Historical event

This month, after nine years in my current (tenured) position, I finally earned more than the monthly income during my Göttingen postdoc (2002-2005).

The veil of ignorance

There is something disquieting about Rawls' veil of ignorance position: participants are supposed to set aside their status, their attributes and even their personality in order to found this ideal society, whose first principle enshrines the liberty of conscience and freedom of speech. There may not be a logical contradiction between the two, but I think there is an obvious moral one.

A neural basis for readiness-to-hand ?

Researchers in Munich discovered that there is a specific network in the brain for using tools (the paper appeared in The Journal of Neuroscience).
Heidegger's concept of readiness-to-hand is arguably much more general than the motor skills involved in the use of familiar objects, but I like the idea of a neural basis for a philosophical concept.

Fête de la science 2014

Notre laboratoire se prépare pour la Fête de la science. Beaucoup d'activités sont prévues pour vendredi et dimanche (10 et 12 octobre), voir le programme. Pour des informations en temps réel suivre @LPS_Orsay.