Lecture by François Flahault

François FLAHAULT is a philosopher and anthropologist, working at the Research Center on ARts and Language (CRAL, Paris). He leads a seminar on "General Anthropology and Philosophy" at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). He authored, among others : Le Conte populaire en France, anthologie critique de contes (avec Catherine Velay-Vallantin), 2008; Le Paradoxe de Robinson. Capitalisme et société, 2005; Le Sentiment d’exister. Ce soi qui ne va pas de soi, 2002.

> François Flahault’s personal webpage on the CRAL website

He will give a lecture at the Institute on Tuesday October 28th about "General anthropology, between biology and human science"

Abstract of the lecture

The biological sciences are now in a better position than the humanities to make proposals in general anthropology. Given the situation of the human sciences and society fragmented by specialization, biological sciences are taking advantage of a greater synergy and their status of the "hard sciences." Confronted to this conquering attitude, the humanities are tempted to adopt a defensive strategy. Result: while the question is essential, the articulation between biology and humanities is not sufficiently studied.

It is possible to make progress on this issue by taking advantage of different research carried out in these two key areas. François FLAHAULT proposes to focus on the following five questions:

1 - The development of joint attention and its consequences.

2 - The basics of self-awareness, but also neurological relational awareness.

3 - Pleasure and pain for vertebrates to humans: continuity and qualitative differences.

4 - At what functions satisfy human cultures?

5 - Information Theory, genetics and functioning of language.

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