At the time when he developed the details of the concept of allostery, Jacques Monod had a central role in the creation of the Centre Royaumont pour une Science de l'Homme, with the idea to reconcile biology and philosophy. His ultimate view was that the link between both was ethical: there is an ethics of knowledge. Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, who had stayed for some time in his laboratory was most interested in science and philosophy, and it was natural for Monod to ask him to organise a group of reflection which would associate scientists for a variety of disciplines, with a strong emphasis on philosophy of sciences. This led to the creation of the Centre. The Abbey of Royaumont had long been a site where intellectuals and artists could convey and organise meetings where discussions went on, in the spirit of the Middle Ages disputatios. Together with Konstantin Jelenski (1922-1987) I was asked by Monod to develop new programmes aimed at understanding the relationships between the human body, brain in particular, and the most evolved and "abstract" features of human behaviour.

The Unity of Man

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Animal communication and human communication

The problem

Extensive use of symbolic language in a crative fashion is specific to Homo sapiens. The concept of communication, however, is a pervasive one, manifesting itself in an extensive variety of ways, from chemical markers among insects to bird songs, from animal signalling to human languages to the sophisticated sharing of cultural inheritance in literate societies.

The quest for the biological basis of language and communication and the search for the possibility of a common root of thes related phenomena in a fundamental anthropology implies a thorough analysis of the most recent findings in the neurosciences and a fresh review of some of the basic mechanisms of evolution. The solid framework of physiology and of the dynamics of evolution lends itself to a re-definition of certain traits in order to account for behavioral adaptation, learning abilities, and symbolic modes of communication. The understanding of the development of structures allowing for the constitution of a great variety of messages based on a combination of discrete units which are in themselves value-free is a major theoretical challenge.

The debate between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky

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On usage of the term phenocopy

The Endicott House meeting on language and neurobiology