Lexicon

Editions du Promontoire is characterized by an intellectual universe of belonging and lineage and more specifically by the reference to a theory, the Theory of Mediation, which places us very precisely in the field of human sciences.

As a first approach, this universe and these lineages can be reduced to a list of some authors , intellectual movements , specific concepts and common notions that you will find in the glossary below.

The approach of Editions du Promontoire is in itself extremely serious, so we feel we should not take ourselves too seriously, and this small, humorous glossary, which sets the tone for our works, is mainly intended to whet the reader's appetite.

The full definition, illustration and commentary of the concepts below, as well as the presentation of the authors, are developed in the books published by Editions du Promontoire.

Of course, this list is not exhaustive.

The authors:
Lacan, Saussure, Freud, Lévi-Strauss, Marx and especially Jean Gagnepain.

The concepts:
deconstruction, negativity, dialectic.

Intellectual movements:
Renaissance, humanism, Enlightenment, structuralism, psychoanalysis, epistemology, anthropology, psychology, sociology, linguistics.

Common concepts:

God, or the gods, religion, science(s), man: because it is necessary to define what a man is and what a science is, before presenting the human science(s) and using them to explain anything about Man, starting with God or religion.

Unconscious, morality, ethics, meaning and spirituality, but also supernatural, relativity, fundamentalism, faith or atheism, as well as rationality, nature, culture, also appear in this lexicon because they are essential to our reasoning.

Lexicon

The authors:

Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 in Freiberg. At the time, this city belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, so Freud was of Austrian origin. It is now in the Czech Republic. A physician and neurologist, Sigmund Freud is the founder of psychoanalysis. He died in London in 1939.
His work is a monument, often misunderstood, of contemporary intellectual history. We will remember that he discovered the sources of morality.

Karl Marx was born in 1818 in Trier , Germany , and died in 1883 in London . In the meantime, he produced a monumental body of work. As a philosopher , he developed a critique of capitalism and remains famous for proposing an explanation of history as resulting from class struggle .
Karl Marx was a moralist and a theorist.

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) was a Swiss linguist. Linguistics is the discipline that studies human language. Saussure is considered the initiator of the modern conception of this discipline. Before him, studies were limited to historical and comparative analyses of languages. Ferdinand de Saussure was the first to attempt to define the properties of human language independently of specific languages.

Claude Lévi-Strauss , born in Brussels to French parents in 1908 , has just celebrated his 100th birthday. A French anthropologist , ethnologist , and philosopher , Claude Lévi-Strauss is one of the founders of structuralist thought.

Jacques Lacan , 1901-1981. French psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. Jacques Lacan renewed the understanding of Freud's theory of psychoanalysis.

Jean Gagnepain, born November 16 , 1923, in Sully-sur-Loire , and died January 3, 2006, was a French anthropologist and linguist . He spent most of his career at the University of Rennes . Relatively unknown to the general public, Professor Gagnepain published an extremely powerful work entitled * Théorie de la médiation* (Theory of Mediation ).

Definitions:

concepts, movements, notions

Anthropology : often confused with ethnology. Ethnology describes particular human societies, while anthropology aims at what is universal in humankind.

Atheism : In his book God and Man, Adrien Morel groups atheists and non-believers under the umbrella of atheism, providing a definition of them. He thus proposes a conception and explanation of God and religion common to both believers and non-believers.

Culture : Culture, which is defined in opposition to nature, does not consist of being cultivated. Moreover, nature is cultivated.

Nor does it consist of what is acquired, as opposed to what is innate. That would be too simple; we wouldn't even have to invent the human sciences.

However, it is absolutely necessary to give a definition of nature and culture before even being able to propose a definition of the natural science(s) and the cultural science(s).

Deconstruction : conceptual dismantling of an overall behavior to relate it to its multiple underlying mechanisms.

Dialectic : a three-stage process which has long been considered successive and which we will learn to understand as simultaneous.

God : In his books, Adrien Morel develops a definition and explanation of God that is completely independent of his avatars, representatives, or prophets. Jesus Christ, Buddha or Muhammad, Christ or Allah, god or goddess, Greek god(s) or Egyptian god(s)...

As well as an explanation and definition of religion independent of myths, beliefs, and various mythological representations. Animism, polytheism, or monotheism. Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, or Christianity. Muslim or Christian, Catholic or Protestant…

Epistemology : the queen of disciplines (it is defined elsewhere on this site).

Faith : faith is a gamble whose possibility must be preserved by atheists when they propose a scientific explanation of religion.

Humanism : true humanism will begin as soon as man stops acting like an ape.

Unconscious : this term, as initially used by Freud, represents a part of the implicit processes that constitute and characterize the human being, differentiating them from the animal.

Fundamentalism : religious societies are often confused with religious fundamentalism, secular societies have managed to invent an atheist fundamentalism.

Linguistics : the science by which the specificity of man has been discovered, understood, characterized and defined.

Lights : optical illusion. The essential elements that will constitute the lights are barely emerging from the shadows.

Morality and ethics , which are not synonymous, serve the purpose of education and the regulation of human enjoyment. Cultural studies allow us to define and define them independently of any religious reference.

Negativity : the opposite of positivism, which is unfortunately still too often understood with a positive connotation.

Ontonomy : An ontonomy is a conception of the world and of reality. It is specific to a civilization and characterizes it.

Psychoanalysis : the importance of its theoretical discovery extends far beyond its therapeutic technique.

Psychology : the science of that in which the subject is not reducible to what he thinks, whatever he may think.

Rationalism (rationalism, rationalist): Contrary to a sadly still widespread misconception, rational is absolutely not synonymous with Cartesian. In fact, Cartesian is a subset of rational.

Relativity : it is often mistaken for relativism. Everyone, and especially children, thinks, says, and does what they want. This constitutes one of the current weaknesses of modern societies. But democracies are on the verge of regaining the legitimacy of an atheist moral law. Adrien Morel's books contribute to this. This was a historical adjustment to be made after getting rid of religion (or believing we had gotten rid of it).

Religion : anthropological theory and pre-scientific anthropological tool.

Renaissance : you liked the previous one, you'll love the next one.

Science : you will discover in Adrien Morel's first book (Atheism: end of religion or future of religion?) the three types of science(s), the first of which is religion.

Meaning : Humans need meaning, a meaning to life or a meaning to history. To find happiness or to face death. To remake the world or to accept living in it. When this meaning no longer comes from beyond, it must come from elsewhere.

Sociology : the science that introduced relativity into the realm of humankind.

Structure : this concept, from which the term structuralism derives, is far too essential for us to joke about. It is explained, illustrated, and discussed in Adrien Morel's second book (God and Man).

Supernatural : the realm of the supernatural. The supernatural is a logical invention. It was established as: beyond nature.

Spirituality : Spirituality is the regulation of investment in being, that is to say, the regulation of existence. It does not disappear by ceasing to be religious.

In the publications of Editions du Promontoire you will discover the complete, reasoned and developed presentation of these concepts, notions and many others.