjectivity, but this constitutive relationship is underdetermined. While gender subjectivity may narrow the range of inhabitable gender identities, it is always compatible with more than one. To arrive at a gender identity, we arrange gender subjectivity like building materials. My theory helps us understand how different people offer seemingly incompatible accounts of their gender identity without questioning their authenticity or validity. They simply arrange similar building materials differently. (shrink)

Découvert en Occident seulement au XVIe s., ce traité fut traduit quatre fois avec des intentions différentes : unité entre Grecs et Latins , Contre-Réforme , opposition à la renaissance du manichéisme en Dalmatie . Seule la traduction et l'édition grecque simultanée de 1575 est dépourvue d'intention doctrinale ou polémique; le problème de la paternité de cette traduction pose un problème, Hopper étant mort en 1564. . Les quatre éditions et/ou traductions sont apparentées à l'actuel ms. Florence, Laur. 4, (...) 12. (shrink)

Drawing on the principle of subsidiarity, this article develops a framework for allocating medical decision-making authority in the absence of capacity to consent and argues that decisional authority in paediatric transgender healthcare should generally lie in the patient. Regardless of patients’ capacity, there is usually nobody better positioned to make medical decisions that go to the heart of a patient’s identity than the patients themselves. Under the principle of subsidiarity, decisional authority should only be held by a higher level decision-maker, (...) such as parents or judges, if lower level decision-makers are incapable of satisfactorily addressing the issue even with support and the higher level decision-maker is better positioned to satisfactorily address the issue than all lower level decision-makers. Because gender uniquely pertains to personal identity and self-realisation, parents and judges are rarely better positioned to make complex medical decisions. Instead of taking away trans youth’s authority over their healthcare decisions, we should focus on supporting their ability to take the best possible decision for themselves. (shrink)

Appels au meurtre et à la haine, apologie de la pédophilie, propos racistes ou sexistes, quelles sont les limites de la liberté d'expression en littérature ? Le style et la fiction autorisent-ils toutes les transgressions ?

A recent paper by Teresa Baron and Geoffrey Dierckxsens argues that puberty blockers and hormone therapy should be disallowed before adulthood on prudential and consent-related grounds. This response contends that their argument fails because it is predicated on unsupported premises and misinterpretations of the available evidence. There is no evidence that a large proportion of pubertal and postpubertal youths later discontinue medical transition. Meaningful assent is a viable and commonly accepted alternative to meaningful consent in paediatric bioethics. And finally, the (...) primary purpose of transition-related interventions is to actualise youths’ gendered self-image, not treat an underlying mental illness. (shrink)

Florence Chiew interviews Maurizio Meloni on his new book, Impressionable Biologies: From the Archaeology of Plasticity to the Sociology of Epigenetics. The conversation reflects on a number of key themes and arguments in Meloni’s work, such as the use of the term ‘impressionability’ to explore longstanding ideas of the permeable body in constant flux in response to cosmological changes. This notion of the body-porous is one whose history Meloni traces back to ancient traditions and systems of medicine, such as (...) humoralism. In this important book, Meloni makes a compelling argument for questioning the current emphasis on the novelty of biological plasticity as an exclusively contemporary phenomenon, and urges us to take a longer genealogical perspective to appreciate how histories of corporeal plasticity have always been part of deeply gendered, racialized and classed discourses in which social hierarchies have been made through physiological distinctions. (shrink)

" Les romans devraient être interdits par l'État " selon le professeur Kien, savant solitaire dans " Auto-da fé " d'Elias Canetti. En quoi la littérature est-elle dangereuse? Elle ne connaît de vérité que de passage. Elle se plaît à décliner les formes changeantes que l'imagination fait percevoir ou disparaître. Le charme qu'elle exerce menace ainsi l'identité. S'il est une séduction littéraire, elle réside dans l'invention d'une subjectivité impersonnelle: on ne parle pas de soi en littérature. Écrire procède d'un effort (...) exceptionnel pour sortir du carcan de la personne, briser le miroir, s'évader de la psyché en faisant résonner, dans et par le style, une parole défigurée. L'autofiction se situe aux antipodes de l'enjeu littéraire majeur, lorsqu'elle prend la forme d'un déballage des émois dérisoires qui composent une vie. Dès lors, notre réflexion relève d'un double défi : extraire la littérature de la gangue du savoir critique qui risque de l'asphyxier sans que le refus de l'objectivité ne coïncide avec un retour au mirage de l'expression de soi. Cette défense et illustration du pouvoir des fables implique un regard déniaisé sur le plaisir de l'imagination. La fiction ne demande pas un " oui " servile, adhésion à un monde cohérent qui comblerait les fissures de la réalité ; elle fait éprouver jusqu'au vertige de l'idée inattendue, dans l'exploration de mondes logiquement autonomes. Déployant une pensée déconcertante, la fiction met la raison à la question, égarée au-delà des terres familières de l'argumentation. Détournons la voix du poète : " Vous qui entrez ici, abandonnez toute espérance " ; la littérature est enfer pour l'esprit de sérieux qui s'y effraie, s'accrochant à son identité, faute de tenter la quête de soi. La passion littéraire commence par l'abandon de réponses dépassées en vue d'une imagination en liberté, déculpabilisée. À l'heure où tout le monde prétend raconter sa vie et la publier, comptons que ce livre, réveillant le questionnement, servira la force littéraire, invitation à lire et écrire des livres dignes d'être brûlés. (shrink)

In this book it explores science and technology, makes connections between these epistemic, cultural, and political trends, and develops profound insights into the nature of our postmodernity.