Nous connaissons tout de la mouche du vinaigre et du colibacille, ou nous le croyons. Peut-on en dire autant de nous-mêmes? Assurément, répond le commun des mortels. N'explore-t-on pas nos organes avec une subtile précision, ne descend-on pas au tréfonds de notre conscience et bien au-delà encore, dans les ténèbres de l'inconscient? Telle n'est pas l'opinion de l'auteur qui, fort de sa science des animaux, entreprend l'étude de nous-mêmes à la lumière des dernières découvertes de la biologie. Dans une absolue (...) objectivité, avec sérénité, il met à nu les ressorts de notre être, comme il le fit naguère sur des insectes ou sur des singes. Alors il découvre dans l'Homme des choses étranges, des domaines insoupçonnés, découvertes propres à nous délivrer des chaînes dans lesquelles nous maintiennent les idées reçues et les dogmes pseudo-scientifiques. La biologie révèle l'homme à lui-même. Mais le naturaliste s'aperçoit dans sa libre analyse que la Science est tout à fait incapable d'expliquer totalement l'Homme, qui contient des éléments irrationnels sur lesquels elle n'a pas de prise. En nous-mêmes, la Science trouve ses frontières. C'est bien pour cela que la bête verticale que nous sommes, créature la plus précieuse et la plus exceptionnelle de notre Univers solaire et peut-être de notre galaxie, forme à elle seule un univers avec ses lois, avec sa liberté, avec sa notion du bien et du mal, avec son amour, univers qui n'a nul équivalent. Notre nature enfin comprise, les maux dont souffre le monde occidental deviennent intelligibles et l'humanité peut alors découvrir la voie dans laquelle elle doit engager son évolution, qu'elle a le privilège de mener à sa guise. Ce livre est le roman véridique de l'Homme. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Moral Responsibility in a Context of Scarcity:the Journey of a Haitian PhysicianPaul PierreAlmost all Haitian physicians have been involved in some sort of "social movement" at one point in their professional life. In a country characterized by a natural inclination to question authority, fighting the status quo of the ineffective, corrupt and disorganized [End Page 89] Haitian health system often appears to be the right thing to do.In 2002, (...) I played an active role in a large protest movement for better working conditions at the largest health facility in Port-au-Prince: the General Hospital (GH). Port-au-Prince is the capital and economic center of Haiti. It is home to close to a third of Haiti's ten million people. At that time, the situation at the GH facility was dire. All of the 400 beds at the GH were dirty. The staff was underpaid and unhappy. Drug and medical supply stock-outs were routine. Medical equipment was rarely maintained and only one of the six operating theatres in the surgery block was working. Unsupervised physicians in training (like me) were the main health care providers. Attending physicians were busy running their own private clinics, and most of them would come to the hospital solely to "recruit" the less poor patients for their clinics. As physicians-in-training, we had the responsibility of caring for the poor, but we had no means. We grew frustrated and angry witnessing our powerless patients losing legs, arms and their lives for lack of care. On many occasions, I had the parents of my patients buy the gloves that I would use to examine their sick relatives. I've seen patients fighting for the inheritance of medications left by others who had just passed away. There was no way for this hospital to fulfill its mission, and no way for its staff to deliver anything other than mediocre care. We could not accept that situation at such an early stage in our medical development, and so we refused to continue to work. We went on a strike, which completely paralyzed the delivery of care at the hospital for nearly two months. After intense negotiation, the strike ended with a signed agreement with the Minister of Health that addressed, more or less, the reasons of our movement. However, the implementation of the agreement was permanently delayed by other competing "state emergencies" including a general insurrection.At the time of our movement, I thought we were making history. After witnessing 11 "social movements" that similarly paralyzed the GH in the following decade for reasons identical to ours, I am now convinced that we were not. We were temporary actors performing in the cynical play of scarcity on permanent display in Port-au-Prince. The social movement that we started ended up hurting the very same people that we were trying to help.Extending access to heath care to poor people seemed to me at that time to be too complicated and too expensive for an unorganized state like Haiti. I realized that local protests could, at best, influence the allocation of local resources. But so-called local resources are so limited in "resource-limited" countries. Haiti spends only $40 U.S. dollars per capita for health care. This is not enough for good care. The options we were provided were not real ones—since all of them would end in more suffering. The case of providing health care to poor people needed to be approached differently.I was born in Port-au-Prince at the same general hospital in which I would later work. I am the third of four children, and the first male child in my family. My father made me understand very clearly that my first responsibility was for my siblings. My sisters made me understand equally clearly that I had no authority over any of them. I ended up with a lot of responsibility but with very little authority. The few of us who completed school, entered university, studied abroad and "emerged" were considered, to some extent, responsible for the others—the ones who couldn't go to school, university, or abroad, the ones who had "sunk... (shrink)

The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate (...) students, and independent scholars. Delve into what it was like to live during the eighteenth century by reading the first-hand accounts of everyday people, including city dwellers and farmers, businessmen and bankers, artisans and merchants, artists and their patrons, politicians and their constituents. Original texts make the American, French, and Industrial revolutions vividly contemporary. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++ British Library T100404 With a half-title. Anonymous. By P. P. F. J. H. Le Mercier de la Rivière. Possibly printed in Paris (or the Low Countries). Londres: chez Jean Nourse; & se trouve à Paris, chez Desaint, 1767. [2], vii, [1],511, [1]p.; 4°. (shrink)

Pierre Duhem , Physicien-Théoricien, Philosophe et Historien des Sciences, auteur de La Théorie Physique, son objet, sa structure et d’ouvrages d’histoire de la physique, est le promoteur de recherches originales et qui s’avèrent fécondes dans le domaine de la Thermodynamique. Duhem affirme des positions originales en matière philosophique, et Sozein ta Phainomena, écrit en 1908, demeure un témoignage brillant d’un courant ignoré, méconnu, voire méprisé. Les questions sur l’objet de la physique abordées dans ce petit ouvrage restent cependant d’une (...) actualité brûlante à une période où la science et les techniques prennent une place toujours plus importante dans la civilisation et la vie quotidienne. (shrink)

The involvement of developing countries in international clinical trials is necessary for the development of appropriate medicines for local populations. However, the absence of appropriate structures for ethical review represents a barrier for certain countries. Currently there is very little information available on existing structures dedicated to ethics in western and central Africa. This article briefly describes historical milestones in the development of networks dedicated to capacity building in ethical review in these regions and outlines the major conclusions of two (...) workshops on this issue, which were held in September and October 2002 in Libreville, Gabon, and Paris, France. The workshops were the culmination of collaboration between the African Malaria Network Trust (AMANET) and the Pan African Bioethics Initiative (PABIN). They produced an update on ethics organizations with regard to mission, function, activities, members, and contact people, in eight countries within the regions discussed. As a result of the commitment of mandated delegates, a further prominent outcome followed these workshops: the creation of national structures, where none existed before, dedicated to the ethical review of clinical trials. (shrink)

An ecological study of the city is a new endeavor. Up to now, we have mostly been given inquiries dealing with transportation, housing, economic activity, recreational facilities, etc. All of this adds up to an attempt to reach partial solutions for problems affecting sub-systems. Urbanists and city planners have tried to reach a synthesis of these data whenever they were available.There is an ever increasing need to approach urban problems by borrowing the concepts and the methodology of ecology The origins (...) of this science stem from the research pertaining to plant and animal behavior in their natural habitat. Highly complex adaptation patterns could frequently be observed which allowed a large number of species not only to survive but also to attain a certain level of compatibility with other species. One need not be a determinist to recognize the common basis of adaptation for man and other animals and to tie together the physical and biological needs which underlie more complex individual and group behavior. Thus, for instance, von Frisch and Wilson - have recently redefined the biological bases of the noosphere. (shrink)

In a remarkable exchange between neuroscientist Jean-Pierre Changeux and philosopher Paul Ricoeur, this book explores the vexed territory between these...

v. 1. Raison et conscience de soi.--v. 2. Raison et histoire.

The cartwheel is a striking structure critical for building the centriole, a microtubule-based organelle fundamental for organizing centrosomes, cilia, and flagella. Over the last 50 years, the cartwheel has been described in many systems using electron microscopy, but the molecular nature of its constituent building blocks and their assembly mechanisms have long remained mysterious. Here, we review discoveries that led to the current understanding of cartwheel structure, assembly, and function. We focus on the key role of SAS-6 protein self-organization, both (...) for building the signature ring-like structure with hub and spokes, as well as for their vertical stacking. The resemblance of assembly intermediates in vitro and in vivo leads us to propose a novel registration step in cartwheel biogenesis, whereby stacked SAS-6-containing rings are put in register through interactions with peripheral elements anchored to microtubules. We conclude by evoking some avenues for further uncovering cartwheel and centriole assembly mechanisms. The cartwheel is crucial for centriole assembly. Despite this fundamental role, cartwheel structure and assembly mechanisms remain unclear for a long time. Here we review five decades of research that led to our current understanding of these questions, highlighting the central role of the SAS-6 protein family. (shrink)

1. Couleurs des siècles.--2. Moyen Age et XVIe siècle.--3. 17e siècle. 1. Période baroque.--4. 17e siècle. 2. Période classique.--5. 17e siècle. 3. Vers des temps nouveaux.--6. 18e siècle. 1. L'aurore du siècle. La montée des lumières (début)--7. 18e siècle. 2. La montée des lumières (suite)--8. 18e siècle. 3. La montée des lumières (fin)--9. 18e siècle. 4. L'incendie du couchant.--10. 19e siècle. 1. A l'ombre de Napoléon.--11. 19e siècle. 2. Les penseurs romantiques face aux pouvoirs.--12. 19e siècle. 3. D'une république-- à (...) l'autre. La période réaliste. (shrink)

À l’occasion de la publication en 1939 d’une critique particulièrement virulente du roman de François Mauriac La fin de la nuit, Sartre élabore une théorie de l’usage littéraire des pronoms de la première et de la troisième personne lui permettant de stigmatiser les ambiguïtés inhérentes au style littéraire de Mauriac. Établissant les fondements de son réalisme littéraire, Sartre s’attache à critiquer l’omniscience accordée par Mauriac à son narrateur au nom d’une fidélité d’inspiration phénoménologique à l’expérience de la liberté et à (...) la description minutieuse de la vie de la conscience. Cet article propose une étude des racines philosophiques de la théorie sartrienne de l’usage littéraire légitime de la troisième personne en analysant les raisons pour lesquelles l’opacité de la conscience de soi, bien qu’elle compromette la possibilité de la connaissance de soi, est non seulement inéluctable mais nécessaire à l’expérience de la liberté humaine. On entend ainsi montrer que la cohérence extrêmement forte qui rattache la théorie du roman de Sartre à ses positions philosophiques fondamentales ne justifie pas seulement ses choix littéraires, mais permet d’éclairer la teneur de sa philosophie de l’esprit. (shrink)

Dans ce bref article publié dans La Vie protestante du 4 février 1948, Pierre Thévenaz prend position face à la condamnation de Jean-Paul Sartre par les autorités romaines et considère la légitimité d’une philosophie chrétienne.

Les travaux du Comité public de suivi Le comité a été créé le 12 avril 2016. À cette occasion, il a annoncé le dépôt d’un rapport de suivi à l’occasion du premier anniversaire du dépôt du rapport de la Commission Charbonneau. Dans les derniers mois, le comité s’est penché sur les initiatives répondant aux recommandations de la Commission, en étudiant les informations rendues publiques sur ce sujet. Aidé d’une équipe...

This article studies Paul Valéry's personal reflection on photography, as it appears in his essay ?Le Discours du Centenaire de la Photographie,? based on a speech given at the Sorbonne in 1939 to members of the French Academy. It stresses the relationship between this essay and the French poet's writings on painting and aesthetics, in particular his work on Corot. Moreover, it analyzes the synthetic character of Valéry's critical approach, which attempts to bring together the language of poetry, philosophy (...) and science when dealing with this utterly modern visual language. Photography is celebrated here as a unique art form that can at the same time imitate and reproduce nature perfectly, while allowing mankind to create a cosmological vision of life and the universe. In other words, the poet underlines in this text the utmost modernity of photography, at a time when many in France were still reluctant to acknowledge its artistic identity. (shrink)